GIRL, INTERRUPTED
How do you tell people you know you should of
died after swallowing handfuls of pills countless
times? / How do you tell them that the
morning after those nights you wrote lists about how
much you loved your life? And how you wanted to
forgive your mother? Or how you healed overnight 2
years after the rape? / How do you explain
that 2 hours later you are ripping apart
the piece of paper and taking yourself to hospital
because you want to kill yourself again? This time is
different you swear! You tell them you’ve never been
so sad before. You tell them you can’t remember the
last time you felt something good. You tell them
you’ll never forget the rape. You don’t remember
this morning and your thoughts about healing. /
You get a female doctor who shows you compassion
(even though you know it’s part of her job)
and you start thinking about what it would be
like if she was your mother. You wonder if you would
even be in this hospital room, or swallowed those
pills. You wonder what it’s like for a mother to love
you. The doctor sends you home, telling you to call
her if things get worse. You call her that night.
Telling her you are scared that you’re going to take
your own life. You call cause you want to hear her
voice and think about what it would of been like to
be 5,6,7,8 or 9 and to hear her voice before you
went to sleep at night. She tells you to come back
to the hospital to have a chat and when you
arrive you suddenly feel sick. She has her arm
around another patient. How could she do this?
What did I do wrong? Here comes the anger.
The one thing you don’t miss.
You start screaming in the hallway.
Punching yourself in the face so she puts you
in restraints. The other patient is gone and suddenly
you feel safe. Why do people only notice me when I
am sick? / You try to tell the doctor about your pain
but you know she doesn’t understand. Nobody can.
You try to tell her about this empty hole inside of you
and all the ways you try to avoid it.
Binging/purging/starving/alcohol/drugs/cutting/
overdosing/burning/punching/hitting/1nightstands/
You tell her about the rape and your grief. You ask
her why your mother couldn’t love you. Suddenly,
you don’t want to leave because this woman in front
of you is everything you wanted your mother to be. /
You get admitted to hospital. The doctors calls it
BPD. Borderline what? A personality disorder? No.
No way. That’s not me. / A girl in the hospital looks
sicker than me. More cuts. More nurses. More
attention than me. So I find the sharpest object and
drag it down my wrists. I have to prove I am sick.
What the fuck is wrong with me? Why do I do this?
Why am I jealous of the girl with the carved
up wrist? / I cry to the nurses most mornings and
nights. Repeating myself about how badly I want to
die. I never see the nice female doctor again.
She’s left me. She hates me. So I hate her back.
Four minutes ago I loved her and now I’m wishing
her dead. This is a constant cycle that repeats
in my head. / I get sent home from the hospital
and 2 nights later I try to kill myself again.
And again. And again. 2 years go by and nothing’s
changed. I tell the doctors I am in pain
and that it never stops. I don’t know who I am and
I don’t understand what is happening inside of my
brain. I am consumed by every emotion I feel.
I am consumed by anger. By grief. By sadness.
By anxiety. By hatred. By suicidality. I am a girl who
has more scars than skin. A girl who tried to end her
life multiple times. A girl who feels like she’s never fit
in. A girl who spent years in and out of the
‘looney bin’. A girl who feels full on sin. A girl who
doctors told her can’t help, won’t help, afraid of
me or people with BPD. A girl who doctors told her
she’ll be dead in a year if she carried on like this.
I am a girl with Borerline Personality Disorder.
I am just a girl, trying to figure out how to live.
— © h.g
