I am Clareprupoetry. I write poetry and prose on living with BPD and OCD, derealisation, dissociation and emotional detachment. I have lived with these conditions since I was a child. I both appreciate them and despair of them. Read my unfiltered poetry on life with comorbid conditions.
I grew up in a home where my father was a violent alcoholic who beat my mother. She was emotionally detached—something I can’t blame her for, given what she was going through herself. But I was sent to a childminder on weekdays from eighteen months old, and she was physically and mentally abusive. No one ever saw what was happening to me, and that is what I can blame her for.
I grew up thinking this was normal. I had no other baseline. To keep me quiet and prevent me from telling others how we lived, I was told repeatedly that our family was normal, that all families were like ours, and that I simply wasn’t there to see it.
As I grew, my mind did clever things to help me survive. It started with counting and praying, to create some kind of control in a chaotic childhood with none (magical thinking), it split, it compartmentalised, it dissociated, it caused emotional detachment, and I ended up with OCD and then BPD. This is my story, put straight onto the page. If you prefer arty, flowery poems then this is probably not for you. But if you like unfiltered, brutally honest poetry, then welcome…
