1. Allow Me To Introduce Myself...

I am damaged goods. This damage is not beyond repair, not irreversible, but it is deep, far deeper than I ever cared to admit, or was able to see. Until now.

It took someone very special to me, someone who truly loved and cared about me enough to point out I needed help. And I found it. This person is currently gone from my life; heartbreaking, yes, and something that has to be. For now, anyway.

There is a gaping wound in me and I am beginning to heal it. The process will be excruciatingly painful. It will be horrifying. It will drag me deep down into the murky depths of my subconscious. It will be completely worth it.

I am like this because my mother is mentally ill.

For years I have had many doubts about myself and my abilities to function like a normal human. These doubts have either swum out in the open or lurked deep within the depths of me, but always there.

My mother is suffering from undiagnosed Borderline Personality Disorder.

This illness turned my life and my sister's into a waking nightmare. If you have never lived through this, seen this, you may think what you read here is exaggerated. The truth is it's a thousand times worse than you could ever imagine.

I am writing this both as a way to work my way through my recovery of growing up with a borderline parent and as a way to show others who are going through it, or have gone through it, they are not alone. My sister and I thought we were alone. At thirty-four years of age I have discovered we're not alone and never were. So many other children grew up in a version of our nightmare; they, too, were prisoners in a home ruled by a monster who lived within a parent. My heart goes out to all of them. It goes out to the lost childhood of my own.

The horror of this illness is the effect it has on the children; the adults they become. The reverberations of life in that house is ringing loud in all aspects of my grown-up life. It is only now I am fully able to hear that sound. It is insidious and sly. It has affected how I interact with others. It has successfully led to destruction of every romantic relationship I have ever had. It has touched everything I say, think, feel and do.

I want no more. I want to be free.

I started therapy three weeks ago. Three weeks ago when my life changed for always. The man I love left, the blinders crashed to the floor and I saw what I had become. The creature who is in me is not of my own making. But it is there, dwelling, nevertheless. Three weeks ago I found a therapist who gave me validation for my childhood; who told me I am not crazy, just a byproduct of a fucked up childhood that I could have never hoped to control or change. That validation was my first step to recovery.

I am now on that road. It's a long, dangerous road, but I will make it, that I know. Every step I take, even if it's sideways or seemingly backwards is still movement, still positive, still leading to freedom, because every step is awareness and knowledge and learning. When you have those things, you have everything.

Some of you reading this know me. Some of you reading this know my mother. Most of you don't. I will be taking you through my recovery process, the anger, the rage, the pain, the fear, the struggle to find out who I am.

At thirty-four years of age, I do not really know who I am. I was never allowed to be. I was simply an extention of my mother and her illness, her receptical to throw her unwanted emotions into. I (along with my sister) took the blame for all that was wrong with her. We were her.

I am beginning to discover me. This is about discovery as well as recovery. This is forgiveness and exploration. This is definition. This is ending and beginning.

This will be who I am.

I'm eager to discover who that really is. I am filled with both trepidation and anticipation.

Let the journey begin.