Borderline

Being borderline has always seemed to cast me aside. Before I knew what it was I just knew I couldn’t make sense of why people left. I blamed myself and would do whatever it could to make the pain slow. When things slowed down I would spend the rest of my time fighting off the guttural emptiness.

I have always just wanted to be wanted. I have loved fully. I have lashed out and cut off, I have sobbed and begged. I have cut myself a thousand times. I don’t remember the last full day I spent sober.

I have spent a lifetime trying to understand why. Something has always been different for me, I didn’t see the world through the lenses of those around me. I saw pain, loneliness, and a seemingly never fleeting emptiness.

I have only ever really felt alive when I was close to death.

I still don’t know why people leave. I have broken down everything that makes me who I was, who I am and who I want to be, ripping myself apart looking for the one answer to my question.

Why am I not good enough?

I wanted to feel wanted. I wanted to belong. I thought once I knew what made me the way that I was, I could fight it, recognize the things that pushes people away and become better. For myself and the people around me.

I became honest. More honest than most people that I knew. I knew that I had flaws but if I left everything out in the open, left no room for surprises, people would know what loving me meant and be able to walk away before walking away would kill me.

But it didn’t. It meant that people would give up on me earlier because they saw me as someone a moment away from disaster. I loved with everything that I was while they remained hesitant.

I loved too hard, too much — it was too overwhelming for those not yet ready. I was committed, while they sat on an underlying fear. One day, I would lose it. Not today, or tomorrow, but one day, so keep yourself safe.

I was so proud of myself, I thought I had become so “self aware.” I knew I could not control how I felt, but I could control how I responded to it. I went years without lashing out, what we usually refer to as “splitting.” I trusted people when they said they wouldn’t leave and I became comfortable.

Then I broke. All of the worst parts of me that I had shoved just under the surface were tearing me open from the inside. Seeping out and spilling over everything I had built for myself. Like a rescue dog that everyone’s been waiting to break and bite the kid. We all knew it would happen, we just didn’t know when.

It’s almost an out of body experience, having a borderline fueled meltdown. I see myself, careening off of a cliff, but I am still behind the wheel. I watch it happen in slow motion and I can’t take my foot off the gas. I lose control and give in, I can no longer hold back, I am finally exactly who they expected me to be. I am sucked right back into the cycle, I am in pain so I break, and then I hate myself for all of the ways that I fall apart and continue to do so.

I self destruct in a thousand different ways hoping to numb the pain but it never seems to stop. There is never middle ground for me, I operate in extremes, trying to latch on to some sense of stability but my fingers are bloody and I’m running out of time.

I will tell everyone that I am doing my best, even though I no longer have control. All of my energy goes into trying to not kill myself. Distractions, medication, writing, road trips, give me anything but facing myself in the mirror. I am running from myself because I know who I am and I know what I’m capable of, and if I can run long enough until the pain eases, maybe I’ll have a chance.

Maybe there is a shred of instinct left in me that’s clinging onto existence, whilst I am fighting with everything that I have to see tomorrow. My future has long since dissipated into a forgotten dream. When every day hurts this bad, the furthest I can see is tomorrow morning.

I have 25 years worth of making it until tomorrow but I am slowly starting to lose to today.

I don’t know how I can be so empty yet so full of the worst feelings. I want a break, I want to breathe, because I am running out of air. I’m fucking drowning.