Sarah

Raised in a hard working but comfortable home, I was born a bit off kilter with the rest of my family. I knew it but I don’t think there was time for it to be recognised.
Always feeling desperately alone and in deep confusion with the world order, I wanted to die. The first time I remember wanting to die I was around 5. I had this ball inside my chest that I wanted to force itself out of me, ripping me to pieces and ending me. There was nothing I could do with that ball, it just lived there, and occasionally something would inflate it. Pushing me, stretching my skin with discomfort, sadness and a deep deep desperation for everything to stop and be over.
My dad died when I was 13 and that made everything worse. If there was anyone that would understand me if I’d been allowed to take up the space and talk, it would have been him.
When I was around 19 a doctor diagnosed me with Borderline Personality Disorder.
It’s not a label I’ve used myself and it’s not something I have thought about often, but at the time, it made perfect sense. It described me on the nose. That my personality would be classed as borderline and therefore I would often fall either side of that border. Happy. Sad. Never “okay”.
I’m now 35 and after very many hours spent talking to myself as if I was my friend instead of ‘me’ I understand myself.
I don’t see that there is a “cure” for my emotions, but I have learned not to act on them in the self-destructive ways I did for three decades. It has improved my life to have spent the time working myself out and being kind to myself. If I cannot re-wire my brain, what I can do is tell it kind words and encourage it to try again tomorrow.
Life is hard and everyone is struggling, but we can all get better if we just show each other kindness.