#as a person with bpd ill fucking stand up for my community any day

[bloodigutz]

yk if npd abuse truthers ACTUALLY cared about trauma victims, then... why do they go after them? where the fuck do you think npd comes from? out of thin air?

"they're all gaslighters and assaulters and manipulators" 9/10, these are people that have been gaslit, assaulted or manipulated. you don't need to put down mentally ill people to make yourself look good. yk why? because it doesn't.

nobody's saying don't call out people who assault others, because you absolutely should! however, be mindful about the fact when you say it's EVERY person with npd that's "violent/disgusting".. you are calling innocent and traumatised people the exact words they're trying to run away from.

a common thing amongst people with things like ptsd is the same trust issues you can see in npd. (clarification, I'm not putting PTSD down, in pointing out the irony.)

when a traumatised person with ptsd unintentionally seeks for attention, the same people saying "people with npd are disgusting for wanting attention" go head over heels to pretend they actually care about how that person feels.

you don't care about abuse victims.

you don't care about traumatised people.

you only care about yourself, ironically. bc isn't that what got you all so angry in the first place?

if this post makes you mad, it should. you are killing the exact people you pretend to protect.

[omgcatboi]

I really want to go back to posting pics again but I feel like that would be giving tumblr the green light on continuing it's transphobia and sexism.

You can say fat cis guys also get flagged all you want. It doesn't lessen my dysphoria at all.

Now people are talking about me for it. Because I'm steadily losing followers. I don't feel at all welcome in this community anymore.

The moment I slip and let it show how deep in crisis I am, I'm shunned. As usual.

Why would I post and give to a community that only takes? Y'all reblog so many mental health awareness posts but it's all hollow words coming from you. I'm considering deactivating. because once again, my reputation is ruined by a crisis episode. And instead of people asking if I'm ok, y'all leave me.

I understand what I said was triggering, and it's fine to see that. But Jesus Christ am I tired of internet communities shunning me the moment I show just how bad things are for me. You think I just say shit like that normally? You think I just talk like that every day?

I don't.

once again people see you at your lowest and use it to define who you are.

I've been unmedicated for a while now because of shit programs that put me on month waiting lists. Do you realize how fucked in the head you have to be to take 150 Seroquel when you wake up? Do you realize that? With 50 Zoloft and cogentex too? You realize that much Seroquel makes you higher than any amount of smoking weed can, huh? You think they give that out for mild depression?

I'm the epitome of mentally ill and I'm constant crisis. And I'm sick of being left behind by everyone.

If my followers drop back to 2,000 I'm gone. I can't handle watching people leave me because they don't think a person with illness can be a good person. Despite me being pretty positive on here for a while.

I have BPD and I see that for what it is. Abandonment.

I deleted the posts and still losing people. That right there shows me that it isn't because of what I have posted. People are talking. And that's extremely shitty high school mentality and I can't be around that.

I don't want to see it. I'm sick of being the punching bag every time i try to find a safe community. I have special needs, I can't make friends IRL because I talk very slow and constantly make very obvious movements with my entire body that I can't control. People who meet me are surprised when I can talk at all.

This was supposed to be a space where I can make friends despite my differences. But it ended up being like every other community out there.

Wanna know why the mentally ill don't often speak about how bad it is? Why we don't reach out?

Because the moment we have an episode, we're left behind and dropped from entire communities like sacks of potatoes.

I feel like I'll never belong anywhere. I feel like the same hatred I've faced my entire life for being different is going to only repeat until I die. I'll never be accepted by anyone. And that stings.

Yes, what I posted was triggering, you don't necessarily have a very positive mind set when you've got a plan in motion now do you?

But you can say I was wrong without being cruel about it.

Anon stays off. I can already imagine the slew of hate I'll get for posting straight facts here.

You can't handle the mentally ill, so stop virtue signaling and just admit you can't stand when we're negative.

[vividaway]

Maybe instead of focusing on Joey and Daniel calling Gabbie out (which is their right. If Gabbie can call out them for what she perceives as bad working conditions, than they have every right to refute her claims), you and the rest of the stans should address the latest information about Bianca that has been brought to light as well as the fact that Gabbie stalked someone online who happened to be underaged.

PLEASE CONSIDER SIGNING TO MAKE BIANCA'S LAW REAL. https://www.change.org/p/bianca-s-law-stop-the-spread-of-violent-and-graphic-images-on-the-internet

BEFORE ALL OF THIS LET ME SAY: your use of Bianca Devins in this disgusting manipulative way is exactly that-- disgusting and manipulative. my twitter messages are open, so to not only track down my tumblr, but ANONYMOUSLY LEAVE A MESSAGE TRYING TO USE BIANCA'S NAME LIKE THIS? DIS-FUCKING-GUSTING.

___

Alright, here's a concept.

It's not Joey and Daniels place to refute Gabbie's claims. Their main point in all of this was "She never filled out the form! It's all her fault!" which is actually irrelevant to the story, seeing as she had told them PERSONALLY. in a FACE TO FACE INTERACTION.

the fact of the matter is, as the showrunner, and literal creator of the show, it is your responsibility to ensure the safety of ALL of your cast and crew. and yes, this does include the mental well-being (of the rest of the cast)--

-- and on that note, i also need to say that them not communicating to Gabbie that she were to be killed off, to me, is just unprofessional. it would have made filming a lot better. like honestly, do you think Gabbie would have been as pissed if she knew she wasn't going to be there again?

and another thing-- if Gabbie acted SO horribly, why did they stay her friend? Collab on her channel? if Gabbie acted SO BADLY during SEASON TWO... why did they invite her back? and if Tana was an issue, why invite HER back? I'm very glad that tana had a better time during season 4, but the fact that they knew BOTH OF THEM were bad on set, yet invited them back? they're literally setting up every other person around them for a toxic work-place experience. I've said it once and it's my next point, too, its un. pro. fessional.

ignoring all of that. literally every single piece of information i've stated above. THERE ARE TWO SOLE REASONS I STAND WITH GABBIE.

1. Joey and Daniel, no matter how horrible Gabbie may have acted, had no right to play out Gabbie's voice memo's where she was expressing that she was EXTREMELY UPSET. that she was dealing with multiple things in her life. They had NO right. Trisha Paytas, of all people, has even heard that voice memo enough to MOCK, AND MAKE FUN OF GABBIE'S EATING DISORDER, PUBLICLY, MULTIPLE TIMES, REFERENCING THE VOICE MEMO. to have the people you WORKED FOR, DO THAT? how could anyone in their cast ever trust them again? who's to say you wont send them a genuinely confidential voice memo, and they STILL decide to share it with people?

2. BECAUSE GABBIE'S MENTAL HEALTH ISNT A CRUTCH, IT ISNT AN EXCUSE, AND IT SURE AS HELL ISNT A JOKE. Gabbie Hanna was on the brink of suicide, she was struggling with an eating disorder, had undiagnosed, unmedicated ADHD, was dealing with immense c-ptsd, and it is ALL. FUCKING. VALID.

for YEARS. I've been told to stop using my Bipolar as a crutch. that i was in therapy for it, and that i needed to use coping mechanisms. i was later diagnosed with BPD-- and suddenly i didn't need to cope anymore. my anger was suddenly understandable. people finally believed me.

you DO NOT. HAVE TO HAVE. A FUCKING GOD DAMN PERSONALITY DISORDER TO BE FUCKING BELIEVED.

ESPECIALLY CONSIDERING?

my BPD WASN'T THE ISSUE.

IT WAS MY ADHD.

its literally wired into our brains, and WE. CANNOT. CONTROL. IT. the ONLY THING WE CAN DO, IS TREAT IT.

to continue to NOT LISTEN TO PEOPLE WHEN THEY ARE CLEARLY EXPRESSING THEIR LIMITS is the reason mental health is in its infancy today. we know when something is too much, and we know when our conditions are causing us to have outbursts, because its something we dont do EVERY SINGLE DAY. we need to realize that ALL. MENTAL. ILLNESSES. EVERY SINGLE ONE.

IS JUST AS IMPORTANT. JUST AS DIFFICULT. AND JUST AS UNIQUE, AS ANY OTHER MENTAL ILLNESS.

with the amount of genetical defects, the amount of nationalities that exist, the amount of co-morbidities, EVERY. SINGLE. THING. THAT MAKES ME DIFFERENT FROM YOU? you GENUINELY expect there to be a person in the world with the EXACT SAME THOUGHT PROCESS, exact same conditions, exact same life circumstances, as me? as Gabbie? as YOU?

there is a reason people with mental illness have a common symptom, no matter the condition. that symptom is the thought that no one in the world can possibly have the same thought process as you. its the symptom that i essentially expressed a paragraph before this one. and its because we realize that THERE ISNT. that it isnt a symptom, but a fact, to us. because you cant thing the way i can. my brain will only ever process the way MY. BRAIN. PROCESSES.

that. is why i stand by Gabbie.

____________________________________________

So, the new information about Bianca Devins? Alright, lets talk about it.

Kim Devins, Bianca's mom, has called for all drama channels to apologize to Gabbie Hanna for the way they treated her in regards to her commenting on Bianca's shirts.

I know you want me to say that it turns out Gabbie is actually manipulating the mother, and Gabbie actually WAS exploiting Bianca---

NO.

KIM DEVINS IS A GROWN WOMAN. KIM DEVINS HAS SAID PUBLICLY, ON HER OWN, PUBLIC TWITTER ACCOUNT, THAT GABBIE HANNA DESERVES AN APOLOGY. KIM DEVINS HAS STATED THAT EVERYTHING GABBIE HAS SAID WAS IN FACT-- THE TRUTH. TO SAY GABBIE IS LYING, IS TO SAY THE MOTHER IS LYING, AS THE MOTHER HAS NOT ONLY APPROVED OF, BUT ENDORSED THE VIDEO.

i know i linked this before everything, but if you haven't already, PLEASE. FUCKING. SIGN.

https://www.change.org/p/bianca-s-law-stop-the-spread-of-violent-and-graphic-images-on-the-internet

_____________________________________________

Yeah uhh..so first off, Gabbie never doxxed ANYONE. as someone who's had their literal home IP leaked-- you shouldn't just throw that term around lightly. its genuinely traumatic for people to be doxxed.

Gabbie did however, grab the IP of someone. she did this, because she was worried it was someone SHE FULLY KNEW, was a danger to minors.

Second off, this was talked about quite awhile ago, in april or may-- she actually did that WELL OVER a year ago. we only know because she talked about it on Marco Polo (an app where you can group video chat and text. it was a perk of one of the tiers of her patreon) and it was leaked recently. so i don't really get your point in that.

Gabbie only did that because of all the minor fans that people were SCREAMING for Gabbie to protect last summer. They blamed Gabbie for certain fans that were getting bullies by anti's, all because Gabbie herself didn't tell people not to. so OF FUCKING COURSE she is going to do anything she can to protect her fans if she FULLY KNOWS a PROPER P*DO is trying to imitate a fan account, and she thinks she found it.

When the IP didn't match with where she knew the gross ass guy lived, she completely discarded it. Honestly, if you're upset with this, you might at well be upset with THIS, too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaJqBug10MQ

--------------------------------------------------------

ALL OF THIS TO SAY:

THIS IS A THOMAS SANDERS BLOG

PLEASE SHUT THE FUCK UP ABOUT GABBIE HANNA.

[asstheticshitposts]

I really hate to be the bearer of bad news but having a mental illness doesn't make you immune to criticism. You don't get to gaslight people and accuse them of being violent (when they have literally never been anything of the sort to you) and then get pissy when no one is buying your shit because it's all clearly laid out in text form in a group chat and they can all clearly see how fucking ridiculous it is that you just accused them of something that they clearly did not do.

Oh, and having your gf jump in to attempt to defend you doesn't make it any better.

You've clearly manipulated her into a spot where she cannot leave. You're living together and she is (as far as I'm aware) still without a job since losing her last one. And you're on SSI so you're the only one with income and I bet if she tried to get another job, you'd manipulate her into not doing it.

You really turned this once happy and vibrant woman into a silent, unhappy person. And I can forget about you trying to gaslight me. I'm strong. I can handle it. But Jessica didn't do anything. She's a target simply because she is vulnerable. I was a target because I refuse to bend to your will and I know how to crack your code. I know when you're bullshitting me. And I won't tolerate it. And you hate that. You hate that I'm healthy and positive and open about having BPD. Because that's your ticket out of being accountable. You depend on being diagnosed with BPD as your social safety net because you can pull it out and say: "Look, it's not my fault. I'm borderline."

Whereas I flip that script and say "I am borderline, yes, but I don't get to treat people like garbage simply because I have BPD. It's about managing your symptoms and getting help with that is key." And you just can't have that can you?

A positive borderline who's aware of how to manage their own feelings and that they aren't impervious to criticism just because they're borderline? You can't tolerate that or people might then believe that you're garbage. But the thing you're missing here is: They already see it. They're just not telling you. It's an entire method on how to get manipulative people to fuck off and/or stop. And all you gotta do is say "While you can have these feelings and nobody can stop you, you don't get to act like that and you need to stop." Kirt is far more gentle about it but it's the same freaking tactic.

Also you need to stop being shit to Kirt. Kirt didn't sign up for this shit. Kirt just wants to help our community and you're here starting drama over nothing. Do you not realize how huge this fucking fight is for us? Do you think this is a goddamn game? This is reality and if we lose this, it means an abuser gets to keep molesting children and extorting money and services to obtain money from an already struggling demographic.

This isn't a game and it's not leftbook. I'm not "pulling seniority" on you. People just realize I'm not doing anything to deserve the shit you're pulling.

I'm not perfect and I make mistakes but I try to own up to my mistakes. And whenever I recognize a mistake, I own up to it. And people involved can see that. Because not only do they know me, but they've witnessed me own up to my mistakes. I messaged Sam something a couple weeks back and she was like "Yeah, probably wasn't the best action there. For X and Y reason." And I was like "Shit, oh fuck. My bad. Fuck I'm sorry." And she was like "No worries, I can fix it. Just be careful." And I took a step back from the situation because I felt I needed to in order to take care of what caused the issue. And guess what? That was the end of it. I didn't try to manipulate Sam into anything or gaslight her or make her out to be a villain. Because I don't do that shit. I may have come from toxic beginnings but my sludge has been wiped off and we're working on sanitizing me. Because I don't want to be like you, Phaedra. I don't want to be an unhappy person who has to manipulate people to feel important. I feel important by supporting my friends. I feel important by standing up and against abusers like Wally and helping other victims feel safe in this. I feel important by doing something important.

You feel important by tearing people down and apart. And I hope one day you'll find the strength to become better. Because happy is waiting on the other side of better. Happy is there. But you'll have to work for it. Good luck.

[i-have-lived]

I just need to talk into a void right now. Badly.

For the past two months, I've been questioning if I have some kind of dissociative disorder. I've experienced dissociation alot in my lifetime, but it's gotten alot worse. I've always had this.. interest in multiplicity, and have encountered it a few times in my personal life, and outside of a few passing thoughts, I never would have assumed I had anything like it...

But then, recently, when I started to seriously question it, some. Alters, headmates, parts, whatever you want to call them, started to introduce themselves to me (after I had put in quite a good deal of effort to make contact... Asking if anyone else was there, because I was beginning to think there was...)

Since then I've experienced worsening dissociation, and can barely stand my own reflection most days. I think I've experienced "switching", ranging from pretty intense and prolonged (headaching, stress, watching my body do things without my input, or saying things out loud that I don't mean to say...) To barely noticeable (just having the sudden feeling that I'm not who i was just awhile ago, or suddenly realizing I'm acting strangely. Like a shift in my facial expression that I can't change, wanting to wear clothes i would NEVER normally want to, getting up and doing things and not knowing why im doing them, etc.)

Things were very difficult at first, and i had alot of breakdowns wondering whats happening to me, and why. If I have bpd (Never been diagnosed with that, but a psychiatrist told me when i was about 13-14ish that I had "bpd like symptoms" but didn't go any farther than that due to my age. Haven't had any follow-up with that since.) and just internalized the symptoms of those around me, if I'm having some kind of delusion, or if I have some form of osdd (my therapist and i both agree its unlikely to be DID, because I haven't experienced any significant amnesia barriers).

Most of my "alters" and I are alot different, and its really hard to have conversation, or to try to visualize them in my head to try to talk. And at one point, I had woken up and started to panic because i didn't know where I was, why i was there, or where my "kids" were. Mind you, I'm in a same-sex LDR, and neither of us have had or plan to have kids. I panicked, alot, and of course I say "I" but... I know that that wasn't me. Not really, at least.

Other alters, like Fenrir (who was the first to introduce himself to me, and has become somewhat of a father figure to me) have been very nice, and tries his best to keep me from self harming, and I've noticed comes out alot when I'm having a break down/panic attack. I've had the most communication with him, although everything still feels distant and blurry, as if I don't really know him fully yet.

This issue has been continuing throughout these past two months, and I'm lucky I've had a good friend of mine to talk to about it, that my "alters" can talk to freely (which has helped me learn about them alot.) And who support me unconditionally throughout this whole thing. I've been hiding it from everyone else in my life though, as I'm not sure what to label it as, or if I'm just... Somehow subconsciously faking these symptoms for some reason I don't understand yet.

Admittedly (and this is something I'm extremely ashamed of, and have talked to my therapist about, and will NEVER repeat if i can help it) i have faked illness before. I was very young and in a terrible headspace, and very depressed and suicidal at the time. I had claimed to be experiencing hallucinations, but I knew the whole time that i was lying, and that my young, vulnerable brain was just trying to find some way to get the people around me to care, and to do something to help me, even if it meant i had to make something up. I mention this because I don't feel like this is something thats happening now, with what im experiencing with dissociation and my problems with identity... If i am faking it, I'm not concious of it. At all. A part of me is terrified that I'm wrong, and that this will all pass by me with time, that I'm just jumping to conclusions or faking it again even though I'm not actively trying to like i was before.

Things had been settling with me, though, and i was getting better at accepting what I've been experiencing with my "alters" and dissociating in general. But yesterday I went to my therapist, and ended up finally coming clean and talking to her for about an hour about these experiences, albeit in less detail since I was under extreme stress and was terrified throughout the entire conversation. Terrified that I'd be told I'm crazy, but also terrified of being told I'm not.

She's going to look into finding me a psychiatrist to talk to about this, probably to get a second opinion/diagnosis. She said she didn't think I have did, but that she doesn't think I'm delusional either, and i just.. got so many mixed signals. I don't know what to expect out of this, and i can't self-dx (obviously.) but it feels so terrifying and stressful and fucking awful to just have to sit and wait and do nothing, and not know what's going to happen to me. I don't know what to do or think of any of this. If it turns out that i do have osdd, or something, then at least I'll have some closure, but i have no idea how to deal with that going forward. What that would mean for my life, and the lives of everyone around me.

If i dont, then... What do i do with the knowledge of these people in my head? Just... Try to forget? Make them go away? I've been trying hard to do that and to deny their existence, but it feels ridiculous to do that, and it makes me feel.. really guilty.

I just... Theres just so much happening. And its all scary, and all overwhelming, and I wish I had waited longer to say anything to my therapist about it, until i felt more sure or, or what, I don't know. I don't think i was as ready to talk about it as I thought I was.

If you've made it this far, thanks for, uh, hearing me out. I guess. If anyone can give me advice or comfort or just, any input on this, if you relate or what, I'd really like to hear from you.

[bpdeadd]

my mums on the phone complaining about me (I walked past and she stopped talking until I went upstairs) and talking about the therapy thing to one of her friends so 🙄🙄🙄🙄 but like after that session ended I was thinking they’d all go to separate rooms n not speak to each other - I was right ofc, n I went downstairs to talk to my mum to ask her about how she thought the session went n she seemed rly annoyed about me n my sister n basically I was saying I think as a family we don’t rly communicate w each other (and we don’t its like we’re not a fucking family like we don’t even know each other, but its also that neglect towards each other) and my mum was like ‘oh but u never talk to us anyways‘ n its like but we try to and u don’t listen n then u try n start an argument, invalidate us and shut us down for everything bc everything we do feel is ‘wrong’ and I was like yh but listening is also part of it, and she was annoyed about it bc she was like ‘u act like we don’t care and don’t listen to u n I find it rly insulting’ and I'm like thinking??? but u don’t care??? u never listen??? like a month or so ago I was trying to tell u how I felt n u just basically said I was like those ppl who fake illnesses for attention n she was basically making up assumptions about me and lying to my face about how I said I wasn’t depressed n I'm like I have never said that ever in my fucking life like wtf all I go on about is me being depressed and my pd - which they don’t accept the bpd diagnosis anyways n think I'm lying about having it n I'm like yh I've been lying for 4 years everyday since my diagnosis?????????? 🙄🙄🙄 I mean I went to fucking group therapy for it and I'm on the waiting list currently for help for it (for over a year now but tbh I don’t think I'm actually gon get any help so lmao) but clearly this is all just a big fucking act but w/e

like I try to actually start a conversation, communicate in some way and its like she doesn’t wanna know, like all she can do is complain at me about shit I do or say and then makes it out like I'm a bad person for calling her out and is so in denial about herself being like that - like rather then say ‘oh I'm sorry if I've ever made u feel like we don’t listen or care, what has made u feel like that?’ but instead she gets all defensive and acts like I'm in the wrong for even thinking that, and how fucking dare I. You can fucking not call out that woman for her behaviour bc she just doesn’t give a shit, and she's not willing to look at herself and her own behaviour and be like, maybe I have done something wrong? maybe I have been treating them unfairly, and not been emotionally supportive as much as I could’ve been. (I mean she's never been supportive, or anything so lmao, she just insults me, mocks me, invalidates me constantly, if smth bad happens to me or if something upsets me its either - get over it, or somehow its my fault and stands there blaming me, like she blamed me for my friends ghosting me and abandoning me and made it out bc I am ‘intense’ that thats why they left, even tho they ignored me, left me alone all day in my friends house in Spain (while they all went out for the day - I woke up and they were all gone we had an argument before they were basically making fun of one of my online friends and I got upset about it so they all went out the next day leaving me alone in a house in another country, and when they came back it was like 11.30pm or smth //they went out at like between 8-9am or w/e, so I was alone all day// cuz I woke up later - no note left or anything, and they never spoke to me when they came back I just heard my friend say ‘is she in there’ and my other friend put her face in through the door as I was watching tv and was like ‘yeah’ and left and then they all went outside and ignored me) and they purposely left me out of things/didn’t invite me places and used to flake out of ‘meet-ups/plans’ and never answer the phone and this one friend would basically be hanging out w her bf which is fine but when we’ve planned smth and then u basically ‘disappear’ and ignore my calls and texts n I find out later u’ve chosen yr bf over me w/o even just saying ‘oh I can’t go out today I want to spend time w my bf’ or w/e - which I'd still be annoyed at but atleast I'd fucking know (she did that all the fucking time tbh - she’d just never show up or ignore my calls/texts) and then my mum makes it out like I'm the fucking bad person??? (also plus this friend told their parents about me self harming, I had her little sister (who was like 10 or 12 at the time) ask me about it and I was like ???????? wtf how’d u even know about that??) but clearly I'm the bad person here like wtf 🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️ 

and when he therapist also during this session said ‘oh I think its rly gd that u all listen to each other and show respect towards each other’ and I'm like sat there trying to not laugh bc that is not what's going on - the only reason why no one is talking over each other is bc my dad doesn’t rly know what to say in ‘emotional’ situations so opts to stay quiet, my sister is too anxious atm (like she was breathing rly heavily during and kept leaving to go outside for abit) and if my mum says anything she fears she’ll be judged and the truth of her possibly being the cause of my sister and I being like this by the way she responds, would come out and the therapists would be like ‘ohhhh’ I mean, when I was talking about my bpd diagnosis I then looked at my mum and said ‘which I don’t think u’ve ever accepted’ and she just couldn’t even look at me and pulled a face like she wanted to say smth or snap at me for that but couldn’t in front of ‘strangers’ so she was trying to hold herself back was ripping my face off, my mum has to appear as the ‘caring’ mother, who is supportive and considerate and thinks about their kids, and doesn’t yell when they say anything about how they feel, and is awkwardly/fake affectionate towards their kids - if that doesn’t give it away that she has to appear as that in front of strangers and her friends - idk what does - bc she's the complete fucking opposite of that.

[fertile-delirium-blog]

You know, everything I ever worked towards, care about, love or have been lucky to come across or been given an opportunity to, I’ve always gotten to a point where I fuck everything up realise where I went wrong or what I keep getting told I do or am and honestly everyone I ever believed enough to let in and be a bit of the real me or all of the real me, since I was little, I been trying to run from this sadness that I later found out is developed or called depression that I realise, I’ve never understood it, I never thought id have mental illness and I ran, I denied for so long.. people telling me I need help, I had a system that worked, a system that never allowed me to be verbally honest with anyone enough to actually get to know me , without the fear and what ifs that I now know is anxiety, funny I never really, really knew what it was but turns out the two together destroy my life, ever since high school, ive wanted to continually improve myself no matter what anyone said and the same time I maintained an image where I made myself make everyone view me the opposite of what I felt I was, when im angry, im actually upset, I made myself seem like I was okay enough n making it on my own so people wouldn’t view me as weak or a being who needed sympathy or attention or some street kid goimg nowhere when really, for too long all I wanted was to find where I belong n do what in my heart I felt n feel like will come back, be music that expresses things I can’t say or feels weird coming out of this mouth that isnt mine, dont feel right. Communication.. something ive never had real, experience with.. was mainly mute other than my outward image for my protection and other peoples shit for so many years before I met her, she made me want to talk, opened up n be the me I feel I am on the inside, but, how easy did I really think it was gonna be? …a lot easier than it was/is.. I’ve always been a lone wolf.. why did I think I could have a family life like that when… I convinced myself with this act I was over shit I wasn’t, that was my fuck up this is all before I fell in love and its funny… it’s a boy cries wolf story, she loved me.. I loved her but something in me didn’t let me properly love her the way I should’ve but if I knew then what I know, my god things would be different and this is what I was afraid of.. completely giving in to her that… I wouldn’t care about myself as much just wanted to make her n kids happy, that’s what made me happy that’s the reason for my being as the opportunity to do so after terrible things n times had us far away for a long time and realised that they the family I chose to have n m sorry I let you all down I’m sorry my bpd, bipolar depressive states is what im trying to focus on to gwt better, since I actually believed everyone but 18 years of unsaid, undealt with and put away in the black box f nothing, isn’t easy to unfold , realise grow, accept, change, love, heal myself and be what was wanted or needed to best of my ability, truth is with her, this focus on making my life a certain way disappeared, never thought it would happen.. i want to do n cater n help n just be n do or try to what it s she wanted if me, I tried I fucked up in the beginning, but still pay to this day.. sigh the balance of who I on the inside is out of whack n has changed.. I don’t think anyone ever did I thought I showed n expressed enough to understand, I guess, if im too sick to love I shouldn’t get on the way of where she wants to go n do, its a shame really, right girl wrong time, don’t care if we were meant to be or not the universe chose you that I loved that much I wanted to make a life, thins I did out of spite, jealousy, anger, major depressive states too much drugs or too long on drugs wasn’t really me, the me I thought you knew n loved was that you made me happy, only person to do that that’s not my siblings.. then there are your beautiful kids I’ve let down too many times.. idk what made me think I deserved you 3.. maybe the fact that I was hoping we all changed n we were happy, we were, that’s not fantasy, we had some great, great times ill never let go of wanted my career I chased for since I was a kid n ended up getting n wanted to have the normal family as well but I chose them in the end n always will but I gotta keep away for her, for them.. every time I get into this stupid certain major depressive state.. I do things to make it harder on myself but you know what the problem is.. the real me is hidden in a cube within and I can see everything.. and that’s not the real me. That’s something dark attached to me that wants to keep me hidden away.. so how do I defeat this other person I’m watching from the inside take over a beautiful physical being I don’t feel is mine and causing such pain for both her, I and my ex gf and her kids and tearing everything that’s mine (the inside) and hers(outside) causing such hate n was for each other n causes such distress for those who actually love me.. I would like you, any of you to hold my hand throughout me getting better.. but I also know I’ve had my times with help n no help n I run away.. I know how hard it is for anyone to love me.. or be there for me I want all to be happy n move on with their lives get And do things the deserve.. I don’t wanna hold anyone back jus because they care.. I’ve been alone since I was little.. may as well stay alone to the end.. cant bear to love.. there’s only her I will never have kids, it’ll always be them, don’t want to cause pain because I’m hard to love because I’m sad with myself n wanna make you happy same time.. god how did I get here.. I got nothing n no one.. at all n all I had before her was a dream I made into reality then set bar higher only to fall that fucking hard to be half the reason I hate myself and before that tried to be an accepted part of my family n moved on to my dream knowing my family will never know.. what ive felt, how low I sank at the age of 8, understand or acce ppl t me enough.. the most truth I can give them is that I want to die cos im not good enough for this world.. items are not feelings, being raped and beaten for 5 yrs of my childhood n being too scared to tell anyone due to death threats then once it comes into the open is apologetic and sad for then my mum gets angry at me cos she cant accept it sober,.. I do blame him.. but I also know that its my fault ive let him win and affect me as a person n how I grow for so long and being told o can do something bout it going to yoir mum n her telling me its no use they wont find anything too late to be then told 5 yrs later that, I can still do something about it.. and I havent.. all these little bits and pieces make sense from the moment of my mums impregnation to now that maybe, just maybe I was never supposed to have been born.. I don’t belong on this world, I was an unwanted mistake that had no friends got bullied, raped, beaten as a child to getting away from that man that is your brothers dad also and my brother ended up being my best friend mid teens to not even know what a friend is other than knowing not to let anyone know the bad I been through and alone.. always have been alone no one sees the me that stands behind this beautiful, sad but always fake smiling so i don’t seem so broken shell of mine.. no one can hear me but the people in my head and none of them want to let me out.. guess I don’t deserve anything else but being alone trying to fight people I can only hear.. if I used to see any of them..when I did see silhouetted bodies before I had too many drugs and certain.. things went away.. im sorry I blocked you out.. oh silhouetted bodies I miss you.. as scary as it would be sometimes.. you always helped me be strong enough for the next step, if it is you that torments me today.. why? And if it isn’t.. is it just mental illness?. Or is it so much more than that..

Was I killed or kill myself too early in past life I went straight through to this one??.. from the moment I was born I was not meant to exist.. im sorry to the people who love and care for me… none of you will see me again.. ill save you all the energy, the stress and the pain I’ve previously caused due to my own mind and my feelings but know if you could hear me.. not this voice of mine verbally.. but if you or i could translate it or if you could hear my inside voice I promise that all would be understandable.. no confusion, no bullshit, no actions I didnt make but she or they did.. they just want to break me.. all but one laugh at me, mock me, talk to me and then to her on the outside as a fucking game or to make us continually clash and that ruins me, my ex gf, and well because of all that I distanced from kids when asked.. and have gotten so far it breaks my god damn heart.. gonna be like my brother, like my sister.. cant be apart of their life, cant watch them grow but silently love all 3 of them silently from afar.. I don’t want anyone to love me and I don’t want to love anymore than I already do as long these people and depression n whatever else they say I got continues to win this fight.. hopefully at the moment.. they make m e want to die. For silence, no more memories, feelings and they make it known that this is not my body.. I a excluded from all beings.. even the one I reside in.. no support. Don’t want friends, don’t want family.. I just wish I could’ve gotten better for the ones I love and who love me.. im sorry .. I dont want a life anymore. I really realize .. I was not meant to.. I hope that everyone I love will hate me, already does,or will and can forget me.. I did have some real, real hapy good times with you mum, lola, jaiden, mia, rachele, LJh and TRh.. sorry Ive said and done some fucked up things and I hope if you do remember or think of me it wont always be bad because I had and was a genuine happy and fun girl at times. Especially with you guys. And im sorry if you guys dont know which ones are real and fake..im sorry .. I wanna get better but realising I was never meant to be here,n if I was it was to be alone n silent I was right tho.. im not here to have a life for me or make one for myself nd hurt people in process. I love in times of darkness and undenying voices… I dont need your care.. I dont want you to feel sorry I just hope when you think back on me maybe.. youll see the peaks of the inside me get let put due to the help from my outside n i ts something we don’t n wont talk bout..I wont make anyone put up with me just because they are or I am loved. Not anymore.. I love you all.. hope everyone gets what the want and deserve. And to the parents of whos kids I love as my own then just fucking distanced due to how I am not thinking boit if or how itd affect them.. im sorry fo all the wrong ive done by them but know how happy and grateful I am for you guys bringing them into this world.. we all know im shit at doing what im supposed to and moat times I was shit to them.. I dlnt k know if i t was noticeable but I did try.. but thank you for letting be apart of that and being “snips”.. and giving me a chance to love them and treat them like my own I wish I did better with all of you, their family, my family im sorry whatever this thing is im just sorry I ruined some good things and hurt people I love n who love me.. never again.

I love you all.. I feel like I didnt get to say it all.. but, o can’t keep crying.. I been typing for 2 hrs… I will be making another account and this will be my lalst post as mariah elrington. To the world and the people I love… im sorry. I hope ypu forgive me and see the good person I always tried to be I will love yo and appreciate you all forever.. im sorry that since I came to world I was doomed to be nothing but a problem but I swear.. I swear on everything… I always try to be better but fall harder.. doing this on my own and voices, my thoughts and the opinion of those who love me see the opposite to what im doing or how I am.. its really hard.. ive never done it this mentally tough before.. well on drugs trippin on non real stuff but this.. this is real life and for once, I dont have anyone to talk to even on a vague level.. not even a pen and paper.. this, this is all so o guess thank you tumblr idk how worst id be without you ..I love you all… this is the fkn truth.. I never meant for it any of it to be als bad as they are between my two families I love. I hope you can get it right, now without me, the problem, the burden,.the dralin and be happy I meam that from thr deep.side of my heart, I really hope I haven’t fucked it enough you wont recover.. but I may be a bit over my head.. they won’t care.. I mean they will for a short time,, but will be happy not long after no Im not saying im gonna kill myself, we all know I can’t. But none of you will see or hear from me again.. because I love you. And I love you alll im deeply sorry I couldn’t express or show it enough for that you guys to believe that a whole lot or know the extent of how much with how ive been but ti my blood family and made family… I love you all so much its because of you gus im doing this for you other wise ill never leave y'all alone cos I need y'all but can’t and won’t hurt anyone but myself anymore.. almost 3 hrs writing.. I still got more to say but gonna leave it there.. god damn it,I love you and I do hope my whole family have a good life n im sorry I ruined the parts of it that I did but be worry free I dont want anyone trying to reach out to me after this. Wil be ignored or unseen..

I love my families and im sorry I couldn’t get it right to be good enough well enough to not negatively affect you.

Have a great life, drink, party, love do the things you want and think o f me as okay if it helps just please,if you love me dont ever get worried.. dont ever assume anything just be be fucking happy, experience, travel, grow Chase dreams.. trust, they are possible no matter situation, lonliness or head space,long as you believe youre gonna.make i t real and do what you gptta to make it gappen, if some like me not even suppose to be alive can do it, you strong, smart beautiful family of mine I believe in you.. to all of you every age. and each everyone of you deserve it. The good fun or happy life with its obvious small obstacles that isn’t as stressful or hard t fix asits been as of late..

I am sorry. I love nd appreciate you all. And you will all always be in my mind And my hearts im sorry im too mental im sorry for all ive done.

I love you all.

Goodbye forever.. all 7 of you ill love always. Pls keep the good bout me in your hearts if you can’t forget. I miss you all like crazy wish I could see you all again to give a goodbye hug.. but a visioned one is gonna have to do. Know that’s the last thing youd recieve from me if that were the case.

Goodbye my precious family I loved dearly but took for granted and couldnt get better.. im sorry I put you all through so much. I really am I wish all of you could see how much love I got for each and everyone of you cos I know I didnt do that good of a job to make sure it was known but I hope it is not.. love you please be happy for me too, if its worth anything to any of you, cos idk how long it'll take to feel it again.

Goodbye fams.

-Mariah Elrington

[tiredbiplantlady]

I can’t diagnose myself and I’m not asking anyone else to either...

I just need to write. I haven’t much at all lately despite my motivation and planning to. 

I love my therapist. He’s amazing. He’s helped me see so much and learn so much about myself and helped me learn to VERY effectively manage my constant hypervigilance, my constant anxiety, and a big portion of my shame on a day-to-day basis. I am LIGHTYEARS beyond where I was at last year and before. I attribute so much of my ability to heal myself to his guiding me. We connect on some real af levels and I am extremely grateful to him, though I know I did the work, he was just there to help facilitate it all. 

But. He told me to stop thinking of myself as mentally ill because it isn’t productive. And no, maybe it isn’t. But something feels wrong. I know he’s all about “perception is reality” and honestly, so am I. But can I not manage my perception and create an productive and healthy realty AND consider myself mentally ill? He’s been working with me for over a year on my black-and-white thinking. I don’t think he’s like this with all of his clients, but I think with me, he sees potential in me and doesn’t want me to box myself in to “mentally ill” to use as an excuse for my everything. Like, I get it. But it still bothers me. 

A year ago, I talked about borderline personality disorder. I made a case for myself and brought up the symptoms I identified with most and described several instances of each that served as evidence to me. He just listened for over an hour as I told him everything I needed to say, and he nodded. He said he agreed with my analysis, but labels aren’t everything. I was fine with this covert agreement that wouldn’t go on my insurance. That might one day prevent me from achieving anything as a psychologist. After all, he said so, my counseling graduate program told me so, and now my psychology graduate program says so: the diagnosis isn’t as important as just treating the symptoms that cause distress. “So what if you’re somewhat borderline?” He asked me. I nodded in agreement. “It doesn’t change who you are or what you’re capable of.” 

I read about DBT. I found online workbooks. I recorded my moodswings for a few months. I was desperately trying to get better...because I’d just started to come out of the worst, THE WORST emotional period of my entire fucking life.

It was December 2015. Things had been on a downhill slope for months. It started back in June really. I began suffering anxiety again to a level beyond my average (but still very strong) anxiety. My environment served as a painful trigger for my symptoms with two manipulative, crazy-making, and alcoholic/abusive roommates. My PTSD (diagnosed) was on full-blast again. I was cautious, but not totally paranoid. Not yet. As I look back, I entered into a depressive phase for perhaps a week or two, where for a couple days it was bad enough that I couldn’t get out of my bed and stayed there isolated and unable to stop silently crying despite my other roommates trying to be comforting. I felt like self-harming. I felt hopeless. After those few days, I functioned better, but I still generally was quite depressed and unmotivated, hopeless feeling and empty. I was waking up in the middle of the night at times with nightmares and gasping, feeling as though I were being watched or someone was there. 

I would come out of it, this depression, but the anxiety remained. As the months went on, the roommate situation got worse and worse and I began to become extremely paranoid. I was almost in a frenzy at times, just absolutely certain one of the awful roommates would come back to burn down the house and us alive in it. I triple checked locked doors, I slept with lights on at times. I wanted my roommate (now boyfriend) to sleep with me just in case anything happened. I hated sleeping alone. I’d rather stay sweating horribly together in my very hot small bedroom with the door locked and the windows tightly latched than chance anything. Sometimes we slept with the door cracked. One night I woke from a nightmare while he slept soundly, and I was frozen, just paralyzed in fear because I KNEW someone was in our house (no one was aside from the usual roommates). I forced myself to slide out of bed, pull the cat in, and lock my door. The cat cried, but I didn’t care. I didn’t want to die. I tried to fall back asleep and it felt impossible. I listened to every noise, believing any small disturbance was someone nearing my room to blast through the door. Maybe with a gun. Maybe someone was lurking around outside. My heart raced constantly. Sleeping started to become impossible, echoing a similar months-long episode I’d had about the same time the year before. I just wanted to die sometimes. 

The final horrible roommate started drinking - black out drunk drinking - and calling his exes on the phone screaming gendered slurs and slamming things around in his room directly above mine. It sent me into a panic, hearing that. I’d had my trauma with plenty of alcoholics and misogynists. I was terrified of him. If I heard him come home I would always lock my door and be as quiet as possible, as though he were an abusive parent waiting to come home to beat me (even though he never hurt me). He’d started threatening my boyfriend and passing out fucked up on the couch. It made me extremely uncomfortable and my anxiety grew and grew. I became hypervigilant again, having flashbacks, using old coping mechanisms that weren’t good. One night he walked past me and slid his hand down my back, which was completely unnecessary and drawn out. I shuddered and told Kyle about it. It was hell. I’d just started grad school and everything that was happening was ruining everything. I was extremely depressed again. I burst out sobbing to my dad one day when I went home to my parent’s house because it was too hard to live in that house anymore. I was effectively retraumatized. I’d stumbled upon the term “transient paranoid ideation” and how having been traumatized once, you can start to become hypervigilant and almost have “flashback” like pop ups to events that never happened to you. Like maybe you were raped by someone, but start to have similar feelings and fears and obsessive thoughts about someone setting your house on fire. It transfers over to “what if”. That lead me to BPD, but I didn’t think a lot about it. 

In October, It was too much. This guy started threatening to beat the shit out of him, hurt him, talked about being a drug lord and connections to people and he touched me. We got a restraining order and kicked him out. I still couldn’t sleep. The week after we did it, Kyle and I drove every single day an hour up to school and an hour back to stay at my mom’s because I felt I was in danger and I couldn’t stand being away from Kyle not knowing if something horrible might happen to him. We bonded over this traumatic incident. While all this was happening I told him I didn’t want to do relationships anymore. I just wanted to be with him, that’s it, no more of this rewording things and pretending like we hadn’t actually been together for months. The reality was that we’d essentially gotten back together in 2014 and denied it, mostly me, for over a year. I was terrified and realized I was terrified of losing him. 

I told him I couldn’t stand to live there anymore. We went back and forth for a while about what to do and eventually decided to just pay off the landlord and move into a new apartment, just us. I thought it would solve everything. But even after we moved, I was still devastated from everything that’d happened. I coped alright for a month maybe, but in November, I stopped caring about my life and my future. I felt nothing and I wasted every day. I couldn’t get out of bed. I stayed there from sun up til sun down when I went to night class 2 days a week. I was miserable and it was a struggle to force myself to get out of bed even 2 days a week for school. I had nothing to say. I had no personality. I was empty and hollow and I had nothing to give. 

I started to feel absolutely insane. I was DESPERATE for affection and attention. I wanted to kill myself not getting it. I wanted to cut and binge eat and sleep until it would all just go away. I couldn’t get out of bed and I would spend hours doing nothing with intervals of random crying I didn’t understand. Other times I’d cry with a cause. I just hurt and I felt hopeless. It wasn’t so much that I hurt actually. I was empty and didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t look into the future and see anything for myself. It was just dark and empty. I felt useless, stupid, boring, unlovable, ashamed, disgusting. I was passive aggressive and had horrible problems communicating. I wanted my mind read. I wanted people to WANT what I wanted. I didn’t want to have to ask, I just wanted someone who wanted the same thing as me. I became horribly frustrated and withdrawn and my relationship suffered terribly. 

I started having furious mood swings that were mostly deep depression, followed by numbness, followed by anger, followed by somewhat normal, but still depressed around and around. Mostly I was depressed for weeks upon weeks. I fought constantly, I was frustrated and without words. I needed and had no idea how to articulate it. I felt like I was speaking a language no one around me understood and it was fucking pointless, hopeless. I still had nightmares and could barely sleep. Every little noise my neighbors made caused me to go on compulsive listening sprees where I sat with my ear to the wall trying to figure out what was going on because I wouldn’t settle or be okay until I did. My anxiety wouldn’t let me not do this. I was scrambling for anything to make it better. My relationship felt like it was falling apart and I felt insane every single day. He didn’t know what was wrong or how to help me and all I did was make things hard for him. I felt unlovable and made myself that way. I was terrified of abandonment and one big fight in the middle of winter gave me the impulse to drive away and sit in the WalMart parking lot fantasizing about going inside to buy all the things I needed to cut myself again. It would be so easy. I thought about killing myself, but didn’t really mean it. Part of me thought I’d be better off dead. That everyone around me would be better off if I was dead. The things said to me that night are still there and I feel shame and anger and terrible sadness. I still feel apologetic, while another part of me is enraged. Most of me knows it doesn’t matter anymore. I felt no good to anyone. I felt like a burden and vampire who couldn’t stop sucking the life out of anyone I loved .And I didn’t love anyone anymore but him. I had no friends. I isolated myself. He was my Favorite Person and other people didn’t matter. I hate myself for the manipulative things I’ve done, and the part of me that blames things on other people has enough to say of her own. Maybe the truth is somewhere in the middle. I don’t know. Even thinking back I still feel crazy. 

I had to do something. This wasn’t right. There was something very, very wrong here. This shouldn’t be happening. I promised I would try to make myself better. I couldn’t be abandoned. I couldn’t cause more damage. I hated myself. I had no idea how I ended up here. When I started to come out of that frenzied hopelessness, I looked back at myself and wondered who the fuck did all this, what was I thinking? I genuinely believed my apartment manager was constantly watching me and trying to get me in trouble to kick me out. I hated her with a burning fucking fury and other times I just didn’t care. I was not rational and how I felt about other people was never stable or solid. People were out to get me at worst and didn’t care about me at best. Little things sent me into a rage I directed inward instead of throwing things around or fist fights. I seethed with just burning hatred until I burned it all up and was back to being fine. If I had been the type of person to get in fights or do bad things in the real would, I would have been doing them. I fantasized about things like that, but instead felt deep shame for even doing so and then hated myself along with them. 

I started having periods of euphoria that lasted a few days where I felt like I could do anything. I felt social and outgoing and made a million plans for projects in my head. And then I’d be somewhat average again. And inevitably fall back into anxiety and depression. And of course, for years I’d had dissociative experiences like derealization/depersonalization and generally just feeling out of myself and having identity issues (though until 2015 I had no idea that’s what they were called). I started seeing connection in BPD and brought it to my therapist (who I’d kept a lot of this from anyway). I sat with the idea of potentially having it for a while and tried to explain to my boyfriend what it meant about my behavior. How now that I knew maybe things could get better. 

In a couple of weeks I made the decision to drop out of grad school and go back for a second undergrad. It was all very fast and somehow I thought it made the most sense and was a great idea because I wanted to be a writer and it would help with my writing. I went into the grad counseling department and excitedly spewed my latest idea, words slurred together and hardly taking breaths, to my program director who said I sounded sure of what I wanted and sent me on my way. I pushed hard and fast for the second bachelor’s admission director to admit me and get it all set up before school was out for the semester. I still got furious with people and would be polite, at worst short with them, but never rude and then take it all out on myself. 

It was done and I was set and this was turning over a new leaf, this was a new beginning. I was going to be great and I’d find my way and everything would be perfect!! Spring was coming! I had so much hope and certainty in my ability to do this. I started feeling like I was improving. Then February happened and one night around 11 pm, Kyle and I went to a gas station for snacks when suddenly I got very hot. I complained that my arm was sore. I started sweating and feeling nauseous. My heart raced. I got hotter. And hotter. My heart raced more. I could feel myself about to puke. My vision started fading, gray and fuzzy through a tunnel. My head felt light and I was so sure I was about to pass out. “I’m going outside” I said quickly, then turned and went out into the cold night air. I’M HAVING A HEART ATTACK, I thought to myself. I’m DYING, I’M ABOUT TO DIE OH MY GOD I NEED TO GO TO THE HOSPITAL. I was hyperventilating in my car. As soon as I got out in the cold and sat down, my vision came back, my head stopped tingling. I was covered in sweat that was freezing in the cold outside. I felt my heart still racing and I was in a panic wondered what happened. I could feel adrenaline just coursing through my veins and I wanted to puke again, not the same as before. This felt like I’d just gotten off a roller coaster and the rush was too much for my body to handle, so I needed to puke. Kyle came out to see if I was okay. I was trying to breathe and a part of me was freaking out going “that wasn’t normal. NEVER forget how abnormal this was, NEVER forget that this was BEYOND normal, no matter what any family member or doctor tells you. THIS. WAS. NOT. NORMAL.” He asked me if I wanted to go to the hospital and part of me was numb, emotionally, and said no. I tried to explain what happened and he asked if I thought I had a stroke. I went home and called my mom. I webMD’d it. I had a stroke, I told myself. I had a TIA. At any moment I’ll have another one and I’m dead. This is the end as I know it. I’m going to die!!!! 

That sensation at least wasn’t uncommon to me. I’d had what you might classify as a paranoid delusion when I was about 15. I was CERTAIN I was dying of cancer (no real evidence of this). For weeks I genuinely and truly believed I was going to die and my body was deteriorating. I was depressed, hopeless and suicidal feeling. But I got past it. Only to have another health related genuine delusion a year later that also lasted for weeks, nothing could satisfy it or cause me to think differently. NOTHING. 

So, here we are, February 2016 after this “stroke” - I went to the doctor. Which used to scare me, but I’d become comforted by it at this point. Every doctor happily pointed out my anxiety as the cause of any health issue I brought up and every doctor happily tried to prescribe me antidepressants. They started looking at me as a hypochondriac. I hated it. And yet I did it to myself. She played along and did a bunch of bloodwork, finding only that my A1C was ever so slightly elevated, probably from PCOS and my diet, she said, so I asked for Metformin, but that’s a whole different story. I didn’t have a stroke, she said. There was no evidence. Everyone told me I had a panic attack and it made me break down crying. I lived in constant fear for some time that out of nowhere this could just happen all over again with no warning, just like before. I realized in that past I’d had “limited symptom panic attacks” or “anxiety attacks” before. I still couldn’t accept that’s what it was - I remember how I told myself how abnormal it was and to never forget it. I was on the brink of death! I had to worry because if I didn’t worry then it would happen. It was an obsessive compulsive thought and behavior. I could not help myself from acting it out. I truly believed worrying would prevent bad things from happening. If I was carefree, something was wrong. I read about how 30-somethings described TIAs because strokes aren’t just for older people. I was certain I was going to die. And I read people describing going to the ER to find out it was a panic attack and was eased momentarily before both telling myself I had to worry it was a TIA/stroke anyway, and also that if I was having panic attacks, who’s to say that isn’t the first of many to come? 

After that day I worked out, ate FANTASTICALLY healthy, saw a nutritionist, took medication, went to therapy, lost 50 more pounds (after having lost and maintained about 30 for a year or so) in a few months, tried to go vegan, settled for vegetarian, went to therapy once a week, started meditating, and was desperate enough to start actually taking my ativan and tried buspar. That was a huge step. My anxiety was destroying my life. After that panic attack, I had heart palpatations out of nowhere at random times nearly every day. I had that sick, sinking, tingling feeling in the pit of my stomach and I held my breath only to breathe too much until I was dizzy. I wanted to cry and several times fell into an anxiety attack that felt like a downward spiral of hopelessness and irrational thinking. I felt helpless and crazier than ever.

Because on top of all that, the moodswings were still there. I went to the psychiatrist, got my buspar, some zoloft (I refused to take it) and intentionally left out the part about the moodswings for fear of a diagnosis that might ruin me, but mostly someone trying to put me on a mood stabilizer. I didn’t want anymore drugs. I’d struggled with 3 different anti-depressants in the past that did nothing, made things worse, or generally just failed in some way. I never felt well, just numb, no change, or terrible. I was desperate enough to try buspar, but that lasted for short weeks before I stopped entirely. When I did, my anxiety had lifted a bit and I did feel a little better. But it had given me painful headaches I couldn’t tolerate anymore and I just can’t deal with being on drugs. I hate it. One night in spring I went into another helpless, fearful tizzy and wanted to scream, cry, cut myself, fuck until everything stopped hurting. Oh, god, why did I hurt so much? Why did I hurt so fucking much. It hurt so bad, aching into my soul. I didn’t know what to do. I sat in warm bath water with the bathroom window open until the sun set and the wind blowing in was cold, along with the water that’d gone cold long before. I cried silent tears, lip shaking, cheeks chapped, coming from the core of me, some deep dark place. I didn’t wail, I felt so lost and empty, as though I’d realized some awful thing and felt totally out of control. I was just so fucking helpless. So fucking empty. 

Months went on into summer and I was doing a lot better. I still had my ups and downs, but I was going to be okay. It hit me I could no longer sustain myself without a job (I was in NOOO position at the point to be working AND school) on the pitiful financial aid they offered. I decided right before the fall 2016 semester started I’d go back to grad school the semester after. I was ready and this whole thing, I’d needed the experience and the time, but it was over now. I’ve been lying to myself that I’m incapable. I can do this. I’m ready to be an adult. So I went into that semester (fall 2016) not taking shit seriously at all because I was just D O N E with it. At the end, I was leaving my second bachelor’s degree needing only 4 more classes to earn it, but I couldn’t live off another semester of that and it just felt useless. We moved again due to money stuff and it was going well. I had my rocky patches with the stress, trying to manage, but ultimately it was fine. I was doing so much better and therapy and meditation were making my life fucking great in comparison. I felt stable. Sometimes I little stressed or depressed, but no major episodes. Things were looking up! 

It was around October 2016. I’d gone into this extremely positive, hopeful, centered, accepting place I’d never been. I was writing and A LOT. I was extremely productive, sleeping a bit less than usual. Making HUGE strides in therapy and my psychologist was thrilled by it, in awe of me. I was in a mild high and riding it happily. I felt powerful and strong and sure and more than anything I just trusted life. I trusted the process. I trusted the universe. I felt spiritually enlightened and wise and just so CENTERED. Like EVERYTHING just felt like it had a purpose and I was EXACTLY where I needed to be. I’d never felt anything to that level before. I started writing about an event from my past that was verrrry sexually arousing and satisfying. That day changed everything. I got higher than I had been already. Some time went by. I was feeling social and curious and really hungry to connect with other people. I missed having friends and learning new things, getting close to people, new experiences. I was growing so, so, so much personally. I wanted someone to understand and appreciate me. I felt misunderstood and detached. I didn’t know how to communicate through my fear of judgement, abandonment, and worst - invalidation or mocking. 

I fiddled around talking to old acquaintances. I made up with some people, caught up with others. It felt really nice. And I was starting to accept all these parts of me that I’d shut off for a long time, fearing their contradicting nature. I am lots of things. I am everything. It doesn’t all have to make sense. I was tired of compartmentalizing around every person though. It was hard and sad and I was kind of lonely. And then it happened, and I met (or re-met) someone. The high I’d been riding flew to new heights. Every fucking atom of my body, every cell, every piece of me was vibrating so fast you couldn’t even tell. I was floating and walking in a cloud of love that touched every person I went near. I felt like an angel, a god. I was god. I was a healer, I was mercy, I was understanding, I was pure, I was the truest truth that ever was, I was love. I WAS LOVE. I wasn’t Kat, I was a being without a name whose purpose was to give love and receive love and live in only love. I deserved this ecstasy, being in love with myself. I didn’t think, I just KNEW. I just KNEW things and followed my intuition and I KNEW that’s what it was. I had never experienced this self-perception before, not like this. Things felt RIGHT and I did them. It went on for months, my self-perception, my world perception...

“you’re manic,” my therapist said with a slight smile.  “no I’m not!!” I exclaimed defensively, ready and already going onto a sentence to continue denying”. This was just who I was now, what the fuck was he talking about??? he showed me the way to be, this body could channel love like this, the center of life, the purpose for living. Why would he say it was just being manic?? “don’t get defensive,” he said interrupting me, “I’m not criticizing you for it,” he said among other positive things I can’t remember in the haze. All I remember was his awe from a few weeks before this session, pure awe telling me “you’re not growing in a linear way, it’s exponential...it’s amazing to see someone grow like this.” Praising me for my progress and my rarity. I beamed, I hugged myself in it.  “ the crash is going to hurt,” he said. I literally laughed in his face, unable to contain it. I genuinely believed this was me now and I was never going to crash. I’d never experienced that. When I was happy before most of the time, but not always, it was short lived and just before it ended, thoughts crept in that something awful must be about to happen, which ruined everything. Not this time. I was so fucking sure. No one could have convinced me it would end. No one could have convinced me I wasn’t channeling the core aspect of the universe and that was the height of my purpose in this life, my reason for living. That I wasn’t on the same wavelength as the universe itself because I WAS. I didn’t feel delusional, and I still don’t think I was even now...  “I’m not going to crash,” I scoffed. He laughed and tested me with it again. And again I brushed him off, laughing. 

At that point, I’d stopped sleeping almost entirely. I subsisted on endorphins. I managed 4 hours a night. I wrote and wrote and wrote and I made plans and I felt like I used to feel when they prescribed me adderall only better. I stopped giving ANY fucks about school and took my first F nonchalantly for the most part. I stopped going to the class, didn’t take the final, didn’t write the final paper. This was not like me, the life time good student, and to do so with hardly a care? What was school in the face of the future, in the face of my true purpose? None of this shit is real anyway - life isn’t real, I thought. What is reality? I laughed. I am going to die and be forgotten, why am I so concerned with all this bullshit? I can do anything and I can be happy in any situation no matter what happens because I have love, I AM love. I threw in the towel at school.  

and then eventually I crashed some time after this, and it was unexpected still too. It never crossed my mind, even when my therapist put it there. Everything was all in the open now. I didn’t always do the right thing. It felt like I knew that I had wings, and no one could see them, but I flew anyway. And then something happened and my brain just decided to accept the social reality that I didn’t, so my wings only I could see shrunk into nothing and I fell thousands of feet to the ground. I realized in a speechless, horrified panic that was not the perfect, helpful, merciful, loving being I thought I’d been. I thought that I was god, but now I looked back and saw only the devil at the damage she’d caused without a second thought. What have I done? Who was I? How could I do this? I just wanted to die. What was wrong with me? Everything I’d ever done wrong in my life came back to haunt me. I didn’t know how to apologize enough. I felt miserable and like a disgusting excuse for a person. I felt like I deserved to die for my half-truths and redirected empathy. I was a werewolf. I was a normal human who turned into a selfish, hungry monster willing to do anything to fill the hole inside her that could never really be filled. I hated myself. I was no angel, no goddess. Who am I? 

It took time, lots of talking, lots of conflict, lots of effort, lots of facing fears, lots of honesty, lots of risk, but I felt like things were getting better. Part of me was angry. Why were my mistakes the gravest sins while similar sins from others were things I’d forgotten not long after they happened? Why were things always worse and more evil when I did them in comparison to others? Did I just forgive too easily? I don’t know. I had to pick up the pieces. I was knocked so far down. I’d climbed a ladder and almost reached the top, but my mistakes caused me to slip and fall to the fucking ground, damaged and terrified and uncertain of how to even go about climbing back up again. 

I started wondering if something more was going on? I’d given up on diagnosis a long time ago. It’s just the symptoms, not the label that mattered. But it felt like my symptoms weren’t even being addressed anymore. Isn’t being manic a symptom? Should I not look into this? 

“I wish you wouldn’t think of yourself as mentally ill,” he said, “it’s not productive.” 

I don’t know what to think anymore. I don’t fit the full criteria for borderline personality disorder, but I am 100% certain there was a long stretch of time in my past that I did. Several symptoms still apply frequently, some less so. I was diagnosed with PTSD and don’t fit the full criteria, but I cope with symptoms off and on, some daily, some not. It changes you and it doesn’t matter if you don’t fit the criteria on a daily basis, at one point you did and it still can wreck havoc on your life. I look at bipolar disorder and there are several other episodes of my past I have failed to mention here to lead me to believe that’s something to consider in terms of symptom management and treatment. But I have a psychologist who believes that mental illness is changeable, maybe not in everyone, but in me for sure. I believe him and I believe that too. I believe that regardless of what someone might label me (because diagnosis is highly subjective and 5 psychs could give me 5 different opinions), I can learn to cope with the symptoms and function, somehow someway. I am not damaged beyond repair, but I struggle and that’s what matters. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, and even my saying that would cause my therapist to be frustrated with me even thinking of myself that way. There’s a fucking problem when I’m hurting other people and not thinking about it. There’s a fucking problem when I feel indestructible and look back going “What the hell was I thinking”. There’s a problem when in the past I’ve struggled with mood regulation and had several “manic” type episodes where even if I wasn’t “happy” like I was this time, like most people stereotypically believe is all that manic means, I was agitated and motivated and hyped up in the same way directed into negative emotions, which can be part of hypomania/mania/mixed episodes. I’ve had delusional episodes related to my health. It hasn’t happened for a while, but its presence in my past matters. 

I just want to be well. I beat myself up, thinking that even when I’m happy it’s not because I’m really happy, it’s because I’m mentally ill and he, my therapist, was disappointed in me saying that. Part of me still feels that way, while another part of me knows I truly was happy. I don’t know what to think. Maybe both can be true. I don’t know how to be. I just am, and I’m just trying to pick up my pieces and function and love and live and be a good person, the best I know how. Sometimes I fuck up, but I’m always sorry and I want to do better. I don’t have a label and I don’t know if I really want one. I just know the things I do aren’t always like normal people - my feelings, my interpretations, my assumptions, my thought patterns. I was traumatized and that changed me. But even before that I was never normal, and I knew it. I was anxious, depressed, and fucked up as a child while my other 8 year old friends didn’t have these problems. I am mentally ill but that doesn’t define me or make me hopeless. It doesn’t mean I can’t achieve and accomplish and manage it and grow. I am a capable, smart, strong, loving person, and sometimes I mess up, sometimes I feel worthless, sometimes I feel spiteful and hurt and sad and afraid, and I’m not perfect. I just do my best in the moment and that’s all I can do, even when sometimes I realize immediately I can do better in the next minute. I push myself and I try to grow. Deep down that’s the thing that motivates and drives me the most. It’s my greatest desire and biggest hope.

I am everything. I’m an angel and a goddess and a werewolf and the devil. I am courageous and cowardly. I am loving and also selfish. I am impulsive and hesitant and I think sometimes that I’m not good enough, while other times I’m too good. I am petty and apologetic and loyal and untrustworthy. I am self-conscious and helpful and kind and would do anything to help a friend. A stranger. I am also confused and knowing and lost and settled and I am every fucking contradiction. That doesn’t make me fake or wrong or cruel, it fucking makes me human. I’m aware of my contradictions, I don’t deny them. It means I have choices to make about the reality of who I am and who I want to be. I am not in denial about either side of me and every combination of my traits. It doesn’t absolve me of responsibility for the bad things I do. It doesn’t mean I am above criticism or that I’m saying I am perfect and always justified. I’m not. I love myself and criticize myself and sometimes I hate myself too. 

I’m not perfect. But I do my best, and that’s all I or anyone can ever do.