Unbreaking Me
By Angela B. Chrysler
On 2 April 2015, my husband rushed me to the local Emergency Center for Mental Health. I often brooded on suicide, having the thought cross my mind probably three times a day since I was twelve years old. My daily beatings were not only normal in the household growing up, but were expected. Everyone knew. No one cared. Or so I thought.
The lack of reaction communicated one thing very clear to me: I wasn’t worth it. By the time I was fifteen I was desperate for any kind of “love.” No matter how abusive, I would have it, so long as it accepted me. This only reinforced how completely and totally worthless I was. I was “lucky” to be loved by anybody even if that anybody chained me to a bed and tortured me.
At thirty-five, I couldn’t run from the skeletons buried in my closet anymore. Hence the trip to the ER. By May 2015, I was seeing a psychiatrist and a therapist on a weekly basis. The first thing I was told by my family doctor and by my therapist was “write. Start a therapy journal.”
*Smiling* I’m a writer. Writing, I can do. I jumped at the “prescription.” I had just finished writing Broken—the main reason why I was suffering from a mental breakdown—and thought a therapy journal would make the perfect sequel.
So began the online journal that I would post live as my therapy developed. The results? Six months later, looking back, it boggles my mind how far I’ve come. And it is not only all recorded. It is all public. Part of my trauma left me without embarrassment. Privacy is fictitious to me. Such a thing doesn’t exist. I was raped in public. Not even the thoughts in my head are private. Everything is exposed. I’m deadened to it. Guilt exists. Shame does not. The difference? Only I can place guilt on me. Shame allows others to place guilt on me. I have too many control issues to ever let anyone shame me.
This does not mean I don’t feel bad about what I have done. On the contrary. I take full responsibility of all my choices. Even the bad ones. But I do look to help others by sharing my past and therapy with them. If there is anything I can to put my bad choices to use, then so I shall. I will publicize so others may learn from my mistakes. Despite my desperate fear of rejection, I don’t give a damn what anyone thinks of me. But please don’t hate me. Welcome to Borderline Personality Disorder. One aspect, anyway.
Six months ago, I lived in four fictitious realms and never this one here where you are. These past three days, I uncovered something that threw me back into my worlds. The difference? The other worlds felt strange to me. What does insanity feel like? It feels the same as taking mushrooms or acid (based on literary research and not physical). Only, you are so accustomed to the drug affects that you can’t tell reality anymore and it feels so good all the time. Now, on this side. I can feel the difference. I can see it as you would feel it. I’m one of you now. Not really. But I’m getting closer every day.
