In Defense Of Pre-natal Screening

When👏can👏I👏die?

A Real Narrative of Borderline

Warning: Triggering, perhaps, to some. A bit of a narrative I wrote recently to help people understand what it can be like living with a disorder that is often signified as ‘bad’. 

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Sometimes I’m scared of myself, because of my disorder. People say ‘commitment’ and I curl in on myself and feel my heart constrict tightly in my chest. Commitment.

“Commitment? There’s no such thing as commitment when you have borderline, it’s even harder when you have antisocial.”

And no, it’s not because I get a need to dump a friend for someone more exciting that snorts cocaine and gets high every minute, nor need to have a quick fling whilst in a relationship. No, it’s because commitment means committing to me, a monster, and in turn, this monster needs to learn to commit to them lest it makes their lives miserable. It means 24/7, 100% effort that you, as nothing but a human, don’t have the mental capacity for.

When it comes to borderline, it’s safe to say I hate it. Everything triggers it, every word, every emotion I don’t understand. I can’t handle anything ‘normally’ and every feeling is exaggerated so much my head feels like it will explode- sometimes, I wish I had a gun so that I could actually make it do so. Then the ‘pressure’ would leave my head.

“I like you.”

Makes me happy, yet I don’t return the sentiment. Am I meant to like you back? I don’t even know if I can feel love. Once upon a time I ignored that statement and went for it, now it’s ingrained in me to go ‘that isn’t fair on them,’ and leave.

“I’m okay if you don’t feel the same.”

Makes me happy, yet I know that it will lead down a dark path. When hasn’t it? When has my borderline been on my side? It hasn’t. It’s no one’s fault, but its fault. It can’t handle emotion and doesn’t know what to do with it besides release it in a fit of rage. It’s 0 or 100, no in-between. For me that is punching a wall, or, on a bad day, playing with fire.

“Break up.”

Is like a double-whammy. It’s soul-crushing because you feel betrayed, even if you don’t really feel betrayed. It’s also a sigh of relief, ‘I don’t need to hurt them anymore. And thus, I will no longer be hurt.’ Some of us don’t’ want to be monsters, in fact, I daresay with borderline, the idea of being monsters tortures us endlessly. There’s this notion that being alone is better, and I think the longer you live with borderline, the more you realize loneliness is the best way to cope with it. You have nothing but you and your dreams and little room to hurt and hurt others, there’s no real people involved – real people you care about.

Friends leave. They don’t stick around except a few really good ones, who are able to see your hate and look past it. Relationships? Forget about them. The minute you make a friend, you start to get attached, and god help you if you like them. If you like them and think they’re cool, or epic, then that’s it. You’re doomed.

So are they.

You don’t want to hurt them, you’re a monster inside, but no matter how you go about it, you will. They like you: so you can swallow that anxiety that the future will fall apart and that you don’t want to lose a friend or cool person who you’re attached to, and you’ll give them what you want. Or: you shatter them and lose a friend anyways. Either way, your friend is gone. The person you cared about is out of the picture. One involves ignoring that you feel like a shithead, the other involves being a shithead, but it may work out better for them later. There’s no winning in borderline. Only losing. Only hurting people. And it’s never them that’s wrong– oh no. It’s always you. And no matter how much you deny it, you’re very aware of it.

So when people ask me what borderline is like I skirt the edges of truth because I know it’s ugly. It’s an ugly disorder, and very few except two people in my life get it. The one person seemed to understand the practicality of emotions, but not nearly as loyal a friend as the other and ended up following his own dubious impulses. I forgave it quickly, because I, although borderline and not antisocial, knew having impulsive behavior was tricky to get rid of – I still find myself punching the wall, or walking along a river at night. The other, a longstanding friend, gets it on a level unlike any other:

1.       The anger: mostly at yourself, and when you’re angry you get so angry you want to blow a hole in the wall, then in your head.

2.       The loyalty: loyal to a fault, so loyal you’d rather suffer and crawl through the dirt for someone than have them abandon you because you like them. That’s the problem, you care too much and feel emotions too much. But at the same time…

3.       Emotionless: that disassociation, where you feel nothing sometimes for days on end, where eventually you become so good at acting you don’t even know what real emotions are. Underneath it all, you care so deeply, but you don’t know why. ‘Why do I care?’ will have your brain feeling like it’s crushed because the question is beyond your comprehension.

“They baffle me,” is how he’d put it, “People ask me what I’m feeling, and I can’t answer. We don’t feel, or we feel too much.”

And then there’s the self-hate.

“Self-hate,” he’d say, “Is what gets us Cluster B’s. On the one hand, this personality is a part of us, it’s who we are…but we see others happy, falling in love, we see them get hurt by some action we did that we don’t get, and we realize …that will never be us. We will never be the good ones because even if we learn to behave properly and act good, in our head, we’re bad news. In my head, I still think ‘I want to punch you in the face.’ It makes you hate yourself when you’re aware you’re bad news, and especially so when you can control it. Then people don’t believe you anymore.”

We all hear the familiar words and phrases from loved ones. Many deny it – what, after all, even is borderline? Or antisocial? Narcissism? Stories and tales that depict the evil characters in books! Plot devices! Consider those as well, who don’t understand it: how can you not feel? Are you insane?

I am insane, at least I feel I am insane. But I still feel that twinge inside, that hurt when you call me as such. You’re side-lining me, making me an outcast for something I have no control over. I didn’t choose this.

Then there’s those who think they’re helping. These phrases vary from “It won’t hurt me if you tell me” to “That’s a bit selfish,” “Hah! That’s a funny thing you said there!” and “That’s evil!”

It is selfish, isn’t it? Imagine being called selfish. Or evil. Or having others find you amusing for your savagery, and the fact that you beat up a guy who looked at you funny.

Imagine being called a word that is immediately connotated with ‘bad’. Imagine being essentially called a bad person for something you can maybe control behaviourally, but can’t erase.

Eventually, you want to give up, run away, and let loose. ‘I’ll cut my hair, get 10 tattoos and have that crazy orgy I never had whilst getting high on cocaine. Because I’m bad anyways, and no one seems to care.’

Having this disorder sometimes feels like a sentence. A very misunderstood sentence that I’m being punished for.

The worst is…

You feel like you deserve it.

Sun Cat. 7 x 5 inches, oil on hardboard.

who else mourning the person they could've been if they were treated kindly as a child

[ID: Image depicting three types of camouflaging - compensation, masking, and assimilation. Under compensation it lists - coping others’ body language and facial expressions, learn social cues from television/films/or books, watch others to understand social skills, repeat others’ phrasing and tone, practice facial expressions and body language, use social skills learned from media in interactions, use script in social situations, explicitly research the rules of social interactions, and use social skills learned from watching others in interactions. Under masking it lists - monitor face and body to appear relaxed, adjust face and body to appear relaxed, monitor face and body to appear interested in others, adjust face and body to appear interested in others, pressured to make eye contact, pay attention to face and body in social interactions, think about impression made on others, and aware of impression made on others. Under assimilation it lists - feel need to put on an act, conversation with others is not nature, avoid interacting with others in social situations, performing/not being oneself in social situations, force self to interact with others, pretending to be normal, need others’ support to socialize, and cannot be oneself while socializing./]

Image provided from https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10803-018-3792-6. Entitled “Social Camouflaging Model.” 

Schizo Spectrum Disorders + Disorganised Speech

People in the schizo spectrum can be hard or sometimes frustrating to talk to. People who are uninformed about schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders can mistake this as rudeness, silliness, or inebriation but it’s actually one of the symptoms of a debilitating mental disorder. 

Disorganised speech often occurs in a schizophrenic person leaving their speech short, baffling or incomprehensible. It can display itself as random topic changes, gibberish, slurring, making up random words, word salad, and rapid and incoherent speech which makes the person hard to understand. 

I complied a list of  speech/thought disorders found in people on the schizophrenic spectrum with some basic definitions.

Most of these can be found in other mental disorders and you should bring it up with your doctor if you experience any of these often, without your control and without cause or stimulant (i.e. drug use, drunkenness, lack of sleep etc.)

ALOGIA

also known as poverty of speech. this is when there’s a lack of spontaneous speech. it can display itself in short and monosyllabic responses that trail off or end by the second syllable. it leads to an inability to make small talk or carry on simple conversation. in extreme cases it can even lead to partial mutism

( e.g. person 1: “hey how’s it going?”

person 2: “fine.”

person 1: “what do you want for dinner?”

person 2: [shrugs]

person 1: maybe we should go out, get chinese.

person 2: [shrugs]

person 1: do you want something else

person 2: no )

ECHOLALIA

this is the repetition of noises/words/phrases/sentences made by another person. persons experiencing echolalia often repeats questions or sentences directed to them and can make it difficult to carry on a conversation

( e.g. person 1: i have to go to the bathroom

person 2: go to the bathroom

person 1: can you watch my purse for me?

person 2: watch my purse for me

person 1: why are you doing that?

person 2: why am i doing that? )

THOUGHT BLOCKING

this is when there’s an abrupt pause in someone’s train of thought wherein the person often forgets the original topic. it can lead to multiple topics being covered in one sentence or to an unexpected and abrupt end to a conversation mid sentence

( e.g. i like that new song by [pause] … i wish i didn’t cut my hair. )

CLANGING

this is speech characterised by compulsive grouping of words by rhyming or alliteration. there’s no logic or reason in this sort of speech

( e.g. we have to go get green grass grisly grey. (or) when will we wait with words which wing were whims? )

NEOLOGISM

this is the creation of new words often in the form of gibberish or nonsense babbling. it can happen as full sentences or a normal sentence that veers off into it 

( e.g. meaning to say “i want to go to sleep i’m tired” and actually saying “i want to go to sleep illa craviges”)

SCHIZOPHASIA/WORD SALAD

this is a bunch of random words strung together to no reason or purpose and while it can sometimes be vaguely related to the topic at hand, it comes out in a confusing array of disconnected words

( e.g. i want to get the purple apple match from the towel chair )

PRESSURE OF SPEECH

this is rapid paced, erratic, frantic speech. it’s usually loud and frenzied. it’s almost impossible to get the person experiencing it to pause and the listener will most likely not get a word in edgewise. 

PERSEVERATION

this is the repetition of one word or phrase over and over after they’ve ceased to be relevant or appropriate to the situation. 

( e.g. person 1: i’m going to take a walk in the park later

person 2: walk in the park

person 1: do you wanna come with?

person 2: walk in the park

[20 minutes later]

person 1: i’m gonna put on the kettle. do you want some tea?

person 2: walk in the park

NOTE: feel free to reblog whether or not you’re on the spectrum or have any mental illnesses at all. way too many people assume that schizo spectrum people are just rude or belligerent or mocking or joking when we’re really just exhibiting symptoms of our disorder.

The present study examined the utility of meaning to differentiate between depression and grief in a sample of suicide survivors (N = 555). Three regression models were tested, each with a different measure of meaning predicting depression and grief. Across three models, meaning was negatively associated with depression but positively associated with grief. Additionally, grief and depression were negatively correlated across all models. Results support a conceptual distinction between grief and depression, with the presence or absence of meaning in life as a key distinguishing factor between the two in a population with a relatively high risk for pathological grieving.

I don’t even cry anymore

Adhd things that need to be talked more about (because adhd is more than just not being able to focus)

Short term memory loss. Seriously, I forget things that are said to me 5 minutes ago or will forget I opened a soda and will have 3 open cans by the end of the day with none of them finished. A lot of people don’t know about this, and so they think that I don’t care enough to listen to what their saying (which I do!!! I just can’t remember it) or that I’m lazy because of all the things I don’t end up doing because I forgot I had to do them.

Lack of motivation. Listen, I honestly can’t do anything on my own for the most part. I have to have someone else tell me to do something or have them set goals for me because it’s so damn difficult for me to do it myself. Again, I’m not lazy, I just have trouble doing things on my own

Language processing difficulties. Sometimes, English and words in general don’t work out in my head. Reading or even listening to someone talk can be extremely difficult for me to understand because my brain just won’t work. Why? Can’t tell you 99% of the time! It’s not that I need to focus, it’s that my brain is just buffering.

Needing multiple forms of stimulation at all times. I have a tin of putty that I keep in my book bag and a smaller one I keep in my purse at all times because of this reason. If I want to learn anything at school, I have to be able to look at something, hear something, and have something to do with my hands. Otherwise, it’s probably a big nope for me. What’s frustrating is that since this isn’t talked about enough, I often get called childish or get looked down upon because I have to play with silly putty in a highschool class.

Hyperfixation. Adhd can mean not being able to focus, but it’s also focusing too much on something! This can mean anything from a certain interest someone is in to at that moment, to something like a song that has been stuck in your head for a week. People seem to not understand this and think that we’re boring and have nothing else to talk about or that we’re annoying because we keep bringing the same things up over and over again but that’s not the case. Trust me, I’m annoyed with the hit or miss song too, but at least it’s not playing in your head constantly like it is for me

These are all the ones I can think of right now, but it’s really important we talk about this stuff more. All of these things that come with adhd can be very frustrating for those around us because they don’t understand that we can’t help it. To an outsider, it may just look like a person with adhd is just lazy and doesn’t care, when it’s actually just how our brains are wired. None of us want to be frustrating to others!! In fact, all of this frustrates us too!! But since adhd is just known as “not being able to focus”, people don’t realize what all comes with it and how it can really fuck everyone over.

Please add more if you can think of anything else!! I’m horrible with lists lol

If the vibes r off I will assume you hate me and want me dead