I don’t know that this title is reflective of what I’m going to say because I don’t know if this is really the “thick” of my mind but it is a pretty relevant part of how my brain is functioning. I’ve been dealing with this very amorphous depression for quite some time now and truly I can say that it lacks any definite shape or form. In the good moments, I take them as they are because I know they won’t last. I also try to take them for what they are because they can change forms as well. For example: I had a fairly good day. I did things I wanted. I tried out to be a figure model, I ate a meal I wanted and spent time at the beach. But let’s explore what my mind did in this most blessed time.
As I stood there posing (a pose I had to hold for 10 minutes), my mind that never shuts off scrambled to find something to think about to pass the time. I couldn’t think about how hot it was, nor could it stick on the last time I “modeled” for an artist, I couldn’t focus on the painting that was in front of me, honestly, I couldn’t even focus on the pain that was starting to attack my body. I wish my mind would be that empty at bedtime. I walked out of there wondering if I’d be able to do that for two hours? Feeling completely dejected and rejected despite being told I did a good job. I couldn’t believe my mind had left me alone in that moment and then the pain felt real and the feeling of being a complete and utter failure seeped in out of nowhere.
As I sat in my car waiting on my food I recounted the failure of my reading experience the night before. I’m trying to read to help distract my mind and bring a sense of balance and accomplishment. Reading that first chapter felt like torture. I fell in the shadows of a former self. It was all I could do to read the words correctly and pronounce them properly. I was completely unable to connect and comprehend. Imagine having sex when you’re dry and there’s no lubricant. It’s an experience that should be enjoyable and pleasurable but instead it hurts and burns and becomes unbearable. Each page felt like sandpaper rubbing on my brain and it was all I could do to keep going. There was clearly shame experienced by one character, righteous indignation by another and yet another a very familiar tired loneliness. But I could not connect. I understood those concepts on a very cerebral level but I was unable to put myself into the characters mind and position, I was sadly unable to feel. For me that was disheartening to an unimaginable extent.
Driving to the beach I couldn’t help but think about the idea of beauty and being beautiful. I’ve never thought of myself as beautiful (except on rare occasions like being in a wedding or something where I’m professionally made up). I always saw myself as having a sort of school girl cuteness. I’ve always looked much younger than I am and that has awarded me that cuteness to varying degrees. But as I get older, rounder…more plump, that school girl look has or is fading. I don’t think I’m ugly but surely I don’t look at myself and see something pretty. As a matter of fact I’m at a stage where I can’t look at my face. When I go through pictures on my phone, I cover my face with my thumb because I can’t bear to look at me. I’ve also mastered looking at myself in the mirror without actually looking at myself. I see my outfit, whether the colors match or the patterns make sense and I can even put on make up (which I rarely do) and not have to pay attention to my face or body. Again, I don’t think I’m ugly, I just can’t stand to look at me.
That thought lingered in my mind until I got to the beach where I had the memory of my ex come back to me. One night we went on that beach and I threatened to strip naked and skinny dip. He wouldn’t let me because we were so close to the light and near other people. But it was so fun and we laughed so much that my face hurt. I remembered standing there in his arms and feeling safe and loved. We found a pair of slippers that I loved and they fit me perfectly and we walked over to a bench and sat and talked into the night. It’s such a beautiful memory and I will always have that. In the same vain I was reminded that everyone leaves me. There’s something about me that once you get to know me, I’m no longer wanted. I’m good for a while but as soon as I get comfortable enough to begin being myself, myself is just not good enough to keep. Nobody wants me. And even more than that, I don’t know who I am. Everyone changes in the sense that who you are in your 20’s is not who you are or what you want in your 30’s or 40’s and so on. But for me, I never get to have a steady personality, a sense of self or being or purpose. And of course it has a lot to do with BPD and the volatility of identity in such people but that’s precisely the point. The core of me was never able to develop and what’s on the surface is just that. Shallow and meaningless. When that underdeveloped core comes up, everyone is ready to pack up their cumuppins. Then I think how the one consistent relationship I have is someone who never allows me to go deep, someone who has made it clear that I should never get comfortable in any way around them because they don’t want me. It’s clear that I’m fodder to them and they don’t want me to ever confuse it for anything else, thus the consistency. It begs that the constant in my relationships is me. If I’m not fodder then I’m nothing. It’s all I’m made to be.
But in that, I was not in the house. My thoughts were able to go out into the world and touch an untouched place. They weren’t caged in the four walls of my home where we all reside and there’s no room for all of us. My mind did quite a number on me today, I must say. But just because these thoughts were able to enter the ether as opposed to being stuck within my walls…it was a good day
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