It's Darker on the Inside

I've always had compulsive ways of thinking. Since I was younger, I believed that the odd years were the good ones to come, and the even years meant hell was to reign on my life. I was superstitious as well, I would go to the washroom about four times a night and push my bed up against my wall the same amount of times until I felt totally satisfied to sleep. My mood was spicy as a youngster, I was hot and cold, but it was hour to hour.

Then eventually, I grew up. Those silly little habits I had were part of my everyday routine, but they intensified. My mood being happy one moment then anxious and paranoid and aggressive the next, this wasn't comedic anymore. The tantrums weren't just 10 minute long spurts that occured after not getting that toy I wanted, they turned into hours long crying fits that ultimately resulted in the plan to end my life.

On the outside, to many, I was a very sweet and confronting person. I was attractive and sociable, I was able to put others before me and did so oftenly. Inside, my entire brain and body were at war with eachother, battling against my intrusive thoughts and bad habits. I became burnt out.

It wasn't until I was 20 years old that I got a valid explanation for my actions that I associated to my zodiac sign or just character traits in the past. I was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder. It took me moving mountains to get diagnosed, but now I finally had a cause for my actions. As I learn more about myself through coping with this illness, I wonder how I am still alive every single day. How I have not given in to my thoughts much deeper than a few previous attempts that were unsuccessful. The articles of low survival rates for women of your kind, the books written by non-professionals that play your diagnosis by identifying you as a toxic individual and how to survive someone "like me".

All this was packed into age 20, a time where I should've been in university, having a great time and knowing what I wanted. My mind never thought this way, but I wanted it to. I wanted to be like other girls having their summer flings and university experiences and finding young love. But after 20, I knew this was not my path.

After months of unhappiness and sadness, hopelessness and deep inner pain, I had to distinguish my life. "What is making me happy." "How can I cope when the days hit me so much worse." " Will it ever get better?"

I asked myself these questions everyday. It took me so much time. Eventually, I was able to flip through a favorite book of mine and get the chills that I had once felt, and the excitement to read the book again. That plan my friend, who I had pushed away, previously had made to bring me to a museum after an emotionally draining day at work had gotten me excited again. The lust for looking at the moon by the water with no one else around gave me a purpose to stay up past midnight on my own again.

With time, these bigger activities allowed me to find smaller activities and plans to use on the days where my manager has become my enemy, or if a customer had to insult me to rise their own shallow spirits. I used to love to paint, but it seemed so tiring, so I used my fingers instead and to feel the cold paint on my fingertips as I am working harder to achieve neatness while using my hands usually distracts me from the world outside for just a few hours.

To sit in a victorian library over 200 years old in the posher side of town, all alone, on a Friday evening surrounded by stories, all unique to one another. While I am crying and breaking down, feeling intensely suicidal because my ex would use his lack of confidence in the things he did as a ploy to hurt my feelings, I would pack up and explore the smaller, secret parts of my city. I felt blessed being in the presence of spots less known, as I knew those who had been there before me kept it a secret just like I had.

Getting by after a tough time is usually more admired if big activities were planned in order to escape your current state. This just isn't true. It is the smallest of things that continue to relieve the stress of many, to bring purpose to another human after they have lost all hope in the workplace, in life, in love. The little things help you rise slowly to goals that were not seen imaginable maybe a few days ago.

Although my story was supposed to focus on tactics to get by after difficult days at work, I consider dealing with an incurable mental illness the hardest job in my life currently. This job takes time and it drains you, it can cost you relationships, it requires a lot of cooperation and learning in order to get better. Treating my mental illness is as much as my job as my career.