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[preciousbayne]

S. tells me yesterday that he is bipolar.  I only believe this partially; I diagnosed him as narcissistic months and months ago.  I don't see any of the tells of bipolar.  Narcissistic personality tiptoeing along OCD

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[preciousbayne]

When did I go to the loony bin? I don't remember. I remember where I was living at the time, which would probably help me narrow it down. It's in these pages somewhere, maybe, back when The Bell Jar and Girl, Interrupted were my daily reads.

I was certainly always a little off, definitely had problems but no thank you, I don't need you help. When the most terrible love affair of my life finally broke apart the way it should've years prior, that really tipped me over the edge. As toxic as Justin was, he was apparently still some sort of poisonous glue.

Maybe that's the wrong way of looking at it. I had toyed with suicide so much with him in my life. SO much. I think, when it snapped, after awhile I just grew so tired of being sad, of hurting, of existing. It was so much work, so little reward for a life that abuses you, where you are never enough to be loved. I had felt, internally, for a long time that I was inadequate for many reasons. The Justin situation reinforced that immensely. I wasn't worth anything to myself, and I wasn't worth anything to him, so why continue? I hadn't asked to love him, I hadn't wanted to love him, I fought against it for years. And yet, there it was, a double edged sword. Without that, I would've limped along indefinitely, hiding bloody cuts in inconspicuous places, quietly drinking myself to numbness.

I held on for awhile, in between the stresses of work and school. I started drinking every night; I would come home from work and climb in the bathtub with a bottle of whiskey, a neat row of razor blades waiting for that psychotic break, bloody water swirling down the drain. I'd flirted with suicide so many times before. Something about this particular spiral scared me, and I called (I never call) the mental hospital. They could set an appointment for me in three weeks, and I crumpled into tears.

"I don't think I'll be alive in three weeks."

And in I went! It wasn't a full admission, it was outpatient, like a job. 8 hours a day, rotating between group and different classes to help you understand. I very quickly lost patience, because I was so much smarter than so many of patients, not to mention the staff. What was I doing here?? I didn't volunteer much in those sessions, because I don't appreciate being patronized and there was a lot of patronizing. And I didn't feel like sharing my traumas, of talking about what I perceived as weaknesses, the scars on my arm, the decayed state of my nasal cavities, the nightmare of rape. MIND YOUR OWN GODDAMN BUSINESS!

My intelligence works against me at times.

So! Bipolar, unspecified type. I don't know if I'm unspecified because I don't clearly align with the defined types, or if I simply was too cagey and hid things.Major depressive disorder. Obsessive tendencies with the possibilities of a psychotic break. The realm of the mind is far, far too vast to think that we are able today to define every variation on a theme and easily define it. I was medicated, and I swallowed those pills faithfully, hating them. Then one night I puked from them, and upon research, found that the class of drug I was on had never actually been tested for effectiveness in controlling bipolar. It's widely used for that now, but only because the pharmaceutical companies suggested it should be! That's just a ploy to increase market share.

I let the diagnoses define me for awhile, feeling ever so defeated by it. I don't like things I cannot control, and one cannot control one's brain chemistry. After awhile, I decided not to allow that to be a defining part of my persona anymore. It's still there, probably always will be. It's much more controlled now - diet, sleep habits, the company I keep all contribute to that.

So, I don't know if I know any borderlines! I guess I know you, right? I didn't want to fall into a cycle of trading diagnoses with individuals, like some bizarre Pokemon card. This isn't who I am! It's not who you are, either. It's this thing that takes up part of your existence for now. Maybe it won't in the future, who knows? It's a membership to an exclusive club with a diverse history of accomplishment, all of the artists and musicians and writers that made a lasting impact on the world.