Guest Blog by Amy: Coping with the Rollercoaster

Yesterday, as I was driving home, I suddenly felt empty.

One would think that after a pleasant hour-long conversation with someone who inspires you would be enough to provide a good high for the next couple of days. But for someone with Borderline Personality Disorder and a long, troubled history with Bipolar Disorder, the highs can immediately turn to extreme lows within hours and in this case, within minutes from pulling out of the coffee shop’s parking lot.

The tools I was provided from years of individual and group therapy sessions didn’t seem to work. But let’s be honest, once you’re already at your lowest point, you still struggle to go through your coping steps. Step One – go somewhere where your mind is quiet, Step Two – close your eyes, Step Three – take deep breaths, etc., etc. We all know them. And so I go through the motions.

I feel nothing. I always feel nothing. I always know what happens to me next. Feeling nothing then turns into frustration and then the frustration just immediately turns into self-loathing. There is no in-between. But then again, there rarely is for someone with my condition.

I have accepted that the extreme is where I live – it’s my emotional home. It’s familiar, it’s confusing and it’s SAFE. It has taken me years to realize that having “episodes” is where I feel most comfortable being. It’s who I have become and is what happens in the life of someone like me.

So what triggered the crash? The feeling that I wasn’t the person I presented myself to be to a new friend. The self-doubting questions of ‘Did I mean what I said?’, ‘Did I say the right things?’, ‘Did I make him feel comfortable?’, ‘Did I seem all there?’, and worse yet, ‘Did I seem crazy to him?’

I always think this way. I always imagine people who meet me to go home and tell their spouses or partners that Mae Flores is much crazier than they thought – insane really. Then they would proceed to laugh hysterically as the new friend would recount the direction the conversation went.

CUE IN: Self-Deprecation

I let it happen. Feeling the shame and the need to lay in fetal position under the covers that do not provide the security I need right then and now.

Then, I cry. Actually, I wailed. I felt like a child who was bullied in front of everyone in the school yard. My thoughts immediately jumped to the time I was a freshman in high school back in Chicago. Walking up the hill towards the school’s side entranceway was always a bit steep during wet snow. Wearing my school uniform, underneath that goose-down coat was neither stylish nor appropriate for the weather, but all the girls did it. Before I knew it, a group of boys that took the bus with me began throwing snow balls at me. They all made bets on who would be able to knock me down from that hill first. The girls who I thought were my friends stood near them laughing as I rushed in quickly through the doors soaking wet and feeling humiliated. All I heard was snickers and whispers surrounding me most of the morning and it wasn’t long after I switched to public school.

And now as an adult, this is how I still feel when I meet people – like an audience is always laughing and pointing fingers at me. But as I write this, I realize that this simple coffee meeting was not how I imagine it at this moment. As a matter of fact, it was not even close to that. It was uplifting and real. We laughed so hard there were tears in both our eyes. There were moments when it felt so positive and motivating that there was no other reason to feel but good.

And as I now sit here and provide myself a play by play of the discussions that took place, I realize that my condition is creating an alternate conclusion for the hour that took place with my new friend. And as the calm approaches and with it provides a feeling of newfound self-worth, I tell myself that I’m alright.

REPEAT LINE: YOU ARE ALRIGHT.

It turns out, this is just another one of those days. And I fall asleep; exhausted with the unnecessary emotional Olympics I just put myself through. Then I hear that voice again….

“What is wrong with you?”

Here I go again….

FADE OUT.