Intermission

Intermission in the story...

My friends are getting married this Saturday and I'm so excited for them. http://www.octoberfirst2005.com. They have been so generous to their friends. Al & I are reading Scripture for their wedding. As a thank you, they gave each one of their helpers a book that represented their personality from the Rob "Henersen?" children series of Mr. & Miss books. Al got Mr. Brave. I got Miss Giggles. My friend Lindsay, one of the bridesmaid, got Miss Troublemaker. (I thought she would get Miss Naughty!) I think the bride is Miss Giggles personally, but I was so blessed by her thoughtfulness. The story was about Miss Giggles who lost her giggle and then someone gave it back to her. It was kind of sobering because it was actually the story of my life! I used to be so high spirited and giggly and then the abuse happened. Now, I finally feel like in the past month, I'm back to that giggly self again!! How great that after 16 years of feeling like I messed up my life and I'd become a different person, I feel like I'm back to the person I was always meant to be...pretty happy-go-lucky, contented, and always ready for fun! I feel a connection to the person I used to be as a child and the person I am today. It's so surreal. It's like I woke up from 16 years of sleep and I'm just discovering who I am as an adult. I think the change happened after a retreat this August or after many sessions with Dr. Q...maybe I just found myself! Yeah!:)

Glenn

Too emotionally difficult to get into a lot of detail about this next phase of my life. This next part will be in brief notes.

From age 14-16, I was deeply wanting an older male's approval and attention. I thought that this older man, Glenn, of 23, 9 years my senior, was a funny, cool and great guy. I met him at church, but he wasn't a Christian or anything. He just kind of hung out for social reasons. So, I met him and got to know him a bit. He was a friend. When I was 14 years old in the summer, we started talking a lot on the phone. I was going into highschool and thought it was really cool to hang out with this guy. I felt special that I had such a cool friend who drove a motorcycle, went to clubs to party, was athletic and 23 years old! Well, one thing led to another and the relationship developed into a romantic one.

The start of the romantic relationship was the beginning of the end. I will not go into too much detail about all he said, lied about, how he corrupted me psychologically and sexually or it would really bring up old wounds, I want to leave. Baisically, my self-esteem plumetted. I became sulky, depressed and withdrawn. I felt ashamed, guilty and horribly misused. I felt like a broken, shattered person that was only a shadow. I wished I could have become invisible and disappeared. At 15 I was clinically depressed (self-diagnosis) as I never got any help. My relationships with my parents were very broken but they assumed I was just going through a phase that I would soon snap out of. I started hurting myself after a friend used a razor blade to carve words into her legs. I was also influenced by Glenn who used to act suicidal and para-suicidal. So, I started hurting myself to relieve the feelings of pain, anger and rejection I felt. I just hid it from everyone. It's like I acted one way in public, but in reality, my life and personhood had shattered into a million pieces. Desparate, alone and clinging on to life...I often used para-suicidal gestures to gain attention or just to express my pain. Some of the best poetry has come out of this time frame of my life, though I often don't like to read them as they're very dark. Because of his constant revolving door behaviour, my heart was broken and my trust in others gone. My trust in myself also left.

At age 16, I thought the only way to keep his interest in me was to have sex with him. So, it happened. But, I did not want it to. I said, "No!" twice but he still persisted. I didn't resist or fight him as I was so much smaller than him and I didn't want to face his rejection of me as in the past when I wasn't sexual with him. Of course, as usual, he left me and never came back to me. He denied that he was the father when I thought I was pregnant. But I wasn't pregant, just late. By this time, I had come to expect this kind of rejection and cruel behaviour from him, but I still hurt so bad inside. I think finally, I had had enough of him. I know I had had enough of the pain. I was at my lowest of lows.

Something happened, that made my life turn around....to be continued.

First Suicide Attempt

At age 13, life was pretty good. I was popular (not really, really popular, but popular enough), class president, pretty, had nice clothes, had a good self-esteem, active in jazz, ballet, music and other activities. On all accounts, I had a dream life. Only one thing that I both thought about a lot and felt a bit embarrased about... no boyfriend. I felt that because I was Asian, a lot of guys weren't interested in me or considered me attractive to them. One guy asked every girl out in the class except a really fat girl and me. I was kind of bumbed out about how guys perceived me. This one factor doesn't really play a part in my life until a year or two later.

So, with a good life and no major problems, why did my first suicide attempt come at this stage of my life? I don't know. My parents were mad at me for something. Usually my dad is relentlessly mad at me and my mom defends me from his actions of spanking, hitting or abusing. Now, both my parents were mad at me and yelling at me. They left the house to take a walk because they were both so mad at me. I took it so personally, as I was and still am quite sensitive. I just remember feeling that maybe both had turned on me and I had no one in my life. So, I took a bottle of Tylenol and swallowed about 8 pills. The bottle said to not take more than 13 pills a day so I figured 8 would be enough. My parents got home just after I had taken the pills and they realized what had happened. My parents freaked out. My mom made me throw up all the pills until she counted them all in the sink. My dad yelled at me, "You could have died you know!" I just replied, "I know" and he didn't know what to say after that. Lying in my bed that night, I just prayed that I wouldn't die. And my mom said that she had tried to overdose on pills one night when she had first got married. My dad took her to the hospital and they pumped her stomach. She said her parents came to the hospital too. Then, I asked my mom what they said to her and she said the never mentioned it to her after that night. My dad said she had to go off birth control pills and then she felt better. She realized after that night in the hospital, she would never do that again. And she never wanted to take her life after that. In fact she's so full of life now. Another strange event happened that year where my brother felt suicidal that year, too. I don't remember what was going on at home but things weren't happy in our family at all. My mom didn't realize that my brother was suicidal and shocked that he felt that way. I wasn't. I didn't care. (I do now!) But, back then I was so cynical. I can't believe in retrospect that my parents didn't ask for help for us in anyway. No doctors, no psychologists, no hospital visits...nothing was done.

Childhood

They say Borderline Personality may have some roots in lack of validity. Well, my father criticized me a lot and never encouraged me. He was emotionally distant. He was dealing with his own issues and tried to parent me as best he could. He did provide money for us to live and was a lot of fun to play with at times. My mother was very nurturing but also did not validate me in that she wanted me to do things her way. Sometimes pushing boundaries by trying to persuade me to do things her way instead of letting me make my own choices.

As well, I grew up in an all white community. Well, 98% all white. I was usually the only Asian person in my classroom. I saw how some Asian people were treated very poorly and made fun of. They were excluded from all social activities. I grew up trying to prove myself and feeling like I had to be extra everything, if I wasn't to be excluded. One of my biggest fears was that my classmates would realize that I was suddenly uncouthe and treat me just like those other minority kids. I was baisically treated well. But, at times older kids I didn't know would make fun of me because I was Japanese when I walked home from school. I wanted to be just like everyone else but I grew to accept that I was different. I never told anyone about these incidents when I was younger. I felt ashamed and like it was something to be embarrased about. Like I had failed to be cool enough. These messages made me feel that there was something wrong with who I was.

My Story

It's time for me to tell my story. How I got borderline personality disorder and how I'm overcoming it. It's a long story so I will just begin today.

I grew up in a nice suburban area in Toronto, Canada. Two parents and an older brother. It all seemed good and normal from the outside, but inside was a family adrift. My dad was very controlling, narsastic, emotionally distant and demeaning towards his wife and myself. My mother was nurturing but seemed very self absorbed and negligent in many areas. I was there for her and her needs. My needs would have to wait. In growing up, I did have mostly happy memories but a desparate few painful moments, like splashes of black paint against a colourful backdrop. To be continued...