Breaking the silence

Living within the confines of borderline - Part Three

Introduced by Lyn Jenkins

Part One of Emma's Story can be found here.

Part Two of Emma's Story can be found here.

This is the third and final part in Emma's incredible recreation of living with borderline in written form...

Truth, you want to talk truth? Whose truth, yours or mine? Is there a truth between? No, my truth is truth. Your idea of truth is a lie. I don't lie. If I don't lie and our truths aren't the same that makes you a liar. Does so...just does. If I am right then you are wrong. Yes you are. No I'm not. If I am good then you are bad if you don't agree with me or see things my way. My way isn't just right, it is the only way. What matters is what I want and need. That's my truth. And my truth is the truth. Don't you even try to lie to me, don't...

I know things but they seem fleeting. What is real and important one minute is fragile and or gone and or misunderstood-misperceived and misinterpreted by me the next minute. I don't know why? You were here a minute ago and it mattered. But then you left. While you were gone for three minutes and fifty-four seconds (clock time -- forever in my own sense of the reality of time) I forgot that you mattered to me and now I find it incredibly impossible to believe that you could love me and leave me just like that for three minutes and fifty-four seconds...to wait and to suffer like that, alone, isolated and afraid. Don't ever do that again. Promise me! Do you have any idea what you put me through? My parents left me like that. It's not alright for you to just be you and not be me -- while I'm being you too. I know things seem fleeting. Things keep changing. I can't hold anymore than I am whether I am holding anything or not.

You live in a 'big picture'. Life, so I am told unfolds in some 'big picture' of reality. I live in millions of little pictures. Millions of pieces of reality. Snapshots from the whole, fragmented seconds of minutes that seem to encompass hours. I can't tell what is going on around me like you do. No, it does not make sense to me. Part of this picture lined up with part of that one...what am I supposed to see? What can I know from these mixed up jigsaw puzzle messages? I get part of it. I don't understand the rest. First you seem to make sense, then you don't so I get angry and frustrated. In one part of the picture I care about you but in another part of the picture I remember out of context when you said this or that and then I can't trust you anymore, or not until the next moment when two picture pieces fit briefly together.

This is my experience.

So one minute I want you close, from a distance and the next minute I want you distantly-close.

This is what is going on inside of me. I don't want to hurt you like I do. I just don't know how to make sense of all of these jumbled messages and fragmented pictures that bombard my mind constantly with images and thoughts that do not fit together, not now, not ever, hardly ever anyway. If memories are pictures of the way things were (or the way things are?) then my memories, like strewn screams, echo to a voided-abyss in a cavernous canyon. Imagine all that sound overlapping itself.

Could you hear me then, any better than I can hear you now?

Welcome to my world,

Em xxx

Image: Free Digital Photos

Teen lobbies for better mental health education through You Tube

Kayla Murphy, 19, from Minnesota, submitted the above video to a hearing of her local state politicians to encourage them to approve a bill requiring better mental health education in schools.

To find out more, read an article in Kayla's local media, Postbulletin.com

A video about reducing the stigma of mental illness

'It just came out': An untitled poem about OCD

HE acts as my protector
Wrapping me up and placing
A soothing arm around me
But he's slowly destroying me
My mind and body
Deteriorate
The more I give in
The more vindictive he gets
Metamorphosising and finding
New tricks, new torment
I argue with him and almost win
But he's an expert at this game
What if? What if? He says
And so I comply
I feel calm
And he's won

Living within the confines of borderline - Part Two

Introduced by Lyn Jenkins

Part One of Emma's Story can be found here

Here is part two of Emma's exceptional story about living with borderline...

I have remained trapped inside this isolated, and insulated place of youth stunted in my emotional growth. I am a victim. It is not my fault. I hurt and I hurt and I hurt. Why don't you care? Why don't you care? Make it go away. Make it stop, just love me from over there. Love me, but don't you dare really care. It would hurt too much if you were to care. I wouldn't understand who you are caring for or about because I don't know who I am. I hate who I am and what I am. I hate whoever the hell I am. I have come to hate what it is that I might be, or sometimes am. I don't like the voided vacuum within which I feel like my being exists under a glass bubble. So close, yet so far away from others am I. So close, yet so far away, from whoever I am, am I.Who are you trying to care about? What does that mean, that you want to care about me? It would mean that I needed you to care. I don't need you to care but I am dying for you to care. Still, care from over there and don't act like I need you.

Rescue me,

Living within the confines of borderline - Part One

Introduced by Lyn Jenkins

When I first read Emma's story, I struggled. I struggled until I realised that as a piece of autobiographical writing it is incredibly effective at communicating the experience of living with Borderline Personality Disorder not only through its words but also through structure, pacing and punctuation. It is the product of a truly talented writer which is even more inspiring when you find out that Emma is dyslexic and had to go through every sentence repeatedly until the work was complete.

Reading it on screen may add to the feeling of disconnection, making it even more powerful. It will reward you for every minute of the effort you spend on it though. Now, over to Emma...

Rage from nowhere, attached to nothing...floating-freely from deep within me and ready in an instant to spew forth in what seem like instantaneously-effortless bursts of unbridled entitlement to give me a sense of power amidst the feelings of helplessness that are my every waking moment. If I am helpless you are too powerful, no, I will be powerful. I will take your power away so you can be helpless. I don't do helpless. I am power. I must have the power. We can't both have the power. I want what is mine. You are mine right? I am not yours though, I cannot be anybody's because I am not even my own. I gave myself to you. We are each other right? I mean, what's the difference?

Why do we hurt each other?

By Lyn Jenkins

SHARING our stories is an act of rebellion against those who would rather pretend that we and our 'problems' do not exist. It is also an act of trust. We trust that people will use our stories for good...that they will offer the same support to us that we have offered to them.

A few days ago I gathered together a group of people to share their stories with each other in a safe way, with no-one watching and no-one judging. We were there only to witness the stories and experiences that those present wanted to be heard by someone, anyone who would treat them with respect.

One person in the group spoke about their experience of a difficult relationship that had eroded their mental wellbeing until they experienced a long psychotic episode. Hearing her speak with such clarity and calm about the moment when she realised that the events, the conversations, her life for months had been created within her own mind, was inspirational and astounding.

Jo Brand interviews Ruby Wax about her experiences of depression

Should we 'fight' stigma?

HEATHER is one of the most positive, talented and dedicated people working to change the media image of mental distress that I have met during my work with Mind and here she offers her reflections in her own words on how we should 'fight' stigma, or even whether we should...

I was employed to manage a mental health anti-stigma campaign two years ago. It all seemed so straightforward at the time. There was I, a mental health service user, with a background in communications, PR and marketing. There was the project, funded for three years, working within a mental health service user organisation.

It all seemed so, well, straightforward.

Then I started thinking about stigma. We’ve all read the definitions of stigma (if you haven’t just Google it). And as mental health service users, we all know it exists. We *are* stigmatised because of our difference. Our ways of thinking, of doing, of existing.

But should we concentrate on this? We know stigma is wrong, harmful and damaging. It is limiting and disabling. We know we shouldn’t be stigmatised for our difference.

Overcoming binge eating, a personal account

I WROTE this last year and it appeared in a newspaper. I thought I would share it here too as people have got in touch and asked if we could please include eating disorders. I hope my frank account may be of interest.

MY fingers tremble as I unwrap the KitKat. It’s my fourth in two minutes and it won’t be my last.
Two bites and it’s gone. It doesn’t touch the sides. I devour the chocolate like there’s no tomorrow.
My mind is gripped with shame, but the compulsion to keep on chomping is stronger. I feel a bit giddy, verging on ill. I’m light headed, almost in a trance.
But still this feels right, it’s what I’m used to. Stood in my kitchen in my three-bed semi, I’m Mrs Average, tucking into an ‘average’ binge at 7 o clock on a Monday night. Up until now today has been a ‘good day’ - three light meals and a couple of snacks - fresh fruit, wholemeal toast for breakfast - wasn’t I good? Then Ryvita for lunch and stir-fry for tea.
Perhaps I have deprived myself too much.