I am 40

 My truth, my apology, my life.

Long post it is.

#deardiary

#insomniacrandomthoughts

I have hidden this from some people, those who do not need to know so they can continue to live life with the bliss of not having to know, and perhaps absolve them of not having to care about knowing and reading thru this short book I'm writing here LOL.

40.

They say life begins at 40. Perhaps it truly does.

You see a few months ago, I have been diagnosed with BPD, which became a comorbidity of what started out as complex PTSD. Everyone knows what PTSD is, but not so much BPD. It is a clinical diagnostic for a mental illness describing an individual with attachment issues and trouble regulating emotions. People with BPD feel an intense amount of the emotions normal people feel. This drives very impulsive decisions and actions that are unreasonable and irrational because the brain wasn’t formed normally enough that their fight-or-flight response is always active. They respond and react to events differently than normal people. Sounds simple enough, huh? I truly wish it was.

I thank everyone that have been a part of my life, then and now. I'm sorry for all the things I've put everyone through for the last 25+ years or so, ever since high school. I know that for those who really came close to me and who at one point in my life believed could save me, they've seen how volatile and toxic I can be. You know who you are and I understand. To all those that are no longer here, be it coz I left and cut them off so suddenly for the smallest of reasons, or those that in their right mind, walked away from me before I could, consider yourself lucky for saving yourselves from a lifetime of suffering and pain. 

To all those that remain, thank you and I am sorry.

I am sorry for my uncontrollable outburst of emotions and tantrums, my neediness and insecurity, my impulsive dramatic reactions, my excessive crying, my emotional immaturity, my selfishness and sometimes cold-heartedness, my violence and spitefulness, my explosive vindictive rage, my days of seemingly temporary insanity, and for all the times I left you to try to disappear, start over, or die. It was never done deliberately nor with malicious intent, but I know no average person would ever be able to understand or believe that. 

My BPD brain will always find ways to make me stuck in an angry reactionary cycle I caused myself. I have sabotaged myself and my interpersonal relationships and scorched everything burning everyone along the way, with no mind of consequences. I pushed people, by giving them no other choice, to do what I fear they would do and I would then villify and break them. And then I cannot cope and put myself in self-destructive situations I can't take back and get out of. I always felt then it is the world that is wrong, when I really just could not recognize it was all just me. Many years of the same pattern I've lived and never realizing what was wrong. I may not remember the details of everything I've said and done then, but I want you to know that I am filled with enormous grief and regret for them, more than anyone could know with an intensity that could not be understood.

To all those that have not seen this side of me, well I hope you never have to see that side of me at all. 

Some say everyone should just hate and run away from borderlines. In movies and series eps, some borderlines would be the manipulative villains you love to hate. Some call them evil and cruel, and that can be true, for they will, in the long run, be bad for your own mental health. They can drown in rage and be vindictive enough to kill with that reptilian state. And with the flip of a switch, hate you and never look back. I am not a psychopath nor a narcissist, although it may have seemed at certain moments in my life I acted like one. During extreme emotional distress, my logic is a jumbled mess and my reasoning is just fucked-up mental gymnastics one can't even comprehend. I know people would probably be better off without me, especially when I do not make sense anymore. 

This is the way I am and there is no cure. But the symptoms can be managed and treated with professional help. I have been working with a clinical psychologist and a psychiatrist the last few months so as not to cause mental health issues to those that depend on me, to break any traumas I might pass on obliviously, and to help me with my emotions. We started with working on all the events that caused my complex PTSD long ago... It only made sense to tackle that first. I have been given medication for my persistent depressive disorder. And my anger is managed with a low-dosage antipsychotic. I wish I had known back then and I wish I had the means for treatment way back. I might have led a less tumultuous and less impulsive life. But this is how it is.

It is a long, lonely, and difficult road. To be able to recognize when thoughts, actions, feelings, decisions I have are no longer that of a healthy normal individual is hard. My therapist said I should always outsmart my BPD. And every session, I am being challenged to do things away from my norms to teach the brain to form new pathways. He teaches me skills to manage BPD symptoms and triggers. When the range of emotions.. anger, emptiness, guilt, perceived rejection and abandonment, real or imaginary, I would feel is so great it would hurt physically, and then to not be able to trust and give in to cope with them is exhausting. 

With my diagnosis, I did not know how to feel, whether I'd be relieved to find an explanation for how different I am, or to feel despair for the life I led. This is the truth that I have cried for for many months already, questioning whether I ever really knew how to love, or just always for all my life needed and took and demanded from everyone, because I have no love for myself nor from myself to give. But it is a truth I am starting to accept. 

For many years I have asked why, all the whys, before I even knew. But then there was never an answer to that question. And there won't ever be an answer now. And it is finally time to stop asking. This is the life I was given formed by numerous traumatic experiences as a child. And this is the life I have to live. The most difficult and painful mental illness experts say, and it had to be mine.

Perhaps if I continue on, when I am finally old and gray, I could say I was still able to live well at the end. And perhaps, the people that are still with me, I still will be able to find them holding on to me, and I to them. 

Happy 40th birthday to me.

It is an enormous gift to be considered a blessing to someone's life. Sadly, looking back at everything I have been through the last 40 years, it just feels like I had mostly been cursed and then, in turn, embodied that curse for others. 

It's funny. There is that meme going around saying you'll have that fairytale kind of life one day, but you'll be the witch. And people laugh at it. Well, I am the villain of my story. I boiled my cauldron and took a bath in it and burned many others that did not deserve it.  

I am 40... probably more than halfway thru life if I lived long enough. Maybe life for me begins now. For now I take the steps to learn to finally live, and not just be on survival mode everyday (while giving pain and destruction to people lol), but truly live this time. 

May God help me to not forget who I should always be, for my family, my children and my husband, and for those that care for me.

"Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards." - Soren Kierkegaard