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,
by leaving me alone...it'll kill me. Leave me alone but rescue me. I need you to rescue me if I am to live. I am not alive. I am dead when I try to be alive. I am alive when I act like I'm so dead I can't feel anything. There is such a sharp feel to the pain of the numbness. Feeling the absence of myself like this. Where do the feelings go? Where does all of that pain hide? I dissociate from all that hurts. I give it to others. It is their fault, and their problem, not mine. Help me, while you leave me alone. Leave me alone while you help me. NOW!
I am the center of the universe. Yes I am. I am it and it is me. I will act this way too, if I feel like it. No, you can't win. I will win. I'll get you coming and I'll get you going and there will be no way that you can win. I must always win. I need to control because I feel so helplessly out of control, but you can't know that. You can't know that okay, you don't know that about me. I don't know that about me. I don't know you and because I don't know me. You can't know me either. No, I won't let you into a place that I have yet to gain access to. No, me first.
Who am I? I thought I knew just a minute ago. Then, suddenly nothing felt familiar anymore. Nothing felt okay anymore; nothing felt SAFE anymore - nothing felt as it had before. Why does this happen and what does it mean? What do you mean you don't know? You are supposed to know. I expect you to know. And if I expect it then I have a right to demand it from you. Don't go asking me for anything, NO, it depends how I feel, and what I believe in any given moment...you just never can know because I never know what I'll do or say or feel. Every moment changes and shifts from one to the next. What is real, what is truth, whether or not I think I can take care of myself or what I feel, or right or wrong, from minute to minute changes, so I really just don't know. I don't care to know. Don't bother me about it. Leave me alone, just stay here. And be quiet while you talk to me. Talk to me silently. Words can hurt. Don't be too quiet in your silence though, because silence can kill a soul.
I know, it killed mine over and over again. Dead, time and time again, risen hopes, only to fall and die, unanswered, arms outstretched, never reached for, never grasped, arms that hung outstretched, never reached for, never grasped, arms that hung outstretched while a little girl screamed in terror and fear and had more need that any infant could possibly bear to hold. Arms...that had to hold themselves, suspended in mid air, left alone, ignored. Arms that would take another thirty-six years to ever dare to reach out again. So hold me, and rock me -- rock me to stillness -- gently okay, just don't touch me really, you know?
The third and final part of Emma's story will appear on February 24th 2010.
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