Throughout my annals of journaling - handwritten diaries of my childhood, online journals of my teenhood, virtual ramblings of my adulthood - are sprinkled entries fantasizing about a life alone. How much easier it would be, with no one to please, no one to judge, no one to burden - just me. Oneself - arguably the toughest person to be with for many, but I know myself well. I’ve spent much time alone during my lifespan, mostly by choice. A natural loner. When I am alone, there’s no one to disappoint, no one to scare away, no one to make me feel bad about who and how I am.
When I peruse my old writings, there is speak of beaches alone at night, isolated, with just the waves, the stars, and me, and the jungle at my back. There is speak of a house nestled in a remote mountainous area, my spine chilled but my head clear. There is speak of a desert retreat, with no neighbors for many miles, where the silence is deafening but my thoughts are loud, where I write for hours for days for months on end.
Is being alone my natural tendency because I feel like an outsider in a world full of insiders? As if there’s a handbook on living, connecting, and socializing that I’ve not been privy to. I’ve found myself awkwardly fumbling through society, never quite masking as well as I wish I could, never quite figuring out how to stand or where I stand.
I penned my MySpace bio a decade ago without much thought, it said: floating along the periphery - and that’s exactly it. That’s how I’ve existed this whole time. Even in my most social phases, in the middle of a crowd, dancing endlessly, pulse of the party, I’d still feel as if I were on the periphery looking in. I was a social chameleon, I drank and drugged to force a connection, but the connections were always broken.
Feelings hemorrhage, forming tornadoes as I look on as a spectator, separate from myself. I watch as they twist up and bring everything down with them, but soon after there is a moment of calm. Another deafening silence, a nothingness. I’ve always thought of these storms as anger, as rage, but anger is just the surface. Anger is the primitive feeling. What’s beneath is what’s real.
When I dig, I uncover feelings of chronic frustration from being chronically misunderstood. And beneath that still, a constellation of guilt, shame, remorse, resentment, regret - all unraveling my interior realms awry. But they’re an arsenal I’m often unaware of in the moment, blaming the messenger, the trigger, when really it’s something within me that’s causing the pain.
Or is being alone my natural tendency because I’m accustomed to a life of escape? Substances are the usual suspects, but anything can be an escape. Writing, sleeping, exercising, socializing - all these things can be used to escape ourselves. Do I hide in the confines of my room, the corners of my mind when I cannot stand society; and burrow myself, lose myself in the company of others when I cannot stand my own mind?
Don’t get me wrong, I want to connect and I love when I do connect, but it’s rare that I get to. I feel deeply so I want to connect deeply, and have no desire for shallow interactions. Maybe that’s my defect. I’m constantly wanting so much, but constantly being given not enough. Or maybe I’m not giving enough. Maybe I’m not enough for this world. Or maybe this world is not enough for me.
And herein flood the feelings of chronic frustration from being chronically misunderstood. I wish this world were more accepting of different types of brains, different kinds of functioning and feeling. A therapist told me two theories of BPD: one theory says it’s caused by severe childhood abuse and/or neglect, the other says some people are just born more sensitive, they experience emotions much deeper than others, and therefore are triggered by more things and react in much more intense ways and, thus, require a lot more effort and time to recover. It makes sense. Like how different people have different ways of learning (some learn by listening, others visually, others yet by doing), different people feel in different ways and therefore handle things in different ways. And no one way is right or wrong, they’re just - different.
I am ceaselessly having to pick up my pieces, just to have them chip away again and again. The shards cut my hands as I gather them, I pile them in my arms, pressed against my chest like firewood, holding my breath trying not to drop any. Some always fall, big pieces infinitely splitting into smaller pieces, becoming harder and harder to pick up. The shards turn into splinters, and fuse with my being once again.
This hits home ….