Me, myself, and I.
How many different me's do I see when I see myself with mental illness?
How much do those me's change?
How many of those me's will I know in this lifetime?
The question that keeps coming up is how when it should be why.
Why do I have so many me's?
Why am I affected by mental illness so badly?
You see, with BPD [or Borderline Personality Disorder] mental illness is intensified by a great deal. I joke that it's like that old slogan for kids to say no to drugs - "This is your brain, this is your brain on drugs". Well mental illness is the first brain, BPD is the one on drugs hahaha. Nothing feels like what typical mental illnesses feels like. No experience is the same, but no experience is like the BPD experience.
Everything hits you all at once. You can move from happy to depressed to pissed off to laughing all in the span of 2 minutes. And then you cycle back through different emotions. Stability is not the BPD emotions friend. Ever. There are so many facets to BPD, so many different emotions, so many different ME's.
These are the many ME's of my mental illness..
Angry,
This is a me that I hate, a me that isn't truly me!!!
First off, I cry when I'm angry or frustrated. This makes being rational and having a discussion not an argument quite hard!
I am mean. I will yell and scream. I will throw things. I believe I am on the spectrum somewhere so when I start to loose myself, I repeat until I feel I've gotten my point across without realizing I'm repeating myself. And it makes fights worse lots of times.
I have a big problem with someone gaslighting, condescending, talking over or cutting someone off, and being sarcastically rude. These fuel my anger. These make me feel so disrespected and not cared about one bit. It makes me fight more and try to make the other person understand how hurtful and disrespectful what they said to me was in pretty much any way that works - usually by making the fight incredibly worse. I may explode in frustration and berate "how would you feel if I did that to you"
This is NOT who I am! this is my MEntal illness.
Depression,
This one, this is one I've felt longer than the anger.. which says a lot for me.
I'm almost always feeling depression. This is my main emotion. It's hard to bring yourself out of it when you have such chronic mental and physical health problems that cause other serious problems in your life. It's hard to pull yourself out when your whole life has been and continuesto be a struggle.
I'm sad, and I'm slow moving, and slow thinking, and I'm quiet, and I'm tired, and I'm low on energy, and I'm gloomy, and I'm dissociating, and around I'm not fun to be around.
Depression took my joy and took my laughter and is holding it hostage. Some days I get a glimpse that it's still alive but then the next day it's back to depressed and angry. Its still there but it can't come out no matter how hard I try.
This is NOT who I am, this is my MEntal illness.
Emptiness,
In the midst of all my depression, I often feel numb which can leave me feeling empty inside. When this emptiness persists it'll make me feel hallow and lonely most times. Being lonely, especially when you aren't alone, is saddening. Feeling like no one cares about this gaping hole in the middle of your core hurts. And when you're not alone it's something extremely hard do talk about.
It's very uncomfortable. It's exhausting. It literally makes you so tired. It's hard trying to keep going when you feel nothing - no hope, no excitement, no joy, no care. It's a feeling you truly want to escape, want to run away from, and makes you want to do anything to feel anything but this emptiness.
It's NOT who I am, this is my MEntal illness.
Depersonalization,
Not feeling real, not feeling like one's self, not feeling like you are YOU is a weird feeling. Floating between real and not real is such a weird feeling!
It's hard to explain but I'll try my best - imagine walking down your hallway only to feel like it's not actually you walking, that you're more like floating above/inside your body. Usually this feeling happens when I'm in a low mentality so it goes hand in hand, you don't feel like you so why would you be you? That's what's it's like.. kind of, because everyone feels it differently.
Lots of times you have a hard time feeling like you have a specific personality. It's hard to determine who you truly are when sometimes you don't even feel human! It's having part of you that don't quite make up a personality yet somehow make up you.
It's NOT who I am, this is my MEntal illness.
Those are the different ME's of my mental illness. I'm sure there's more of me out there but none of them come to the surface the way anger, depression, emptiness, and depersonalization do. I feel these almost every day. I feel them deep in my core. They cause me pain and suffering. But these are the facts, these are the different ME's. And you know what? It's okay that I have these different ME's.
It's okay that my mental illness gives me these feelings. The only thing wrong with it is the stigma surrounding BPD and mental health. That is why I write about the different ME's. Talking about mental health is a passion of mine. Helping rid the stigma we are forced upon so that one day we can look at BPD and mental health in a positive way, in a way that helps instead of hurts folks. I want others to see they're not alone in feeling these emotions. They aren't alone in their mental health struggle. They aren't to be shunned for their mental health. They shouldn't be stigmatized like that.
Everyone has multiple ME's in their mental illness, and we need to talk about it more so we can support each other more and understand each other more. So we can have more peace in the world and less cruelty.
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