trauma – RAW BPD-OCD POETRY

A Cruel World…

A raw look at the architecture of survival—where emotional shields, OCD, and BPD built an iron wall, and how a hard won numbness became a safer ground than the alternative.

Society has a rigid script for child abuse, expecting it to fit a predictable box. But sometimes it’s the person least expected, so nobody asks and nobody questions.
Later in life, when you try to tell a psychologist you were abused as a child, they immediately hand you leaflets on sexual abuse. Rather than exhausting yourself trying to correct them and explain that it wasn’t that at all, you just keep quiet. The way you have all your life. Until now.

Just Like Me…

We are taught to fear the people who don’t fit the mold, as if a lack of conventional warmth means a lack of a soul. But some minds don’t freeze out of malice, they freeze to survive.
But survival isn’t pretty, and wiring isn’t a choice. This is what it looks like when the walls finally meet a mirror.

My Family…

Some maps aren’t drawn on paper. They’re etched into the wiring of a child who learned early on that safety is a performance, survival has a cost, and the mind has to shatter just to hold the weight.

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. 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.

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.

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