There were moments in my life when it felt like I wasn’t in control. Not just moments of rage—though there was rage, but also sex, food, impulse buys, words I couldn’t take back, and decisions I couldn’t undo.
It felt like I was watching myself from just behind my eyes, unable to stop what was happening. My hands were moving, my mouth was speaking, and some part of me was inside yelling, “Why are we doing this again?!”
It was like being a passenger in my own body. Like something else had taken over.
When you don’t have the language to explain what you’re going through, you borrow whatever words you can find. And the ones I had weren’t kind.
Bad. Lazy. Loser. Failure.
And sometimes even darker ones:
Possessed. Broken. Cursed. Damned.
I spent part of my time wallowing in feelings of worthlessness—convinced that I was somehow fundamentally wrong. The rest of the time, I felt like I was surrounded by people who just didn’t get it. They didn’t understand me. Or maybe they didn’t want to.
Too emotional, too intense, too reactive, too strange.
Eventually, I stopped looking for help. I figured I didn’t deserve it. Or worse, that it wouldn’t work anyway.
Diagnosis, Not Damnation
The first time I heard the term Borderline Personality Disorder, I flinched. It sounded harsh. Permanent. Like a sentence.
But something about it also felt familiar. There was relief in it, even if I didn’t want to admit it right away. For the first time, something about me made sense.
I started learning. I found out what emotional dysregulation actually is. I learned about the brain—how the amygdala can go into overdrive and the prefrontal cortex can struggle to keep up. I found real tools to help manage the chaos inside me.
I learned about DBT and the STOP skill.
Stop. Take a step back. Observe. Proceed mindfully.
I discovered that just naming what I was feeling, putting words to the storm, could help calm it down.
None of it was easy. But for the first time, it was possible.
Reclaiming My Story
For years, I thought I was haunted. That something inside me was broken beyond repair.
Now I know I wasn’t haunted. I was overwhelmed. I wasn’t cursed. I was hurting. I wasn’t evil. I was in pain. I didn’t need to cast anything out of me. I needed to listen. I needed to understand what’s there, and give it space to breathe.
Why I’m Sharing This
I’m sharing this because I know I’m not the only one who’s felt this way.
There are people out there right now who feel like I did—ashamed, scared, exhausted, and convinced there’s something deeply wrong with them.
But here’s the truth: You are not evil, you are not a failure, you are not alone, and you are not beyond help.
There are names for what you’re feeling. There are tools that can help. There is a path out. We don’t need to be saved from demons. We need to be understood. We need support. We need to know there’s a way through.
And there is.
Final Note
If this resonates with you, I hope you’ll talk to someone. A therapist, a friend, even yourself.
Because the way out of the dark doesn’t start with a scream. It starts with a quiet moment of clarity:
This isn’t who I want to be. But I’m still here. And I’m not giving up.