November 7 – 6:43 p.m.

She said it gently, like she was laying it down instead of dropping it on me.
"You may meet criteria for Borderline Personality Disorder."

The room went still, but not heavy. Just...quiet.
Like a snowstorm had started outside and we hadn’t noticed until now.

I didn’t say anything. I just nodded like she’d told me I had a vitamin deficiency.
Like it wasn’t a name I’d heard whispered like a warning.
Like it didn’t sound like the punchline of a joke no one wanted to admit was cruel.

I came home. I didn’t take off my coat. I sat on the floor of my bathroom and Googled it.

BPD.

• Fear of abandonment

• Unstable relationships

• Impulsive behavior

• Intense emotional swings

• Identity disturbance

• Chronic feelings of emptiness

• Inappropriate, intense anger

• Dissociation

I read the list and sobbed.
Not because it was scary.
But because it was familiar.

Is this why I feel so much?
Is this why I split people into saints or monsters?
Is this why I love like I’m drowning and then leave like I never needed them at all?
Why I can't hold anyone?
Why I keep breaking things that felt like home until they didn’t anymore?

I want to be held so badly. But the second someone reaches for me, I bite.
Not on purpose. But because it’s safer to ruin it first.
If I ruin it, they don’t get to.

I’m scared this is who I am.
But I’m also relieved it has a name.
Because if it has a name, maybe it can have a map.
A beginning.
An edge.
An end.

I’m going to write it down again tomorrow.
And the next day.
Until it doesn’t feel like a sentence.
Until it starts to feel like a path.

I keep refreshing the page like the symptoms will change.

I keep hoping it’ll say something like:
“BPD: a misunderstanding. Not you. Just a phase. You’ll be okay once someone loves you right.”

But that’s not what it says.
It says unstable.
It says intense.
It says difficult.

I scroll through Reddit threads like they’re confessionals.
Girls like me writing: “I ruin everything good.”
“I want to die every morning but smile at brunch.”
“I scream, and then I beg, and then I go numb.”

I hate how much of it feels like me.
I hate how much of me feels like a diagnosis.

My ex once told me I was "a hurricane in a glass jar.”
Like something beautiful, but unsafe. Like something best kept sealed.
I laughed when he said it. But later, I cried.
Because I knew he was right.
I do that. I am that.
I come in too strong. I stay too long. I burn through people who tried to hold me.

And when they leave —
God, the ache is unbearable.
Like losing oxygen.
Like forgetting how to exist unless someone is watching.

I think about every man I’ve ever loved and wonder if I loved them or if I just needed them not to leave.
I wonder if I know the difference.

I want love to save me.
But I don’t think love knows how to survive in a house always catching fire.

My therapist said it’s not my fault.
She said BPD isn’t a flaw — it’s a wound.
A wound that never got to scab over because I kept being asked to smile through the bleeding.

I didn’t choose this.
But now I have to choose what to do with it.

I’m scared.
But I want to know who I am without the chaos.
I want to be able to stay.
To not scream.
To love and not fear it.

I don’t want to hurt anymore.
And I don’t want to hurt anyone else, either.

Tomorrow, I’m going to write down one thing I know for sure.
And try not to let it be "I ruin everything."