My Mad Hatter

I get out of bed, pour a cup of joe and sit on the couch with my phone and start scrolling. My partner asks, "Ry can you please do some chores around the house today." *silence* "Ry don't forget about your appointment today." I look up for a minute and say, "Thank-you" and return to scrolling again. He looks at me incredulously and sighs, kisses me and tells me to have a good day. I come out of my internal turmoil and realize I am distracted, not listening, unfocused and not paying attention. I feel like I am in a fog and immediately feel guilty. I text him to apologize and hope he has a good day. This would be considered a typical morning for us. My partner is a wonderful, kind, loving and supportive man who would do anything for me. He is also a man who has been living with someone for 2 years that is recovering from alcoholism, and who has been diagnosed with border line personality disorder (BPD).

I know crazy like the back of my hand and rest at a comfortable line between life and death. Turmoil and chaos feels like its in my blood and bone. Being in a unpredictable, unstable and unmanageable environment is where I thrive. I know how to live in this kind of environment and it makes sense to me. I probably sound crazy but that's just it, I am crazy. My internal agony that I process my day to day life through matches past chaotic circumstances. Since getting sober the chaotic circumstances, unpredictable environments, and unstable judgments have disappeared. People would suggest this is a good change and sounds like I straightened myself out. Which don't get me wrong I have in many ways and I am grateful for the changes sobriety has gifted me. In the beginning of my sobriety everything was new, fresh, exciting and amazing. I got to grow up in my early 20's as a sober enthusiastic woman and discover myself on a eat, pray, and love level. I found out healing traumatic wounds, empowering myself through continuous mental health diagnosis, being active in my recovery, and attempting to live a "vanilla" flavored life is freaking hard. I struggled with acceptance around my most current diagnosis BPD.

My psychiatrist is a wonderful woman who has held my hand and has gently explained to me in many different ways what this whole BPD was all about. To be honest just writing this feels overwhelming because validating my diagnosis makes it real. I struggle to separate my own worth and identity from the diagnosis and stigmas around BPD. I have unlocked an opportunity to let go of my hold on the chaos I have survived. I feel like Alice in Wonderland falling down the rabbit hole and I am meeting my own mad hatter. My mad hatter consists of extreme mood swings, impulsive behaviors, and intense emotions. I have kept my mad hatter in a box in the back of my subconscious praying that I would never have to confront it. I finally see the pain, sadness, sorrow, and loneliness it possesses. It has been trapped in a cage terrified, panicked, screaming, crying, swearing, punching, raging and begging for help. My mad hatter has been pleading with me to let it out, to give it life, and to acknowledge its existence. Now it sits and it waits for me to wake up every morning, so it can make itself known. It feels like it suffocates me and brings me further away from my present reality. It follows me and takes over my judgements, my choices, my sense of self-worth, my identity and my ability to be congruent. My mad hatter has become a F5 tornado and it rips through my mind and leaves chaotic debris in my life.

Picture sitting with your significant other and you are watching TV. He turns to you and makes a joke as he usually does. Most people would laugh and make a joke to add on to the humor. There might be some banter and flirting and you feel confident, content, and happy. Now with someone who has a mad hatter (BPD) their interpretation of this interaction is filtered through a negatively skewed lens. In my case I overreact and become very sensitive to any facial cues or any further commentary. My mood goes from content, to angry, to sad, to hurt, and back to angry within the minute he made the joke. I have enough self-awareness where I understand my reaction doesn't make any sense but I have no words to explain my mental process. This in turn makes me the unpredictable, unstable and unmanageable circumstance. I feel powerless when I react to things like this example because I can't control it or sense it coming on. This mental process happens to a majority of the interactions I have in a day. The link between my objective and subjective experiences is all kinds of tangled. I am a human being that has survived a lot of fucked up things and have managed to break traumatic cycles of all kinds through fighting for my own wellbeing. I am not alone in this fight and to anyone who can relate to my story I want you to know you are also not alone. It is time to remove our labels, societal expectations and denial. We are allowed to be fucked up.

I wake up, I pour myself a cup of joe, and I escape into the abyss of my mind that is called BPD. I am sitting on my couch trying to separate my emotions to become congruent with the present setting. My partner is trying to tell me something but I am feeling so overwhelmed and its all my fault I feel this way. He is going to abandon me because I'm not listening again. Listen, "Thank-you" okay we made it through that, but it wasn't enough. We are done with this its to much to handle. He kissed me so that is a good sign I think. Obviously he is going to rage at you when he gets home so now we are mad. We are feeling guilty and we are ashamed because he has never in our 2 years raged at me. My mad hatter is back at it again, I was distracted, not listening, unfocused and not paying attention. I become so caught up in my own thoughts and emotions I can't be in the present. I will text him to apologize and hope he has a good day. This is the first 20 minutes of my morning and I now need to figure out how to survive the day.