Art May Save Your Life

Imagine being underwater and you're swimming to the top and, just when you make it and catch that gasp of air, you're being pushed back down. Sometimes you're deeper. Sometimes the water is calm and quiet. Sometimes there are sharks around you. Sometimes you're completely alone. This is what Borderline Personality Disorder feels like. You're always feeling a different emotion from the last and they come crashing in like sea waves, leaving you breathless. Happy is ecstatic. Love is over joyful. Pain is gut-wrenching. Heartbreak is the end of you. Feelings weigh so much heavier on us than we can handle, so much that we sometimes give up trying to withstand it. Being normal and having normal reactions isn't an option and our coping mechanisms are greatly unhealthy. It's not a rollercoaster to me. It's an abyss. At least you can see where you're going on a rollercoaster ride.

I was 21 when I was diagnosed. I had just fallen in love for the first time. It was a beautiful nightmare that ended after a year of me obsessing over the idea of a person. I continued to have future relationship issues. It's inevitable when people like us fall in love after an hour of talking to someone. I began drinking every night. I tried drugs. I fell in love a couple more times. Did more drugs. My mind was always racing: "LOVE, DRUGS, ALCOHOL, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE." I wanted to die. I always woke up wanting to die. I always woke up wishing I hadn't woken up. I didn't understand why I was always in agonizing emotional pain — until I found out about BPD. It was the only explanation that actually made sense and it was relieving to have acquired a sense of identity, finally. But then what? So I have BPD. Knowing that now doesn't take my pain away. Getting put on several medications doesn't take away anything, it sugarcoats it. If I didn't want to feel THAT, I had to feel nothing at all. I just wanted to feel again without the piercing ache in my heart. It got to a point where I'd immediately tell people what was wrong with me right from the beginning so I wouldn't have to explain later after an accidental episode. I would just pour my heart out to strangers, like: "here's my problem, please don't judge me." That doesn't solve anything, either. And most people still won't understand or take the time to empathize. After a while, I began to give up again. I realized I couldn't vomit my story onto strangers, but I also couldn't hold them in and choke on them either.

One day, I picked up a pencil and sketched for the first time. I wasn't very good at it, but the sound of charcoal scratching against the grainy sketchbook was comforting. One day, I anxiously massaged clay for 3 hours. Then my hands were introduced to a paint brush, it was all over from there. I wasn't playing with art to be a talented artist. I was using it as an outlet, and an escape and IT SAVED ME. Eventually, I got better and better, because I was doing it all the time (because that's how often I needed an escape). I pour my heart out when I'm sketching. Everything that I'm feeling and all the hurt subsides when I finish a piece. And other people can look at it and feel what I felt. And I can look at other people's art and feel their pain. The definition of art, to me, is an exchange of feelings. From songs to haikus to doodles, we express how we feel through it all. It is VITAL to let it out.

I still think about suicide several times a day, but I think about drawing or painting it out instead of PLANNING it out. I still visualize it in my head, except now when I visualize it, it's colorful and comforting. I still feel it radiating inside me, except now it feels like it means something. I have something else to love besides another broken relationship. Something else to obsess over. Something else to become addicted to. Something else to stay alive for. Always keep searching for ways to keep yourself living. The more you have, the happier you'll be.

If you, or anyone you know, is 'suffering' from bpd, find what you love and let THAT kill you — not the mental illness.