A Normal Woman

Lately, I’ve been hanging out on the floor a little more than I’d prefer. Thanks to neck and back pain caused mostly by fibromyalgia, I’ve been flat on the floor with my knees to feet up on the couch. It straightens out and relaxes the muscles far better than any opioid does. For me, anyway.

Lying there is a great place to think, meditate, listen to my music or just consider the lilies. Yes, consider the lilies because they don’t care.

Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: … 
Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow.

The Bible, Matthew 6:28

A couple of weeks back, some kind soul gave me some lilies and there I found myself, under the lilies (my view above). I love the smell. I love the pink against the green. It’s peaceful. When they open, I have to remove the pollen, in case of allergies. But I don’t care. They’re there, in a vase, and they were perhaps sheltering me from where my mind was taking me.

Normal. Am I a normal woman? All these years and more so lately, I still find myself asking this question. I could ask am I neurotypical? Or maybe neurodiverse? I guess I know the answer to that question. Those labels don’t particularly matter to me. But am I normal?

Here’s what was driving the thought. Years past, a person, who at the time, mattered a great deal to me. Someone who I had trusted so much that I even put my life in their hands. Can you remember a person like that in your own life? They mattered. They perhaps even loved me. They just had a really cruel way of showing it.

To try to manipulate me to do something I didn’t want to do. I said no. I said no without hesitation. It was something I didn’t want to do. But this person got me on one line:

“You’re not a normal woman!”

I was weak at the time. A million reasons why. I didn’t know who I was, and one thing was clear that I wished right then that I was normal. Life would have been so much easier, had I just been normal. I could settle down, have kids, grow old happily… So easy. But not for me.

I was manipulated to the point where I had to allow what I didn’t want., by a person who mattered, a person I trusted. I guess they were right in their declaration. I wasn’t a normal woman.

My submission wasn’t enough. I laughed, as my only way to cope. And so I was told again,

“You’re not a Normal Woman!

And so, for all these years I have assumed they were right. I wanted to be normal, but now I knew I wasn’t. Because they declared it to be.

**

Back to under the lilies, what was I thinking all these years? That they were right. And probably it extended not to just one aspect of life but to everything. Mental illness, physical illness, character, likes, dislikes, behaviours and pehaps now most of all, who I trust.

I no longer trust that person and they don’t matter to me anymore. They marked me, like pollen does if it gets on your clothes. But now I have removed the pollen.

One day, beneath the lilies, I listened to Tori Amos…

Excuse me, but can I be you for a while

My dog won’t bite if you sit real still

I got the Anti-Christ in the kitchen yellin’ at me again

Yeah, I can hear that

Been saved again by the garbage truck

I got something to say, you know, but nothing comes

Yes, I know what you think of me, you never shut up

Yeah, I can hear that

Tori Amos, Silent All These years

My screams got lost in the years that have past since. Assuming they were right and that I just was not a normal woman. I wasn’t like all the rest and I would carry that mark for the rest of my days. I was marked for always. And they would go on, probably manipulating other women into normal or not.

Except, under my lilies began a process of:

Remember

Forgive

Heal

Simple to write, but difficult to do. I admit to being stuck on the forgiving point. Can I forgive someone who mattered? For the manipulation, and for the mark on me that I thought must be permanent… for too many years. It will come. I know it has to in order to heal.

But please, don’t ask me to forget.

I’ll get there (to forgive). I have to, but it’s going to take some time. Perhaps more lilies. Perhaps more lying on the floor with my feet up on the couch. Straightening my back, resting my neck. Perhaps more letting my thoughts work to a point of wholeness. Perhaps more pollen to remove.

Am I a normal woman? Probably not by your standards, definitely not by theirs. But in my mind, I’m just the same as you. I won’t accept the judgement of those who no longer matter.

Am I a normal woman? Probably not, but that is okay. I can just be me, with all that makes me me. Mental illness, physical illness, character, likes, dislikes, behaviours and perhaps now most of all, who I trust.

I trust myself now, and that is what makes the difference. If I am deemed not to be a normal woman, that is okay now. I would rather not be normal if what happened beneath the lilies so long ago spells normal. The healing will come.

Consider the lillies. They don’t care if they are normal or not. And perhaps neither do I.

Thanks for reading!

Cate

Don’t Call Me A Monster

I knew I was a monster by the time I was fifteen. Everything had gone bad. I had no understanding of the things I was doing and saying. Neither did anyone around me. Well, the people who knew and that was only my immediate family. I would be too ashamed to admit it to anyone else, even though I desperately needed help.

My parents wanted to help me but had no idea how. They wondered whether this was simply normal teenage stuff. It wasn’t! They should have got me some help. But hindsight is wasted. They didn’t get me help, and it remained a secret. I had become a monster! I was sure!

What followed were major life decisions I quietly made according to my belief that I was a monster. I quickly concluded that I should never be a parent. I couldn’t inflict myself on a child, nor could I pass on any rogue genes. You see, I had no idea what was going on with me. I couldn’t risk ever becoming a mother.

I must be a monster for real! I continued to hold that secret monster close to my chest. My friends must not know because surely they would reject the monster. Even those with whom I would be in an intimate relationship would never know.

It was my secret to hold and use against myself for what has been most of my life. I was full of self-loathing and hate. I was terribly ashamed of what my family (but no one else) knew of me.

Terrified of what might be if I didn’t maintain a tight hold over my monster. I couldn’t let anyone see, for that they would surely hate me if they did.

Actually, it would be thirty years (yes, I did say 30 years) before I had a medical professional offer me help with my monster. It was at that time that, after seeing many mental health professionals before him, one psychiatrist had the guts to diagnose me as having Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD).

 

Monsters. Hmm.

I know better now. I am not a monster, although there are still times of self-loathing in which I threaten myself with that label. There are also times when I lose that tight rein over myself and become rather monster-like. Jobs have been lost. People have been lost. But I understand better how that comes about, and I am learning ways of being in which monster doesn’t get a look in.

Monster aside, the psychiatrist who recognised in me the symptoms of BPD did me an enormous favour because finally, I had explanations for the me who had always been me (and not a monster).

There had been mental health professionals who had gone close to identifying BPD much earlier when I was being treated for depression, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)and Anorexia.

They had hedged around the issue but they told me cryptically that they didn’t want to see me labelled negatively. It would apparently negatively affect how I was treated in the future. So they continued to see me as having chronic depression. In my opinion, this was simply the BPD stigma I will address shortly.

It would have done me the world of good if I had that explanation of who I was. They didn’t understand how much the monster that I knew as me was actually killing me. Had they understood, perhaps between us we might have prevented two suicide attempts that would eventually come when I could no longer stand my monster.

Those of us with BPD live with all kinds of negative labels. Monsters. Drama Queens. Attention Seekers. Manipulative. Impulsive. Addicts. We get told we don’t have a ‘real’ mental illness because what we have is a Personality Disorder. We are likened to Narcissists and Sociopaths. Yes, some would go so far as to say that we are “bad” not “mad”.

There are plenty of websites out there that are dedicated to viewing people with BPD in this light. From what I’ve seen, most are run by family members who have seen the consequences of people living with BPD who don’t have adequate treatment or support. While I understand that those family members have had a lot of pain and hurt in their lives, I don’t accept the way that they paint us to be.

I am not a monster. I am not a Drama Queen. I am not an Attention Seeker. I do not seek to be Manipulative or Impulsive. I do though, accept that I am an addict and this continues to be a thorn in my side even though I have done a great deal of work to overcome it.

I do suffer, and I do struggle to know myself as anything other than these labels. Because believe me when I say, that the harm I can do to myself with these labels is much greater than the harm you do me.

It is clear to me that there is a great deal of stigma hanging over the two in a hundred people who live with BPD.

Just last week I read the words of another kiwi writer who said that the shroud over mental illness has been lifted. I think he was writing about depression and anxiety, for which I know are much more acceptable than in the past. But for BPD, there is a very long way to go.

Even amongst medical professionals, we are often viewed negatively. It was difficult to decide whether to let anyone know of my BPD diagnosis, and there are times even now when I wish I had not let it be known.

Am I a monster? No, I’m not but I need your support to believe in myself. Don’t write me off. I am a unique human being. I happen to feel my emotions strongly but who given the right opportunity can love and be loved as much as you.

Thanks for reading

 

Cate

Image credit: Facebook Page Anxiety Depression & I