Personal Narrative: Borderline Personality Disorder

Am I to blame for being diagnosed with a Borderline Personality Disorder and PTSD? I am a survivor of child sexual abuse that started in 3rd grade and was perpetuated by others until I was eleven. At twelve-years-old, I became a survivor of rape by my psychopathic brother - a secret, I am now sharing. I am a survivor of my mother's constant verbal and physical abuse in my growing years. And, I survived at thirteen the six months' abandonment in Israel by my mother; she was busy running wild among her people in the promised land.

Six months after our return to the United States, the juvenile court system determined by parents unfit and severed their parental rights. Now, at fourteen and a Ward of the Court, for the next two years, I was placed

in a boarding school for emotionally troubled children. After returning home at sixteen, for approximately one year, I had my first-time on and off boyfriend who committed suicide, his last words to me the night before his death were, "See Ya".

Nevertheless, I went on to develop a successful career in Financial Accounting.

Yes, I had a mental illness controlled by medications. I had periodic hospitalizations for attempts at suicide throughout my life. And yet, I married at twenty-eight, had my first child at thirty, to then learn my husband was using drugs behind my back. I remained in the marriage to have my daughter at age thirty-five, to learn my husband was addicted to cocaine and was affecting the family, but I remained. When my husband became physically abusive after sixteen years of marriage I filed for

divorce.

However, our lives were entangled by the children, they were our priority. Over the following twelve years, I advanced in my career to become a Manager. The children grew to lead their own lives. God giveth and God taketh away, I had heard it said and came to learn the words first hand.

Tragedy struck, four years ago, when I was diagnosed with advanced glaucoma and was forced into early retirement, at 52 years of age, but that was just the beginning of losses that were to come.

The biggest loss along with my excellent credit score was my ability to remain in my hometown where my children still live. After I had moved to a less expensive city, one by one my brothers, my grown children, extended family, and my once friendly former husband turned their back to me. My calls eventually went to voicemail and messages were left unreciprocated. Not since the day of my diagnosis has anyone asked about my vision, drove the nine hours to visit or even call just to see how I am doing. Am I at fault being too sensitive, for needing to feel loved, to blame for asking to receive more than one text a month (if that)? Over these years, I have had to be the one to initiate contact.

Tomorrow, I will be a no-show at my Psychiatrist Appointment because he said I had two weeks to collect myself or he would hospitalize me again, well, I have not collected myself because I can't remember how to be the before me that is lost in an abyss of

grief.

Today, when I asked the last one who I thought was partially available, my daughter, "Are you avoiding me?" She replied in a text, "You are selfish and act like a child. I don't have time for your drama." She is referring, I believe, to my hospitalization for severe depression two months ago, of which she has yet to mention, choosing to pretend it never happened or worse she does not care. I take her response to imply - I am too needed for her busy schedule. A perfect way to further break a mother's fractured heart if anyone wants to know.

There was never a time I had considered that one day I would be without family or friends. That I would come to live with a disease that is the cause of my financial demise and loss of visual acuity.

Now, to added to the still open wound of the abandonment by my family is the added injury of rejection by my daughter. I ponder whether I have outlived my purpose? When everyone I love has no need for my presence in their lives, what remains is a self that feels worthless, unloved, and useless living in a city that is as ugly as I believe my life has become.