Resisting Exile

08Jan 2018 by Linda Bayley

The crack in the ice

A few days ago, in a strange fit that was part sarcasm and part desperation, I asked JDS to tell me fourteen reasons why life was worth living. He told me that he would give me one reason per day for the next fourteen days. Reason One was a member of his family. Fair enough, I thought, and then felt guilty that in all of my casting about, family members didn’t present themselves to me as obvious reasons for living. That’s my illness though, and I need to not feel guilty about it. On my good days, my family members are the first things that I feel grateful for. But this wasn’t one of my good days. Reason Two was nowhere near as obvious as Reason One. Reason Two, for…

04Jan 2018 by Linda Bayley

Domino

Musings

Six years ago today, my best friend was so sick that he gave me a look, a very human look, that said, "I've had enough of this." And because I loved my friend very much, I brought him to the veterinarian who ended his pain, not quickly enough. Domino lived with me for seventeen and a half years, and I always believed that he had saved my life. The day I brought him home, I was on a day pass from the hospital, where I'd spent a few weeks after a second botched suicide attempt. I had no idea how to move forward, no idea how to start my life over again. But if I could learn how to take care of a cat, maybe I could learn how to…

30Dec 2017 by Linda Bayley

Can’t / Won’t

Action

Today I had to fight very hard to get past Can’t. My primary goal this morning was to spend some time with my mother in her sewing room. Her primary goal was to teach me a clever new way to make a pillowcase. In the past, I have been quick to pick up new sewing techniques and ideas. I have a great history of transferring learning, of picking up an idea from one project and adapting it to fit another. Lately, say the last three or four years, during this most recent bout of depression, learning has been very difficult for me. Because I am so used to being able to learn, this sudden inability to learn easily feels like an unforgivable sin that I am committing against myself. This…

26Dec 2017 by Linda Bayley

Fear and Regrets

Musings

My regrets pursue me relentlessly when I am asleep. The school I didn't graduate from, the people I didn't love (or love enough), the children I didn't have. Things I did not say, thoughts I could not express. Apparently, the ammo purse I carry doesn't just carry my grudges against other people; it also carries the things I am holding against myself. I'm starting to wonder if it's not actually an ammo trunk. Whatever it is, sometimes it opens of its own accord, and something is launched to explode in my face. Is the battle metaphor appropriate? I think it might be; depression is a constant struggle against an enemy that can only be glimpsed in the mirror. My psychiatrist tells me to bury my past and stop thinking about…

20Dec 2017 by Linda Bayley

Ammunition

Action

My aforementioned friend, JDS, has this theory that women carry around a purse full of ammunition that they can pull out and use at any time, usually without warning. Not literal ammunition, of course; emotional ammunition. The things people have done or not done to them, said or forgotten to say to them. Past slights or hurts, major and minor: they all go into the ammunition purse. And you never know when you're going to walk into an ambush, and have all that ammo rain down on your head. I didn't think I was that kind of woman, until I brought up an opinion JDS had expressed about eight months ago, and asked him whether he still felt the same way. What he felt was ambushed. He no longer had…

19Dec 2017 by Linda Bayley

Keeping up appearances

Self-Esteem

My best friend, who we'll call JDS for now, is a photographer. He's also one of a handful of people that I can count on to tell me the truth when my thinking is skewed. One area where my thinking is often skewed is in my self-image. As my psychiatrist once put it, I am short of stature and overweight. Over the years, people that I trust have told me that I should get a bust reduction, that I should get my eyebrows waxed, that I have too much hair in the wrong spots. All of this means that I will never again pose happily in a bathing suit like I did in this picture, not even if I have water wings. Because my body is not right. JDS and…

18Dec 2017 by Linda Bayley

We should talk about this

Stigma

Today I noticed that the Twitter hashtag #MyMentalHealthIn5Words was trending. I had a look at what people were posting, and then made my contribution: We should talk about this. Mental health and mental illness both seem to be in the news a lot these days. Just this morning, the radio told me that the suicide rate in Bhutan is going up. (Sorry, I can't find the programme reference to point you to.) We're hearing constantly about the opioid crisis in Canada. We're hearing about our military veterans and their families, struggling to cope with what they've been through. And yet... we're not talking. We're talking in broad terms, of course. Like, Wow, there's an epidemic of depression / addiction / PTSD out there and we should really do something about…

16Dec 2017 by Linda Bayley

Your Loved

Affirmation

I want to tell you about what I saw yesterday. I'm trying not to use clichés, trying to come up with utterly original language to convey this amazing thing. I've finally decided that utterly original language is not what's needed here. I don't need to be perfect (although everyone with BPD needs to be perfect). I saw this sticky note on the wall of the bus I was riding. It took me a moment to understand what I was reading, but once I did, all I could think of was whether I could get a picture before I had to get off the bus. It was just about the most beautiful thing I'd seen all day. "Your Loved," the note said. The BPD brain said, "That's not how you…