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I've been trying to figure out what to write for a little over a week now. Writers block is no joke. But after visiting with my best friend this past weekend and also getting to see my oldest friend and one of my daughters, it came to me. Something that people with BPD do is sometimes choose one person to be their one and only. They get it in their head that as long as they have that one person, that is all they need. And they make that one person their everything. And maybe that doesn't sound too bad but it can be a real issue to that one person. Because that person is your everything, you tend to want to spend every waking moment with said person. You hang on tight and get jealous when other people want to spend time with your person. This can lead to fights and loss relationships.
This is definitely something that I have struggled with throughout the years. I always thought that if I just had that one person-that everything would be okay. But it wasn't okay. It was never okay. I have learned that I NEED people. I need more than that one person. I have learned that its okay to love more than one person, to trust in more than that one person, to laugh with more than that one person. I'm lucky to have finally realized this before I chased more people away in my life. I have great friends. I have wonderful children and grandchildren. I have years of laughter, love and shared dreams. And I wouldn't trade that for anything in the world. I almost lost my best friend a few months back after his fight with covid. I don't know how i could survive without him in my life. After losing my mother and father, he was my support system. I leaned on him heavily and I can never thank him enough for being there for me. He loves me immensely and I love him just as much. And yes we definitely have our issues and he is far from perfect, but hes perfect for me.
Something I tend to do with all the people in my life is have a song. My girls and I have "Landslide" by Stevie Nicks, my boyfriend and I have "Then came you" by The Spinners and Dionne Warwick, my best friend and I share "Ain't no mountain high enough," by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell and my other bestie and I share "My wish" by Rascal Flats. I think its important to have all these wonderful, special people in our lives to just live life with. They keep us grounded and keep us smiling and happy. They make our life just a little bit less difficult. And I hope that anyone reading this whom only has that one person, goes out and gets more people. Get out of your comfort zone and find more people to love. Because friendship and love is a beautiful thing.
It's raining and it's my usual favorite type of day. The rain relaxes me and keeps me calm, even if it's a thunderstorm. I also do some of my best sleeping during a thunderstorm. I'm thinking about my children today and my grandbabies. I miss them. I have moved two hours away from one and about three and a half from the other. Why don't I call them you may ask. I could, but I never know what to say to them. I love them immensely. But life has been rough for them and for our relationship. Mental illness wrecks havoc on personal relationships. No matter who it is, we just dont function normally or how the world views what is normal. I didn't hug my girls enough. It felt awkward to me. My mom didn't really hug us as children. I'm guessing because maybe it felt awkward to her. It impacted me in a negative way. I said in a previous blog how i didnt know how to be a mom. I had no clue. I winged it the best I could.So many times I did the wrong things and said the wrong things or reacted wrong to certain things. LIke when one of my daughters came out as gay. I regret everyday how I reacted when she told me. It's something that I can never change. I was raised very religious and had raised them up the same way. My religion told me that she would go to hell for being gay. I was terrified for her so I told her no, that she couldn’t be that way. I forbid it, I yelled at her. And then my sweet, loving girl crumbled to the floor and wished that she could just die. That if I couldn't accept her for how she was and she couldnt be who she was- she would rather just end her life. It was at that moment that I had to make a decision. It was either God or it was my sweet child. I chose my child. I picked her up off the floor and told her that I didn't know what would happen but I loved her and that we would get through this. It wasn't easy, and I put her through some unnecessary things trying to help her. But I was wrong, because she was perfect just as she was. Perfectly wonderful in every way. And now I am anti-religion in every way. I'm not an atheist or a deist or a christian etc etc. I'm just me. I choose not to involve myself in anything in any way. I don't want to be angry anymore. I don't want to be scared or nervous anymore. I just want to be free. And now I am. I can't tell you enough what a wonderful feeling that is.
Finding myself has been a long and winding road. Letting that inner Bonnie come out is still a challenge. Finding people who love me as I am is still a challenge. Trying to mend my relationship with my girls is still a challenge. My other daughter is strong willed, fiercely independent and speaks her mind in ways I wish I could. Most of the time we do okay. But other times we do not. She is the mother of my three beautiful grandbabies. And she's a better mother than I could be. I'm glad for that. It means we are getting better in this family line. Hopefully, her daughter will be better at it than all of us. And so on and so on. I have faith in that. I can't fix things with my girls, I can't go back in time and rewrite history. There is a lot of pain and hurt and mistrust in our family. Those things don't go away. I just have to hold onto hope that It could and can get better.
I don't know if my daughters are reading this blog or even have plans to do so, but I want them to know that If i could go back, I would do things differently. I would have been a better mom. I would have tried harder, been smarter and braver. I would have hugged them more and sang more lullabies to them. I would have been rain. Peaceful, and relaxing. And strong when I needed to be. I love you both…..so much. This song and entry is for you.
So I’m feeling a bit down today. The love of my life is still in the gray place. Not in the dark place which is good, but not in the white place either. And I know it's just a symptom of my BPD and I have to keep asking myself if this is real, but I feel as if he doesn't love me.And he's never not told me that he doesn't love me. He says it all the time. But I want him to be happy and I feel like I should make him happy if he loves me. And that's a selfish feeling that I hate. I also hate the thoughts that run through my head like he doesn't really love me, he just knows all the right things to say and do. And he definitely does know all the right things to do. Another thought is that this just won't work. I will wind up being alone like I always thought I would be. No one could ever love me because I’m broken. And once you are broken, you can't be fixed. And then I linger along the lines of the dark place, the dark hole in other words.
But then I have to remember that my love has his own depression that he deals with from his troubled life. And I have to remember that maybe just maybe he actually DOES love me. He just can't get over his own sadness. So I should be there for him, give him some grace and some time. I know that is the right answer, but I can't turn off the voices in my head. The voices are the worst for people who have mental illness. They tell you horrible things and they don't shut up.
My love is a wonderful, kind and caring man. He is a GOOD man and I’ve searched for him for a very long time. But after repeated failed relationships and a troublesome failed marriage, I am broken in this way. I'm always going to have doubts. I’m always going to jump when he touches me. And I will probably always ask him from time to time if we are okay. And that's okay. It is who I am. And i have to love myself as I am in order to heal those broken pieces of myself, and to make those voices go away and just not pay attention to them.
There is a song my best friend introduced me to by The Ballroom Thieves called “Borderline”. It hits close to home and how I perceive things. I invite you to listen. I've enclosed it below. It's a beautiful song about how anxiety affects your life and how you think you can't live without it, because it makes you who you are. But there is light at the end of the tunnel. There is hope. You are who you are, but you can be a better version of yourself. You can heal and be whole again. You just have to let go of the anxiety, be brave and just try.
So I’m watching Stella, the movie with Bette Midler. If you haven't seen it, you should. And there is this whole scene where she has a baby and when she wakes up, the nurse asks her if she wants to see her baby. Stella is this hard type of woman who grew up on the wrong side of the tracks and works as a bartender in a bar. So, she is acting all tough like, and then they put the baby in her arms. This perfect, tiny, baby girl and Stella just melts. And of course, she has no idea how to be a mother but she loves that baby girl more than anything or anyone in this world. It's a feeling that I relate to instantly because it was a feeling that I had with my girls. No, I wasn't a bartender, but when I found out that I was pregnant with my first, I was living in an extended stay hotel.
I remember finding out that I was pregnant and my first reaction was excitement. This whole warm feeling washed over me. It was crazy because I never wanted children. I had this crazy idea that when I turned 18 I was moving to New York City to become a journalist. But here I was 19, living in a hotel, no job, no money, and excited to be pregnant. Because I knew this would be the one person who would always love me. That is how BPD works. You are always looking for someone to love you. I was absolutely nowhere near ready to be a mother. I had no idea how to be one. I didn't have any great role models to learn from.
My mother was constantly in and out of the house going back and forth to Utah because she was unhappy. At 15 I moved in with my aunt once my mother left for good and that was a horrific experience. My friend always told me that I lived a life like it was an experiment in terror. My aunt was extremely emotionally and verbally abusive. Which is how I wound up living in a hotel. I left her house at 18 in the middle of the night only wearing my Burger King uniform to head to Amarillo, Texas. I lived there for about 6 months with my then-boyfriend who later became my husband. We ended up back in SC when his job transferred him back. His job ended soon however and we became homeless basically. Neither one of us had a job and fixing to have to leave the hotel because we ran out of money, and had already pawned anything of value. But I'm pregnant and excited! Not a normal reaction at all.
But somehow, everything worked out okay. I called my mother, and she was able to help us get into a small house near her and my boyfriend found a job in a hotel working maintenance. We were able to get a bed and a tv, so that was all we needed at the moment. I quickly became hugely pregnant with the constant cravings for milk and butter and my boyfriend absolutely did not want to talk about the baby at all. He wouldn't go with me to any appointments nor would he buy anything for the baby. I'm not sure why. When my bundle of joy was born I was a mess because I had nothing for my baby girl. My friend helped me out though by bringing me some baby clothes and letting me borrow her cradle till I could get a crib. The boyfriend (future husband) loved the baby though once she was born and couldn't get enough of showing her off. And after we left the hospital, he did go out and bought some things for her.
Things didn't work out with my husband for a variety of reasons, but that's another story. We spent 24 years together and had another baby girl about a year after the first. I definitely struggled at being a mother. I did everything wrong. I tried my best though. Going without things to make sure they had everything they needed. But it still wasn't everything they needed. We were poor constantly and just never could get out of a hole. And that definitely took its toll. I had always struggled with depression and after my children were born there was no exception. I often thought they were better off without me and now they are grown and living their lives, but I still wonder if they would have been better off with different parents in general.
Both my daughters have discovered that they have their own forms of mental illness and that makes me sad. I would never wish that on anyone in a million years, and especially not for my children. I wish mental health was taken more seriously in our country. Sadly, we have a ways to go with it. The best thing I can say for anyone who may be struggling with BPD and having children is to just keep going. You are doing the best you can do. Take a moment to breathe and ask yourself if what you are feeling is real. Forgive yourself for not being perfect or being normal and just carry on.
