A Day Inside My Mind..

Inside my brain is a relentless operating system running millions of lines of code just to keep the floor from giving way. No pause button. No safety net. Just code, compulsions, and the heavy machinery of a mind working overtime to hold it all together. *This is just a glimpse, if I genuinely added every OCD ritual I do daily, this poem would be ten pages long.

The Girl I Should Have Been…

Two parallel lives carved out of the same years—one consumed by the brutal work of survival, resulting in BPD and OCD, the other unfolding in the effortless grace of safety. This is a look at the ghost of a childhood stolen, and the stranger who got to live it instead. In my dreams this girl was me. She got the life I would have killed for once upon a time.

The Ghost In The Glass…

When trauma shuts the system down, survival comes at a heavy cost. Derealisation strips the emotion from my past, turning even my happiest memories into fake, distant echoes. I am left living entirely in a hollow present, reaching for a life that feels like it belongs to someone else. My memories are all there, boxed and stacked. I can look at them but I can’t ever feel them. This is how it all began, with the one memory that stays awfully real.

Dear Me…

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.

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. My brain refutes one kind of love, and fiercely accepts the other, I love my son with all my heart.

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.

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.

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.

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.