How it happens...

EXTREME TRIGGER WARNING  

This post contains detailed descriptions of episodes of anger and self harm related to Borderline Personality Disorder.  A short, but graphic example of the thought processes and actions that accompany my specific episodes.  There are no photographs or videos attached, just text.  
Please keep yourselves safe.  I am doing the same.  <3  












How it happens...


Something small.  Some perceived injustice that lights the flame.  
Or maybe something big and blatant.  Maybe some asshole whose sole focus it seems is to upset me...I do know those people.  People who intentionally push, knowing full well the outcome.  
And then it happens.  
I am angry.  But not anger.  Fury.  Fire.  Daggers.  I am sharp.  I am burning.  
My anger is irrational and unnecessary, and I am aware.  Knowing this causes it to fester, to swell inside me, until I am consumed by it.  
A permanent scowl has spread itself across my face.  I know I look scary.  I'm too angry to care.  
I reach out.  "I'm having some symptoms."  People are compassionate.  I appreciate it.  But people have their own lives to live, and they can't always be here, physically, with me.  I hate it.  I resent it.  I resent them.  

I replay scenes of injustice and abuse in my head.  The cruel words spoken.  The slaps across the face.  The rape.  The utter lack of love and concern in even my darkest moments.  My life, as a whole, with all the good canceled out, and only the bad, the cruel to fill the void.  My mind is stuck here.  I hate everyone who ever wronged me.  Fuck all of them.  Each and every single last useless one of them.  I hope they die.  
I seethe.  
It grows.  

I rip my knife across my thigh, and hope the bleeding is heavy.  It's better when it's heavy.  When it runs in little trails down to my knee, looking vicious and dangerous despite the fact that it's only 10 or 12 superficial cuts.  I scrape the blood with my knife and gather it into large, organized pools, making room for more.  There must be more.  There is a spark of relief as I photograph the wounds.  And then it passes.  I am in my hole again.  

If someone were to cross me in this moment, I would spiral.  I would disconnect.  I would throw things.  Punch walls.  Slam doors.   Scream.  Swear.  I hate them.  Deep.  The anger is in my bones, and no superficial flesh-wound will release it.  I need to be alone, but the solitude feeds the fire, and it grows.  I photograph my face, dark and swollen.  Stained with tears.  I compare the pictures to the ones of my happier faces.  Polished and pretty, a sparkle in my eyes.  It's not the same person.  I am some sort of monstrous duality.  I don't recognize me.  

There are noises.  Clanging, ringing, mumbling voices.  Random words that echo loudly between my ears, making it hard to concentrate.  Similar to the experience of getting an annoying song stuck in one's head, I hear phrases or words or sounds.

"SANCTION.  SANCTUARY.  SECRETARY.  TERRA COTTA."
Clang clang zip.  Beep.  "FORNICATE  DILATE."  Buzz buzz.  

I sit, sometimes for hours, just staring.  I listen to music,  hoping to drown out the noise inside, hoping to find some sort of melodic vibration to calm the beast inside.  I watch old, familiar movies, hoping to capture the memory of a happier time and grab onto it with both hands.  It always slips away.
I eat until I'm sick.  Or sometimes, not at all.  Not for days.  I smoke until I'm queasy.  

I paint.  I write.  I smash things up in the garage.  I walk around my neighborhood, sweating and certainly looking like an angry elephant, stomping unintentionally with each step.  I take Xanax to dull it out.  What will happen when they're gone...I'm afraid, for that day is rapidly approaching.  There are no refills, and I will be on my own.  With this...thing.  

I come to terms with the fact that there is no way out of this, and I must simply wait.  Feel the anger and the sadness and the misery until it fades, and I can breathe again.  

And then I do.  The relief creeps in slowly, tip-toeing around the violent spikes jutting out in all directions.  Wisps of calm, floating in like fog and caressing and dissolving each sharp emotion, until there is room for peace.  My jaw relaxes, my shoulders sink, and there I am again.  The person everyone knows, and loves.  The person who smiles and means it.  The person...not the diagnosis.  

There is no easy answer.  And so I ride the storm, and wait.