I met a woman in trouble on the streets of Camden, helped her to get away from her abusive boyfriend and into a women’s refuge in Croydon. It was nice to meet someone with BPD. We were perfectly mad together.
The list of stuff she needed: tweezers, wet wipes, razors, mirror, snacks, meds.
The list of stuff she was allowed to bring:
After I put her on the train, I wrote in my notebook,
God, please keep her safe. Please.
She is me. I am her. Keep her safe.
I spoke to her a few days later. She was back with the boyfriend. “He promised he won’t hurt me ever again.”
God isn’t here.
God left London long ago.
God is gone.
Everything is changing, will change, and soon. I am frightened but mostly I am tired.
The mood tracking app says I’m suffering from a moderate depressive episode. I thought that was wrong, because I feel so awful, but actually it’s correct: this isn’t severe: I am not tied to a bed on a strange ward: I am eating and writing and sleeping and going outside every few days to buy cigarettes and apples before returning to my lair: it’s not severe at all: thank god: it’s just painful, unrelenting, draining, soul-destroying, constant, angry, evil: moderate.
Common sense is no longer common.
Round these parts, it’s something of a rarity.
From now on, perspicacity will be referred to as “uncommon sense.”
The mood tracking app says I’m tired. Extraordinary.
You say I look normal but, today, I know that I don’t. Saw myself in the reflection of the Chinese takeaway window. Look like I’ve just received bad news. Or witnessed something horrific. Cannot move my mouth. It stays down. Eyes are open behind sunglasses but they may as well be stitched shut. There is nothing there to see or be seen. Cannot conjure politeness or force smiles today. It simply cannot be done. Sorry for any inconvenience caused by my face not looking normal enough to be seen (with).
“Life isn’t worth living unless you are young and surrounded by other young people in a beautiful cold garden perfumed by dirt and flowers and fallen leaves, gleaming in the string of lights, listening to the quiet city on the last fine night of the year.”
from Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff p. 57
The mood tracking app says I’m suffering from a severe depressive episode and must seek professional help immediately to which I reply, “Oh, just shut the fuck UP” and delete the app.
[Reading my old diaries]
I know that I have been so sad for so long: this fact makes me sad(der).
I miss the mood tracking app. At least something made contact with me 3 times a day and cared enough to ask about me. “How are you feeling today?” says the app. “Shite, ta, how are you?” Then if the app was a real person I hope it would reply saying, “‘Appy.”
I want to swim but mostly I just want me to leave me alone.
Usually I know exactly what to do, or I can work out what to do if I don’t know what to do immediately. But with this, with me, with all of this: I actually do not know what to do. I don’t know what to do.
Treacle Heart 