The Quiet Between Us
“So, what was it you didn’t want to tell me?” He asked as we were driving in his father’s car. I started to cry from nervousness and maybe a little bit from embarrassment. I went to the psychiatrist for the first time a couple of days prior. My therapist recommended it; for the first time, he thought it might be necessary. I mean, looking back now, I think it was, too. I had trouble keeping my emotions from bouncing off the walls of my brain. Sleep made me, strangely enough, more tired. I knew I struggled with anxiety, but not like this, not the type that made it feel like my body weighed 1000 pounds, completely paralysing me from doing anything at all. But the one thing that bothered me most was the incessant thoughts of dying. It took over everything. I thought about the peace I would feel if I ended it all and the different ways I could do it without suffering too much. Unlike my teenage years, where I thought about all the ways I could inflict pain on myself, I now just wanted to go away peacefully. I felt like I was already hurting enough. I deserved to go away as fast as possible.
On the other hand, I feared being murdered or killed accidentally; I had to have control over how I went. I felt like I had no control over anything else. I deserved to choose when I would go. No one could take that away from me. So, I stood as far away as possible from the metro tracks in case someone with bad intentions was standing too close to me. I looked behind my back every other minute to make sure no one was trying to stab me. I smoked every cigarette with a deep fear that the one currently burning was the one that was going to give me cancer.
The cold man with a slight lisp behind the desk looked at me straight in the eyes and calmly said, “You have BPD.” My world came crashing down because this meant dealing with this forever. This meant a constant battle with myself for the rest of my life. He prescribed me a low dosage of epilepsy medication, which apparently has side effects that can help with BPD. I was so upset with myself. I always struggled with my mental health, and even when my family denied getting me help when I was younger, I achieved plenty of things. I was able to deal with it all, and I may have had issues suppressing certain impulsive decisions and random outbursts, but I was still functioning. Never in a million years did I think I was going to be the one on meds. I never thought it was something someone should be ashamed of, but I just didn’t want to depend on anything to be able to be “normal”. Finding this out on my late father’s birthday was also not helpful either.
I sat silently for a moment and looked at my fingers. I felt suffocated by my seat belt, and all I wanted to do was jump out of the car. The tears kept coming, and I struggled to find the words to tell him. “Vivi, you can tell me anything. I’m here for you.” But was he going to be? After all, we’ve only been together for three months, and he’s only seen one side of me, the one everybody would like. How do I know he’s not going to leave me on the side of the road the instant he hears that I can think he is the most perfect person in the whole wide world one day and think he’s an absolute monster the next when he does something I didn’t like. Will he still be around when he realises that this means I have abandonment issues, that I’ll act certain ways because I am so scared that he’ll leave me? How about the times I’ll have my super highs and then suddenly hit my super lows? Will he be able to keep up?
“I have BPD.” “What’s that?” I gave him a quick rundown of what that meant. I tried my best not to make it sound too scary. He kissed me on the cheek and said I didn’t have to be scared to tell him and that he didn’t see me differently. This relieved me for a second, but some part of me knew that he believed it now, but it might not be the case when he actually experiences it. I promised myself I would do everything to hide this side of me from him, that he didn’t need to see it all. At the time, I saw this as protecting him from me, but was it actually just that fear of abandonment I mentioned earlier?
The relationship ended five months later, but not because I had done anything. I’m sure it was the case because one of the last things he told me was, “If I had to wait for you to do something wrong to leave you, then that meant I would be with you forever.”
The relationship was a happy one; communication was clear, fights were tamed and respectful, and surprisingly, I had matured a lot and had very few impulsive reactions. I kept my word. It was odd because I was super happy, the happiest I had ever been with someone, but also terribly suffering on my own. I kept most things negative away from him and tried to keep a positive attitude at all times, and then when I went home, I could take the mask off. He could hear it in my voice at times on the phone when I wasn’t feeling well, but I always finished it with, “But don’t worry, I should be fine!”. The suicidal thoughts were incessant; the medication made me sleepy, so sometimes, when we were out together, I was fighting off the fatigue while still trying to stay present. It was a lonely fight like it has always been. Sometimes, I wish I had shared my pain with him more, but I refused to be the one to bring someone down with me. I admitted to him once when we were fighting that I didn’t share it all with him, to which he responded with “Thank you.” From that moment, I understood that he also didn’t want to hear it. It stung a little bit, and I didn’t know why then. I think because deep down, I wish he cared more and he actually wanted to know, but at least he was honest, and I should’ve seen it as a sign that the relationship would not survive for long. My mental health declined as time went on, and the medication didn’t seem to work very well. It came to a point where I found myself sitting in front of the psychiatrist again, balling my eyes out, asking him if my deep desire to die was a normal thought. He told me that no, it was not and that I would really benefit from going to a “retreat” for a few weeks. My heart sank, but I agreed. It was the last resort. I had officially hit rock bottom, and this I was deeply ashamed about. I really didn’t have any control anymore. I was scared to share a space with other mentally ill patients. The first thing I thought about was how self-harm scars so very easily trigger me, and I can’t handle seeing them even in movies. I was so afraid to see other patients with them. I was afraid of being force-fed medication.
I naturally didn’t tell my boyfriend about this conversation, which I knew he couldn’t handle.
Every time I hear that one line in Billie Eilish’s What Was I Made For?, “I’m sad again, don’t tell my boyfriend”, I think about this moment right here, comforted and yet deeply disappointed at the realisation that this isn’t an uncommon thing to go through as a woman.
I missed the call from the “retreat” and ultimately decided not to go. I didn’t go because I was afraid but mainly because I was tired of letting it win. Something in me switched; a calm took over, and I have not spiralled as much as I used to ever since. The thing is, BPD is something that you can’t cure, but with the right tools, you can control it, and it only gets better with practice and time. So once I understood that I truly held the power, this changed everything for me. I didn’t realise it at the time, but I found a lot of my tools when I was “shielding” him from my condition. My fear of losing him forced me to have a grasp on my impulsivity and control over my intense emotions and the words that came out of my mouth. I practised patience when we would take some time from each other, forcing me to sit face to face with my abandonment issues, facing them head-on. When he eventually left for real, I was surprisingly okay.
It saddens me that it took a man for me to make the effort to make the changes I needed yet I also feel this sense of pride that I am the type of person capable of wanting to better myself out of love and care for somebody else.
I came to realise that I was too focused on doing what is “right” on my own and didn’t even think that getting support from my partner was an option for me, maybe subconsciously I thought I didn’t deserve it. I think I should’ve opened up a little more and tested the waters, communicated a little clearer still with a little caution. He on the other hand, was probably not ready to be in a relationship serious enough to have deep conversations about mental health or simply didn’t want to.
Now I wonder how it is I am supposed to balance things when I eventually get into another relationship. How do I ask for help and comfort without crossing anyone’s boundaries? Is it possible or even healthy to share everything with your partner?
Honestly, I truly believe I won’t be able to know until I meet someone new. I feel like it’s one of those things where you learn as you go. And, having a playbook for this would be absurd because as cliché as this sounds, we are all so fundamentally different and all relationships have unique dynamics. All I know now is what it is I do not want, which to feel alone in a relationship. I do not want to feel ashamed of who I am and picking and choosing what side of me I will show and what side I will not. I’d like to know that every part of me is loved even if some can cause some complications.
Sometimes, I wonder what my relationship would’ve been like if I had exposed myself fully to him. I even wonder if it would have flourished and if he would have loved me the same. I wonder if he struggled too and did not want to tell me because he was always committed to keeping things light. Did we both lie next to each other, silently suffering? This is something I will probably never know. I am left with many unanswered questions but so many lessons learned. I’ve understood that hiding a huge part of myself has no benefit whatsoever, and even though I could do so in my previous relationship, it was a very short one, so god knows how long I would have realistically been able to keep that up. I had never expected him to save me and knew he didn’t have the power to do so, but I still wanted to feel like I was worthy of love despite what I was going through. It wasn’t all his fault and he did as much as he could with what was given to him. I wish I had expressed more and been brave enough even though there was a risk of him leaving me. Because at least I would’ve known that it was all real. However, I also strongly believe it is super important to understand other people’s limits, identify what things they can help you with, and what issues you should deal with with a professional because no one is capable of dealing with it all. It is unfair to expect them to do so.
Paris, March 2023
