My childhood was hard—I’m not going to lie. My OCD began around the age of four, which shows how traumatic those years were. I was reaching for anything to help me survive, and my brain settled on counting, prayers and rules. It brought me through, but those compulsions never let go and remain with me to this day. My BPD didn’t surface until I was around eleven. So this piece is for my OCD.
Category Archives: BPD poetry
Am I A Monster?…
My childhood taught me that love is dangerous. Between a violent alcoholic father and a mother who refused to leave, my child’s brain simply cut the wires to survive. I don’t love, and I don’t want to be loved. It’s just how I am and I don’t miss something I’ve never had. But I am not a monster. I am just different.
Part Three: The Fourth Revealed…
I have always called my OCD The Professor—rules, logic, and calculating. My BPD, The Aggressor—intense, raw, and protective. The “me” is The Passenger, dissociated and watching from afar. But as I’ve written my poetry and dug down deep, I’ve realised there was a fourth all along: The Architect. The child who put all of this into motion as she fought to survive, creating who I am today.
Just Say No…
They teach you to say no to drugs when you’re a child but they don’t tell you what happens when your own mind is the place you are running from. When the past is a house on fire, you don’t hesitate at the door, you take whatever will burn the ghosts away just to get some quiet. Unfortunately a child doesn’t know that the quiet comes at a terrible cost. And the adult pays for it when those lost memories return.
Am I Real?…
Dissociation and emotional amnesia make my life feel like a movie playing for an empty room. I wrote this while sitting on the other side of the glass, viewing a life I’m supposed to live but mostly just watch pass me by.
I carry…
Carrying the weight of my intensely strong and fast emotions. Trying to explain how very deep they feel when you have BPD. You don’t just feel the emotions, you become them. In that moment you are nothing but your emotions and learning to control them is so hard.
What Do You See?…
I hide my disorders. At least I try my damned hardest. I hope no one sees me as ‘just’ my disorders. The only time I talk freely of them and my struggles is here in my poetry. The real me is right here in my poems where no one but you will see.
Gifted…
I write poetry on the devastating effects of having mental disorders but sometimes we should also look at them from the other perspective and show the absolute strength they gave us to survive.
Part Two: The Beginning of The Three…
From childhood trauma and the birth of ritualised protection, through the blur of addiction, erasing the traumatic memories, to their devastating return brought on by motherhood—where fragmented pieces must finally gather to guard the whole.
Part One: The Three; OCD, BPD & Me…
I do not have split personalities but my mind has three distinct forces. There is Me, my OCD-who I call the Professor, and my BPD-who I call the Aggressor. I’d love to say we’ve learned to live in harmony but that’s not how this story goes.
Different…
I joined BPD groups for like minded people but soon realised that although they were so very similar, in other ways they were worlds apart. Also having OCD makes me different. For them triggers and splits pass, for me, my whole life is dictated that way. We share symptoms but where theirs are temporary storms, mine form the entire foundation of how I exist day to day. They have a moment of black or white. I live that way 24/7. We share the same label but not the same reality.
The Blueprint…
You have to respect the one thing that made your survival through an awful childhood possible. That one thing was my clever brain. Having OCD and BPD have made my life hard, I won’t ever say they haven’t, but they also helped me to survive and I have to be grateful for that.
Grateful Mind…
As much as having BPD and OCD has hindered me all of my life, they have also very much helped me. I never doubt, I logically plan and I create so much. I don’t even know ‘who’ I would be without them now.
OCD meet BPD…
I’ve lived with OCD for as long as I can remember. When BPD joined forces, the two found a chaotic way to coexist in my brain. They sometimes work together but often don’t. This poem is about how they meet: one setting the fire, and the other desperately trying to clean up the mess.
Battlefield…
How the brain adapts to survive when childhood feels like a battlefield.
Clever BPD brain…
You live your life blaming your disorders for everything and hating them for it but one day you start to realise how clever your brain was as a child, to adapt in so many ways, just to keep you surviving and alive.
Love to Hate…
Although it’s hard to accept, because they’ve made my life so hard but my disorders really did save me.
Imagine…
A poem where I try to imagine how someone without BPD differs from me with BPD.
A story…
‘A Story’ is a raw, personal reflection on living with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) rooted in past childhood trauma.
When…
No one ever understands me but maybe reading this might help. One half of my disorders. BPD. If these words resonated with you, consider liking or subscribing to follow along with future poems.