Life on the Borderline: The Explosion

I suppose it was always going to come to this, always going to end in this fashion and I had been just delaying the inevitable.  Maybe, on some deeper level, I knew this and that is why I waited so long.  (Procrastination is a dirty, little habit of mine.)  There was never going to be an amicable parting of ways, an agreement and calmness to the detangling of our shared lives. The moment I stated my unhappiness, it activated a chemical bomb.  A chemical reaction was initiated that could not be stopped, nor reversed.  When the situation reached its boiling point... BOOM!!!

There is no other way when sparring with emotional dysregulation.  I can't even be mad at her for the things she's said and done during her eruption, because in a sense, she cannot control it.  She CANNOT regulate her emotions; she's incapable. She blasted into a manic state, spiraling up and out of control.  I can, however, and did, protect myself and my son from her unbridled outbursts.  For everyone's safety, most importantly hers and her daughters, I had to create space. I was the trigger for her, being near me caused the temperature to rise, the two of us residing under the same roof caused this explosion.  It was the toxicity that flowed and brewed and stirred within each of us and around us; one triggering the other.  She had to go.  Away from here, away from me she could come back down from her manic state. She was unstable and unsafe and still had a little one to consider.  She needed to return to baseline to be there for her daughter during this period of change too, to be safe for both of them.

I am not claiming my actions were solely altruistic, they were not.  I made her leave because I needed the safety of her absence, my son needed that safety too.  There is a storm that revolves around her, like a cyclone or whirlwind; a tornado.  Wherever she is, chaos ensues and endures.  Since she's left, the storm clouds are receding, the sun is poking through, and the dust is settling in the new calmness.  This is where I'll build a life...far away from the Borderline.

Life on the Borderline: End Times

I wanted to be the person that can withstand the troubled seas during the storm, be the anchor that held my partner steady during the worst of her battles with her personal demons.  I wanted a happy ending, one that included her and our beautiful, little family.  But.  That is not how this story ends.  It turns out, I am not a superhero and there are limits to the trauma I can withstand and endure.

I feel for her. I really do.  I cannot imagine the pain and anguish that burdens her mind on a daily basis.  What she feels when she experiences emotion is in extremes, overwhelming to her senses.  But it's her complete disconnect from reality that breaks me.  Her perception is not based in reality, in the world in which we all live.  The sleights she feels, powerfully real to her, just do not exist.  Each day I need to defend and explain and apologize for things that were never meant, never said, or never done.  And it's all futile in the end because she is incapable of seeing things outside her perception.  She has already determined the facts and nothing I could ever say or do could possibly sway her mind.

I have insidiously poisoned myself over the last 18 months, all with the same result of bashing my head against a brick wall repeatedly.  But rather than a bruised and broken skull and a bloody mess to mop up, I have a bruised heart, broken psyche, and an immensely tangled living situation to unravel.

There's a gaping emptiness engulfing me. I do not the feel warmth of another human being touching me, I do not see softness in the eyes that are supposed love me.  There is just coldness.  There is anger and hurt and betrayal.  There is the sensation of drowning... in sadness.  There is grief in unrequited love. I have come to realize that my self-esteem, my self-worth have been on a steady spiral into nothingness.  I have grown to believe that I have lost my zest, my appeal, my attractiveness to others.  I am losing myself in her crisis.  This is life on the borderline.  Life with a Borderline.

To save myself, my sanity, my liveliness.... This is me walking away.

Life on the Borderline

I didn't realize it immediately.  It's not like they wear name tags or announce their diagnosis like alcoholics upon introduction.  It's not like most even know it themselves.  

I fell in love.  She was fun and fresh and intoxicating in her vitality.  She had career goals, life goals and was actively working to pursue them.  She was a devoted mother to her beautiful toddler, family oriented, and loving.

I feel duped.  I feel deceived.  Smoke. Mirrors.

Today she is lost inside her own world.  Her personal demons have taken over, clearly in the driver's seat.  She is too anxious to work, too depressed to clean or cook or eat or even wake some days.  Her only coping technique? getting high.

Today I have no voice.  My life is no longer my own, my wants and needs irrelevant.  I exist solely to serve her. I provide the home, the utilities, the entertainment features, the food, and the means of transportation.  I provide, she takes.

We have been living amidst her crisis for a year now.  Hers are the only feelings that matter, her problems the only concerns to consider.  I am invisible except to provide.  When I fail to provide any given whim, I disappear completely.  Until a provision is needed again.

Manipulation is the only tactic she knows to fulfill needs.  Primary go-to: withhold and/or threaten most treasured, most valued need of subject. I have gone without genuine love and affection this year.  She dangles that carrot out in front of this horse and I will walk to my death to receive the sweetness.

It is killing me. Living with a Borderline is torturous. Physically, my body aches all over.  My nerves are frayed, one in particular misfires when stressed, causing debilitating pain on the left side of my face and head.  Bring me to my knees in tears pain.  The tension carried in my shoulders prevents full range of rotation in my neck and provides constant pain.  The abdominal pain has reached levels of intensity worthy of an emergency hospital visit and many thousands of dollars spent in diagnostic tests and procedures over the months, all results "normal."  Muscles hidden deep in the pelvis, muscles most do not know even exist, are now so tense it is nearly impossible to defecate, impossible to fully empty my bladder, and impossible to sit comfortably, as these muscles are squeezing my anus and urethra closed, and pulling my coccyx out of place.

Loving her is making me sick.  It is robbing me of my light, my love, my laughter.  She doesn't even notice.  This is by far the most toxic, the most unfulfilling relationship I've had. Yet, here I am.

I complain. I cry. Yet, I remain.  Forever the hopeless romantic or just the twisted masochist?

New Year's Reflection

 My heart aches.  A weight of unlimited and undefined measurement engulfs my body, pressing me, squeezing me, holding me down, from the outside, from the world, but also from within.  It feels as if lead is sludging through my vessels, a slow and crippling pace while cement is drying, hardening all around me.  This year has been tough.  The whole planet has struggled, life has changed dramatically for everyone in one way or another, and for too many, life has ended.  I have struggled.  My demons remain, finding ways to test my resolve.  My most recent tests have involved allowing others to face their demons without trying to fix everything for them.  One of the hardest things I've had to do is watch people I love so dearly be so miserable, struggle so immensely, with hurdles looming so large that some, at times, no longer wish to continue in this life.  And I can't do a single thing about it.  I cannot help them.  I can encourage them to help themselves.  I can listen; I can provide phone numbers to hotlines, counselors, resources; I can take them to appointments and suggest healthier coping techniques but I can't fix it for them. I cannot make them do things they do not wish to do, they do not feel is helpful or important or necessary or possible.

Another major difficulty for me is to advocate for myself, to ensure my needs are being met, and to walk away from people and situations that just aren't getting it done.  My well to help others seems infinite but my well of strength to stop slighting myself to accommodate others appears to not yet be drilled.  I have thus far been incapable of saying "no more."  I write this as I contemplate saying such a thing, of performing such an act.  This act, these words will break my heart, crush it into millions and billions of pieces.  The pain I feel even thinking about it is real, it is raw, and cuts me deep.  But it would still be less than continuing to accept that my love is not reciprocated.  My commitment is not equaled.  My broken heart will heal, but my resentment will only continue to grow if I let me be disregarded and not considered.

My big lesson of 2020 is to learn that I cannot not save anyone but myself.  I am worthy and must insist I be treated as such.  That's my 2021.