Bearing Disability: BPD— The Two of Us | A Guest Post

I guess as I’m Lil Sea Bears older brother, that would make me ‘A’ Big Bear but you can call me A, or a human formerly recognised as ‘A’ as I now find myself a bear, ‘A’ Big Bear. I’m going to talk about borderline personality disorder or BPD as it is known.

‘A’ and Our Mental Health

I remember being just ‘A’ for what was a fair percentage of my life. Emotional, traumatic, turbulent, odd but not the worst. All ways to describe my childhood. I sought love and affection. relentlessly off people not equipped to understand that need or to meet it. Never because of malicious choice, I endured a lot of physical and emotional abuse, fiscal and material reward given for enduring such, with gifts that left me feeling loved, rewarded in life but majorly deprived of very important factors.

Experience that stems from the singularity which is my lone parent. She tried her best in the only way she knew how at the time and I accept that as an adult, damage withstanding, to experience such polarity from ones guardian, the one you’re dependant on for love, protection and just about everything, has its traumas, this is where he became we.

Covering Cracks With New Walls

I got older and the complexity of my emotion and cognitive reasoning grew, the pain of enduring abuse from the singularity and an older sibling, we will refer to her as Mangy Bitch Bear, had its toll.

Cracks started to form, yet to have the tools at my disposal to start to mend the wall. Instead new ones formed, seemingly conscious thoughts, within but not my own, someone to hate for the hurt we endured, someone to endure the pain for all of us, so my smile needn’t slide further.

I remember the separation like a new birth, a myriad of feelings become sorted and understandable, which left one to love and one to hate. The beginning of my battle with borderline personality disorder.

He and We and BPD

‘A’ moved forward through the defence by He. Loving is less conflicting when there’s a clear voice of hate and sorrow for the fact, as long as one experiences the other doesn’t have to. I’ve learnt this a common defence mechanism called splitting, which allows those who employ things to see things in two separate polarities, often switching between the both.§

Over employment of this tactic means we are ever present, its not temporary or response to trauma anymore but a daily bottle of conflicting beliefs and wants. With adolescence the problem grew to a head. Conflict of interest if you would, bullying in school and abuse out. Why does ‘A’ continue these endeavours at the cost of He. We were not cohesive, conflict and turmoil led to self mutilation, ways of making the pain absolute and give it clear meaning, something we both understand. A resonant physical clarity.

It is easy to be as one, while trauma is minimal, when prior external factors dissipate.

Merely a time of peace between wars. I made somebody my world, which you learn is a mistake. As it ends, you are left without home. The band that held the two split. He stabbed ‘A’ to save us both. The comprehension of the pain beyond me but not He being the very fabric of his tortured essence. This cemented his place as the guardian I’d sought as a child. Unfortunately he was taught to be an adult by people who weren’t very good at it.

Time Jump 10 years

‘A’ is vocal where He is not, this makes days where exhaustion has built to manage. It’s like asking the mute pilot if he could go get the guy who speaks. We want to be left alone.

At all times Borderline Personality Disorder is the instability of emotions. Unbalance that further and make it two sets of unstable emotions, with separate desires, separate wants and interests. Different conditions that compose them. It’s the equivalent of sharing tiny space with your polar opposite. Conflict is the theme of the day.

We don’t like the same people, we don’t like the same things. We’ve learnt though through trial. One is not functional without the other.

Like all great couples we have learned compromise. It has enabled me to progress quickly in work. My main focus. One day we will find someone we both like for the next adventure.

This has been I and He and we are ‘A’. Take care of your mental health and physical wellbeing.

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