the story is old, I know, but it goes on*

A friend of mine, John at www.myranting.co.uk, wrote a short story once that said, in part : There's just something missing right now. I'm not sure what it is. But whatever it is, it's not fuckin' there. A big void in my soul that I've tried to fill with every single kind of nonsense that I can possibly think of. This statement has always struck a chord with me, as it describes the way I've felt all my life. It explains SO MANY poor choices...the wrong men I pursued, in the wrong ways...the terrible/wonderful substances with which I've abused my body...the obsessions, hobbies, compulsions, images, personas, vendettas, friendships, all of which inevitably failed to fill that void that I call the Big BPD Empty.

It's only now, nine months after my official diagnosis with Borderline Personality Disorder, that I am starting to feel the void getting smaller. And it's amazing to me that I never realised the way to heal my heart was from the inside out. Always wanting to push/shove/stuff things IN to myself, there wasn't room for the growth of what wanted to come OUT. That sounds slightly gross, lol, I swear this isn't one of my posts about bodily functions! I guess what I am trying, poorly, to say is that all along the substance that was needed to fill my Big Empty was stuff that already existed in ME. It's not one thing, it seems to be a grunge-coloured mixture of fury, joy, terror and rapture at the moment... but it's definitely true and real and all that hippy stuff haha. It seems like the more work I do at finding out how I really feel and think about things (my self, my life), the less that void threatens to engulf me.

I had my last session with Dr A this week before his month-long vacation - now I'm flying solo for four weeks, when I usually see him once a week. I think it's a good opportunity for me to see how I travel without him to keep me on track, and maybe it will all go down the tubes by the end of October but there's a good chance it won't. Although I've never been a member of AA I know enough to be able to quote one of the sayings of the 12 Steppers - "it works if you work it". That definitely applies to my battle against the Big Empty. Even though sometimes I would rather stay in bed and/or drink gin and/or eat a truckload of junkfood and/or pull my hair out by the handful I know that the hard work is where the reward lies. Damn it.

(*The Smiths - Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me)