Nostalgia

Borderline

adjective1.barely acceptable in quality or as belonging to a category; on the borderline

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I gather labels and slap them on myself, like it will somehow fill this void. Like it will somehow change the mush in my brain that's turned rancid. Bisexual, lesbian, emo, scene, bipolar. I collected these labels because I don't know who I am.

What a funny diagnosis, that my actual personality is disordered. I am inherently wrong and bad, the only thoughts that swim through my brain. Bad. Wrong. Bad. Wrong.

Borderline. Unacceptable.

Years went by and some of these labels fell off of me, their adhesive worn away, as I discovered that maybe I actually am a person after all. The void isn't gone, or filled. Quite the contrary. But I have a newfound confidence, a newfound sense of self. And yes, it does revolve around a label. A diagnosis. I can't heal otherwise.

Therapists were so hesitant to diagnose me. "Mood disorder, bipolar, because it's genetic you know, and your mother has it so it's quite likely blah blah blah." They never listened to a word I said. I don't have mania. I have depression but it doesn't last. I saw my mother lay in bed for days, literally days. I didn't see her sometimes. I worried she was dead, but she kept the door locked so I could never check. And when she was manic, she was always around. And doing things like drugs, sex, compulsive cleaning, drinking. She always had her vices.

I did inherit her addictive personality. Her mental illness in my childhood shaped my own mind into the fried computer-brain that I own now. The circuits are wired all wrong.

The borderline is a peculiar place to live. You're not quite here—here, as in wherever you happen to be at the moment—but you're not quite there, wherever there is. I've only heard of this place, the magical land of recovery. I know its long and winding road. It looks like it has no end. Every curve and twist blindsides me another time, another fight or panic attack, another big pothole on recovery road.