bpdbiscuitblog-blog

[bpdbiscuitblog-blog]

Putting Down Roots

  After

Chest tight. Can't breathe. Eyes blurring. I catch myself on the counter, clutching a pale yellow envelope in the other hand. It crumples slightly under the pressure of my fingers. I focus in on the words. His name. My name. I don't have a pseudonym for him yet. I wonder what it'll be. We'll see I guess.

The letters slowly straighten out as I focus on breathing. In. Out. In. Out. In. Out. Taste, touch, smell, hear, see. I walk myself through my grounding exercise. The triggers are so much more easily managed now. Except when the pain is bad. Except when I'm doing what has to be the craziest thing I've ever done in my life.

Immigration and Naturalization Service. The Netherlands.

The first step towards residency. The first step towards really escaping the life I was born into. The first step towards not remaining a statistic.

But also…the first step towards losing my home. Shitty as it was, America was the only home I ever knew. And now? I'm so in between. A foot in both worlds, but no roots. I feel my stomach flip. Can I do this?

I text him. I tell him. Panic attack. He says he can call. Just him saying he can call stops the attack. I'm not alone. I'm not abandoned. I'm safe. I'm warm. I'm fed. I'm comfortable. I'm loved.

And then I remember that he's not the only one I can call anymore. I  literally have dozens of people now, a text or phone call away, that can walk me through any trigger, any time, 24/7. I have a tribe. Scattered though our members may be, the tribe is full, overflowing. I have my people.

I can do this.

I wait in line. Turns out to be the wrong line.

I wait in another line. The guy has to take a phone call before he can help me.

I wait. And wait. And wait.

My heart thuds rapidly. I tense. Fight or flight. I want to run.

"Mevrouw?"

I look up. He says something else in Dutch. "Sorry. I'm American."

He smiles, "Oh, no problem. What do you need?"

"I need to….," I look down at my hand. The envelope. "I need to mail this. Do you have a way to track it?"

"You want to register it?"

I nod. "Yes, dankjewel."

He puts the envelope on a scale. Eight euro ninety-five. I scan the card. The screen glows green. I don't know the Dutch word, but I assume it's something like "approved" flashes across the screen. He hands me two receipts.

I quickly text him, the one whose name is on the envelope too, my sponsor now. "Done."

My phone vibrates nearly instantly. "Good. Get chips and beer. We're celebrating."

My hands shake as I stash the receipts inside my passport. Proof. I can stay now.

I grab the food and booze and bike home, feeling…sleepy mostly. I drag myself up the three flights of stairs to the tiny loft, dorm-style living, I share with him. I put the beers in the fridge, the chips on the desk, and snap a photo of my passport and receipts.

Decent pic I guess. Needs a background.

Oh, the hat. Dutch pride, right?

Wait, the rocks and seashells from the North Sea.

And here's the cat for Moon. And the puzzle from the Efteling. And Robert. Mustn't forget my giraffe. Oh, the hat.

I snap more pics as I keep adding new things.

That last pic. Hmm. Not bad. It's like…roots, right? These are my roots.

Each item represents a day I want to remember here. And I've got all of these things. Little things, right? I travel light. Always running from city to city, state to state, now country to country?

Am I done running? Can I really put down permanent roots here?

Yeah. I mean, probably. So far, so good.

Do I have to decide yet?

Nah, not really. But it works for now.

And as long as it works, I'm staying.

And even if my sponsor is one day no longer my sponsor, I have options. I can stay and keep putting down roots. Or I can go.

But I don't have to decide yet. I got time.

Till then, I can put down some roots.

#bpd #actually bpd #borderline personality disorder #actually borderline #ptsd recovery #travel #adventure #immigration #dutch #netherlands #holland

[bpdbiscuitblog-blog]

Nonsuicide Note: My Two-Year Journey from Suicide  Attempt to Peace and Adventure (TRIGGER WARNING)

  "You ruin everything."

"Rape victim."

"Cheater."

"You're a bad person."

"You got what you deserved, bitch."

"Get your ass in the house."

"He's not coming."

"Redheads are so much prettier."

"Green eyes are better."

"You're so pale."

"What do you mean you're not Christian?"

"White trash."

"You should smile more."

"Why can't you just be normal?"

 I have been running from these words and so many more all my life.

When I had a mental breakdown on Memorial Day 2017, I began a journey. One that is still happening every day.

But if you've subscribed to my blog and read my previous posts, you know that story already.

Today, two years later, I'm healing.

I've found peace.

I've found adventure.

Not 100% of the time. Maybe 75% of the time.

But that's better than none of the time. Steady improvement, right?

And now, instead of surrounding myself with people that tore me down emotionally, mentally, sexually, and physically, I find people who build me up. Wrap up in their words like a warm blanket on a cold winter night. Scrub the old words out of my mind and replace them with these new words.

 "You're like a little kid."

"You're sexy."

"You're smart."

"You didn't deserve to be hurt."

"They hurt you. They were wrong."

"You never hardened your heart to the world."

"You're special."

"I love your smile."

"I love your body. Don't change it."

"You have such a weird, individual style."

"When you walked into my life, the whole world lit up."

"Because I was lost, and you helped me."

"Thank you for teaching me to read."

"You're the best teacher."

"You wanna play soccer with us?"

"Thank you for helping me learn addition."

"Thank you for helping my kid learn."

"He loves your class."

"These kids love you."

"We love you, Ms. C."

"I love you, K."

"I love you, Biscuit."

"You're a good person."

"You have a heart for people."

"You're so genuine."

"You're so brave."

"You really do love everyone, huh?"

"Why are you hugging homeless people, you fucking hippie?"

"You're learning how to point out elephants without hurting people."

"Take care of yourself, Rafiki."

"People will hurt you, baby girl. Please be careful."

"You're a pain in my ass. But you're worth it, baby girl."

"You're crazy. But you're worth it, baby girl."

"You're worth it, babe."

"You're worth it, baby."

"You're worth it, mommy."

"You're worth it, My Angel."

"You're worth it, baby girl."

"You're worth it, K."

"You're worth it, sis."

"You're worth it, Biscuit."

"You're worth it."

 Yeah, not sure why my girl Amy Schumer had a problem with being called "brave". That was fucking brave. If you don't feel absolutely perfect at all times, showing parts of your body you're self-conscious about is so damn hard. And she is self-conscious about them, or she would have realized that's what they meant when they called her brave. No airbrushing. No fixing anything anyone else could perceive as a flaw. Just being proud of who you are, being happy with your flaws. I'm definitely not there yet. I wore this oversized tank so that I could cover up or crop any part of my body I wasn't happy with. I didn't wear it because I wouldn't pose naked. I wore it because I wasn't happy enough with my body to pose naked. Will I feel different after my tummy tuck? Will I suddenly want to show off my new body, one that's more like me at 18 than ever before? Shit, I'm already picking out bikinis…

But for now, I'll just crop it to the important parts and not focus on what I can't change. The important parts (sorry, guys) are not my boobs. Or my eyes. They're my arms and legs. They're the words written on them. The ones in red are things I need to forgive. But I haven't forgotten them. And the ones in blue I never should forget. They're too important to my mental health and wellbeing.

I need a new mantra.

Love…is bullshit.

 Love has been made out to be this emotion that people have for you. Empty words and chivalrous actions in an attempt to get laid on the reg is not love.

Lots of people love me through this. Because love is something you do. It's not an emotion. It's an action.

And I need to love better. The action, not the emotion. I need to love my friends, my kid, and most importantly, myself better.

So that's the goal, right? Be a better human being. My purpose in life, if I do nothing else, or if I do something way different from what I planned on doing, is to follow my rules to the best  of my ability. Be nice. Be honest. And if I can't be nice, then I need to be as minimally aggressive as possible in order to still be honest. And honestly, my life is the most important to me. I need to be selfish right now. If I'm not, I am putting my mental health at risk. It is what it is. I'll do my best to minimize and improve. But this is where I'm at.

It's like Pink says.

I'm not broken. I'm just bent. I can learn to love again.

Maybe not right now. I just need to fix some shit right now. But like....one day. When I'm ready.

For right now, I'm just going to be happy loving myself. And my kid. And my friends.

And really….

And really that's what's most important, right? More important than what other people believe about me, say about me….is what I believe and say about myself.

 "Hi, I'm Biscuit."

"I'm a hippie."

"I love music, especially Stevie Nicks and Halsey."

"I'm a storyteller."

"I'm a pothead."

"I'm poly and pan."

"I'm a gamer."

"I'm a business owner."                                                                                                                                

"I want to be nice and be honest. And I want people in my life to be the same way. And I want us to help each other learn."

"I love people very easily. Trusting is hard, but that's because some bad shit happened to me, and I’m still getting over it."

"I'm a good friend."

"I'm a good mom."

"I'm a good person."

"I want peace and adventure."

"I'm a pain in the ass, but I'm worth it."

"And I'm on a Pink kick today, so here's another song."

"And I want to live. Like, a long time. So Ima do that now."

#bpd #suicide #actually bpd #bpd problems #bpd thoughts #mental health #ftw #survivor

[bpdbiscuitblog-blog]

Man, I can’t tell you how many times my friends and family have said this is my response when they talk to me and I’m dissociated...

when you’re dissociating and someone asks you a question

#truth

[bpdbiscuitblog-blog]

Southern Wisdom to Tumblr Porn Problem

Hey Tumblr, simple solution to your porn problem: tell people if they don't want to see porn, don't subscribe to #porn.

#tumblr southern wisdom porn simple commonsense

[bpdbiscuitblog-blog]

[bpdbiscuitblog-blog]

Southern Wisdom on Snowy Weather

It's snowing here in Indy! Just a few inches, and I was asking Gravy about how Yanks get out in the snow on days like this. And he says, "Well, when it's just a few inches like this and not icy, you're fine. But when it's several feet -- ." I interrupt him, thinking I know what he's going to say, nodding, "You keep your ass inside."

He looks at me like I'm a lunatic and says, "No, Krys. People have to live their lives. You get out there and shovel it and then drive to work." WTF is wrong with you Yankees?? The only idiots out in the snow in Texas are the three guys in a 4x4 truck helping out other idiots in 4x4 trucks by pulling them out of ditches when they fly off the roads! YOU KEEP YOUR ASS INSIDE.

#southern wisdom #cold weather #snow #yankees #funny

[bpdbiscuitblog-blog]

Memories in Music Part 1

Below is a piece of a BPD episode handled via Skype and in a mostly (?) healthy way. This is a conversation between me and Gypsy. Pretty one-sided, as you��ll see.

shit, I'm listening to a song makes me so sad. It's like a reverse of us. Like something you were trying your hardest to tell me at the time. Tell me everything's going to be okay, Gypsy. Remind me how happy I am now. Remind me things are better.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvbQK3e8kso

God I fucked up. I know it's better now, but sometimes I still get so sad and mad at myself.

shit shit shit shit

please wake up Gypsy

I need a friend

9:03 AM

Missed Call

okay, okay I can do this

I can work through this. I'm strong. It's just guilt. I can channel that.

I'm so sorry, Gypsy. I gotta make myself angry right now so I can get through this and focus. I gotta listen to songs that remind me of my anger over things. I know how to handle anger. I can't handle sad.

I'm sorry I'm going to send this to you. Please understand. It's just a song that reminds me not everything was my fault when I start feeling it is. I'll get angry, and then I'll get over it.

And then we'll have a great afternoon of gaming. Please don't be mad. Please know I'm sending this because i need to deal with shit that has nothing to do with anything that's your fault.

I don't ever want to hurt you on purpose again. I just need to stop the bad thoughts

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAfAud_M_mg

Listen to it again for me, and just know it comes from that sadness and not real anger.

Just sadness at everything we lost, like our sweet boy

God I can still picture him.

I'm so sorry Gypsy

I tried so hard

neither of us could see

I knew it too. I knew from that night on acid, our first time, that things were not going to work out. And I still kept pushing us.

I kept praying I was wrong

I saw it. I saw it though

I saw that both of us were just too fucking broken and not dealing with our shit back then

and we were just going to fuck up and fuck each other over

over and over and over

god I need to hear your voice

that night on acid

I saw it during one of my trippy I'm not really here, I'm doing the cosmic journey shit.

I even started like laughing and crying. I don't know if you remember. I said something like, we were so close

and we missed it

we were so close at happiness together

and we fucked it up

but it's like this

here's my part in it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdYFuCp3m9k

I'm a serial dater. Always looking for safety and security in the arms of another man because I fucked up things with the one I'm with.

That' my part

god i can't stop shaking.

And then I finally get a piece of things right with that new person, and then fuck it up again because I'm not honest and I hide my feelings.

I start getting to this point with someone

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SA7AIQw-7Ms

and I get scared and fuck it up

But you lied too, Gypsy. Things were bad with some of our relationship, and you didn't come clean with it. You needed me to do things for you that I wasn't doing, and I needed you to SAY them, out loud, with words, because I don't get subtlety. I don't get nonverbal. I needed you to be verbal because that's how I communicate. You weren't speaking my language, and you refused to learn it so I could understand you, and you got so angry at me for not understanding.

You put me in situations I had no way out of.

You got mad at me for not understanding. And I tried so hard to understand. And I was never good enough. Ever.

And I got so scared when you got mad.

And it turned us into this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RyInjfgNc4

And then it turned us into this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uelHwf8o7_U

[Gypsy’s dot turns green]

Oh god you're on

Thank god

Oh my god I'm spiraling. Catch me Gypsy. Talk to me

please call me

#gypsy #bpd #actually bpd #bpd problems #recovery #truth #music #mental health #ptsd #ptsd recovery #mental #crazy #biscuit #bpdbiscuit #relationships loss grief

[bpdbiscuitblog-blog]

Having the reverse of this with my ex whom I hurt deeply. Sorry you're in pain, Gypsy.

looking at your last fp’s instagram, remembering your life spiraled out of control, you have no job, dont go to school, still live in your parents house, have given up on any of your aspirations and theyve gotten off of their feet, moved on from you, and made a name for themself

[bpdbiscuitblog-blog]

"People like to stir shit; just don't lick the spoon.

- Woohoo

[bpdbiscuitblog-blog]

Superman Always Gets Up

Here's a weird I-need-sleep-because-I-thought-it-was-a-great-idea-to-drive-20-hours-in-a-day thought. Gravy and I are lying here in my good friend Redneck Pagan's comfy warm camper that he was sweet enough to let us crash in so we could save a c-note on a hotel room (thanks Redneck Pagan) and talking about all the reasons my first marriage to Superman didn't work out. (Stay with me now, this is not a bash the ex post). After giving him several reasons, on both our parts because it takes two to tango and I am a crazy bitch sometimes and all that, he asked me well then why are y'all so amicable now after all that drama? I said Superman is a nice guy. Grant asks what makes him so nice. I said when the world knocks him down, or he trips, or even when he knocks himself down, no matter how hard it is to get back up, Superman always, without fail, will get back up and try again. Superman, your nephew was right. You are Superman. Sugar, I told Superman last night how lucky he was to find such a sweet, beautiful woman, inside and out, to put up with him, but I think you both lucked out. Either way, you both ended up with a great partner that you deserve. I'm glad I can call you friends. #superman #nevergiveup #goodmen #bpdthoughts #borderlinethoughts #bpd #borderlinepersonalitydisorder #inspiration #ftw

[bpdbiscuitblog-blog]

I just wish I was good enough.

Sometimes it feels like no matter how hard I try, I never reach people's standards.

[bpdbiscuitblog-blog]

Me when I’m dissociating: I HATE THIS I wanna feel again

Me when I have feelings: I TAKE IT BACK

[bpdbiscuitblog-blog]

I’m always going to have a problem with letting people into my life, with affection, with addiction and with self esteem. And that sucks, I can’t keep anyone in my life. I can’t look at myself and like it, I can’t eat normally or go a day without taking pills. I’m never going to not flinch when someone dares to give me a hug. I’ll never think that someone’s going to not hurt me.

[bpdbiscuitblog-blog]

DISCLAIMER: BPD Rants Below

Hi everyone,

I just wanted to clarify something. This is my blog post for sharing how I felt at certain times about certain situations. As someone with BPD, how I feel may not reflect reality. Also a concern with people with BPD is that memory formation may not be complete or accurate. My memories may be altered due to dissociation, past memories surfacing, or just the passage of time. All I can do is promise to be as true to what I remember as possible and how I felt at the time and clarify by adding in later realizations in future posts. Please understand that when I’m writing I’m letting out the feeling from that moment in time and it doesn’t always reflect how I feel after I’m out of the trigger/relapse or the actual events. Anyone mentioned in my memories or experiences is welcome to post anonymously on my blog about what they were feeling or differences in memories from mine. I only ask that you do so anonymously, either using the nickname I’ve given you in the blog (or one you prefer instead, as some of mine are purposely chosen based on my personal feelings towards you and may not accurately reflect who you are as a person) as not everyone in the story may be comfortable with their identities being made public. Remember, people are all dealing with their own lives, and their jobs and relationships could be affected negatively if their past actions are made light so long after the events.

Thanks,

BPD Biscuit

#bpd #bpd feels #bpd problems #actually borderline #borderline problems #borderline personality disorder #mental disorder #mental health #mentally ill #journal #journey #blogger #healing #crazy #ptsd #recovery #ptsd recovery #complex ptsd #crazytrain #trauma #safe place #safe space

[bpdbiscuitblog-blog]

Great infographic I found on Imgur.

[bpdbiscuitblog-blog]

Very uplifting note. Honor your struggle!

[bpdbiscuitblog-blog]

How Many Did You Take? How Many, My Angel? ***TRIGGER WARNING***

Woohoo is one of my oldest friends. She’s an ordained Wiccan priestess and performed the marriage ceremony for my second husband and me. She’s been my spiritual advisor and counselor since before I was old enough to drink, and I’m 34 now.

Before I was diagnosed with BPD, back when I hit the Big Red Button (the one that says - DO NOT TOUCH because the consequences are catastrophic) on my life, Woohoo was still there for me. I was obviously going insane, up and leaving my 13-year marriage with my then 35-year-old husband and my 14-year-old daughter, Moon, and my house and my entire existence to move in with Gypsy, a 33-year-old failed musician-turned-gamer who lived with his mother and had no job, education, hope for his future, or even basic social skills, where I immediately began a life of weird, unsatisfying, and infrequent sex, binge drinking, and running from past and present trauma-drama. On a positive note, I became a teacher again, a fulfilling experience speaking to my soul, as I am a teacher in more than just career, but completely mentally incapable of taking care of myself, much less a group of 17 8-year-olds, and became overworked, exhausted, and an emotional hurricane in a matter of months.

But between the Big Red Button and the hurricane was a time of destruction and devastation where I used the fires of my own personal hell to burn every possible bridge to my old life that I could, many of them badly in need of burning, as I would never return to walk them again, but others, like the Bridge to Woohoo, one of the few structures still anchoring my rapidly deteriorating mind in reality. Woohoo never traumatized me. She never hurt me. She never sought to control me. But the night I lost my daughter Moon and what remained of my ability to cope with the pain I was experiencing, in my grief and despair, she became just another representation of that trauma, and in the days that followed surviving my suicide attempt (notice I did not say my first suicide attempt) she became one of several targets of my BPD-strengthened rage at that long-buried trauma, a casualty of Hurricane Biscuit, although I was still more of a Tropical Storm back then.

Woohoo is a force of nature herself at times. Just as crazy, just as sarcastic, just as devastating a wit as myself, Woohoo brings with her a kind of controlled chaos, a tornado-in-a-bottle personality, ready to let loose a barrage of her own hellfire if the mood strikes her, but mostly just fun, easy-going, patient, a breeze that could whip up into a frenzied tornado if the mood strikes, but content at the moment just to enjoy the current. Voluptuous, sex-driven, raven-haired, loud-mouthed, and profane could all be used to describe her accurately, as accurately as kind, generous, soulful, and motherly.

I no longer believe in soulmates, but I do believe we have, say, connected souls, and as much as anyone I’ve ever met, she is one of my connected souls. And yet, when she stepped up to do what needed to be done to save my life, I turned my back on her.

She warned me about Gypsy. Told me there was something “not right ‘bout that boy,” in her Oklahoma twang. They had an immediate dislike of each other, Gypsy and Woohoo. Gypsy called her a man-hating feminist. Woohoo called him a lazy, worthless piece of shit, among other things. Neither of them were wrong.

My response to her warnings, over and over again, like a love-struck teenager fawning over a, well, a worthless piece of shit, was a protesting, “But, I love him, Woohoo! He’s my one and only.” (I am now picturing myself striking a dramatic pose, forearm to my forehead, turning away and looking plaintively out the window into a setting sun, while declaring that she just wouldn’t understand.)

I blatantly ignored the mounting evidence that this pairing would only leave me broken and broke, and continued blissfully unaware along my journey of self-destruction, orchestrating a series of events that would leave me running from my home, my marriage, my family. I’m not saying I should have been leaving these things, at least the marriage and the home, but I shouldn’t have been running towards Gypsy, of all people. Woohoo would have been a better choice. She did offer me a place to live, a chance to “get my shit together” in a relatively peaceful environment, free for a few months at least from financial worry, a safe haven to start anew. Meanwhile, I waved merrily from my car window as I drove away, hollering, “Nah, I got this!” as I hauled ass down her driveway, blaring Gypsy’s music at full blast and heading back to the city, to his mother’s house and the tiny 10x10 room that was to be my new prison of my own making for the next several months.

Meanwhile, still unable to communicate the massive amount of emotional stress and pain I was under to anyone, my mind began bringing all my fears and the traumas of my past to bear, forcing me to deal with them however I could. Financially, I was surviving, barely, in no small part to Woohoo herself, who kept my business running mostly smoothly as the day-to-day operations manager, supplying me with a steady income even when I wasn’t actively working.

My ex-husband meanwhile had no intention of patiently waiting out my midlife crisis, immediately replacing the vacated space in our marriage bed with the first woman who would tumble into it. He convinced Moon that my mental state was due to the fact that I was a bad person who did not love her, and therefore she had no need to further associate herself with me.

The day I received that smug text message from him, superior in his position as head of a new family to control, I gave up. Oh, not without setting a few more fires of course, screaming and stamping my foot and using whatever means I could to manipulate my ex-husband into returning my daughter to me, letting me hear her voice, even if it meant terrifying a complete stranger, his new bed buddy, into thinking I was going to share photos of her in lingerie with the world. And where did I get these photos? Oh, Mr. Manipulation himself had provided those just days before when he was so very interested in seeing if I would join them for a threesome. But, that’s another story for another day.

After several hours of realizing that torturing Mr. M and and the future Mrs. M was not going to get me my daughter, my emotions spiraled me into a well of despair that I was not capable of pulling myself out of. I seized upon a bottle of pills, a prescription Mr. M procured from his doctor that I had been told was for helping me with anxiety from my ADHD, but in fact were mood-altering antidepressants that, when prescribed incorrectly, could lead to suicidal ideation.

Google is a useful source for immediate access to the LD50 of literally anything. LD50 is the amount of a medication that will, when consumed, lead to death in 50% of the population of those who take it. The LD50 for this particular medication was 15 pills. I had 30. While texting Woohoo, Mr. M, and the future Mrs. M., telling them my intentions unless they returned my daughter to me, I began counting out 15 pills. I continued the threats as I used the Everclear under Gypsy's bed (where he was currently snoring after taking a dose of Benadryl after a long weekend of my emotional drama), to swallow them one by one. At eight pills, Woohoo warned me that she was calling the police. Hours away from my location, she would never arrive in time herself to stop me. She did the only the she could to prevent my death at my own hands - she narced on me.

At ten pills, for some reason, Gypsy stirred in his allergy-med-induced coma, and seeing me swallow the tenth, realized what was happening. He took the pills away as I screamed at him, “Just five more, please, just five more!” while he screamed back at me, “How many did you take? How many, my Angel?” (Gypsy didn’t call me Biscuit. No one did at this time, actually.) After counting and recounting, doing his own internet search, and counting once more, he sighed with relief, realizing I’d only taken enough to give myself a stomach ache.

My sobs had subsided at this point, and I sat in stony silence as Gypsy stared at me, seemingly in shock at how close I had come to leaving his life, and my own, at my own hand. Then one of those loud knocks that apparently policemen are trained in, one that can echo through a house to the back of a bedroom and enter into even the fevered dreams of a hallucinating woman who just wanted to be happy, smoke weed, and eat a chocolate bar in peace, sounded through the house, setting Gypsy's mom’s chocolate labs off in a frenzied bark as well as my wails of panic.

“Tell them I’m okay, Gypsy. Please, tell them I’m okay. Tell them she lied. Tell them they lied. Can I stay here? I’m so scared, Gypsy.” With an irritated sigh, he put his khaki shorts on over his boxers, pulled me gently to my feet, and guided me to the door. “No, you’ve got to talk to them. They’re going to want to see you.”

As if I was a frightened toddler meeting Santa for the first time, he guided me to the front door. In my head, I was psyching myself up. “You can do this, Biscuit. Just act normal. Act normal. Be angry. If you’re angry, you can’t be sad. If you’re angry, you won’t cry.”

After a heated discussion between me and the cops, a worried discussion between the cops and Gypsy, and phone calls and screenshots of my texts to Woohoo and Mr. and Mrs. M. between the cops and Woohoo, it was decided that it would be in my best interest if I was detained involuntarily at a mental institution for a three-day psych hold.

In the front yard of a house I had only recently moved into, in front of people I barely knew, in front of my beloved Gypsy, I was handcuffed, crying and scared. As the cuffs clicked into place, I could see Gypsy at the front door, watching behind the glass, mouthing, “I love you,” across the void separating me from the only vaguely familiar thing left in my life. Physically, I was being kept safe, but I was being traumatized all over again, my hands behind my back all over again, forced to do something I didn’t want to do all over again.

But what else could Woohoo do? Physical safety trumped mental safety. I could never be mentally safe again unless I was kept physically safe now. At the time, I couldn’t see that. At the time, all I felt was fear and anger. For someone with BPD, fear and anger are terror and rage.

By the time I was released from my prison 48 hours later (instead of 72, as apparently I wasn’t that crazy), my mind had been fueled by this terror and rage for days, consuming my thoughts completely. Unable to turn that rage onto the people who had hurt me, I instead hurled it at Woohoo, now the sole symbol remaining of that night. I stripped her from the business, allowing Gypsy to spew venom through social media as the new voice of the company, coming to my defense as Woohoo tried to warn our contractors that there was something seriously wrong with my mental stability now.

In my gathering momentum of destruction, I decided to strike one more blow against my former friend, business partner, and soul sister: I refused to pay her. I kept her final paycheck, using it instead to shower Gypsy with books and games, gifts for his loyalty perhaps. Meanwhile, Woohoo, still in shock over my behavior thus far, now had to figure out how to make ends meet without the money she was owed, how to provide for my own godchildren, her sweet son and daughter, now just that much shorter of being able to cover expenses.

The only wise decision I made in those days was enrolling in counseling. But of course, showing up to the first session did not instantly make me see what I had done and was continuing to do. That would take time, more self-destruction, more mistakes, more trauma, and finally, finally -- partly due to that first step and the hard work of a southern Biscuit, partly due to the luck of finding her Gravy -- peace.

#bpd #bpd thoughts #actually bpd #bpd problems #bpd feels #borderline personality disorder #actually borderline #being borderline #borderline problems #journal #journey #suicide #friends #southern #crazytrain #ptsd recovery #recovery #ptsd #complex ptsd #ptsdlife #ptsdsurvivor #midlifecrisis #midlifewomen #trauma #mental health #mentally ill #mental disorder #depression #my life #life