I love metaphors, and for me one of the hardest things to describe is my experience of Borderline Personality Disorder (or Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder).
I want you to imagine your emotional range as a paint pallet. There are different colours, different emotions, in their own little slots. But as is the way art works, they get mixed. You mix some red and blue and end up with a lovely deep purple, then you get some white on your brush and you’re painting with a lilac-y mix of red, blue and white emotions. You’re happy, but there’s a bit of sad too, you’re a bit stressed but hopeful also. All in all it makes a fairly nice colour, sometimes too many colours are mixed and it goes a slightly murky brown colour, that’s not such a good mood.
My paint pallet works a little differently; I have different colours, just like you. But the paint doesn’t work, it’s a bit magic, and when I try and mix colours, one of them overrules. I mix red and blue but I can’t get purple, it just stays red, or goes all blue. I still have lots of colours, but they don’t mix, they just overwhelm my paintbrush and leave my painting to have some very odd colours of shadow. When I’m sad, all I can see is black, and when I am happy everything is bright white. Anxiety can take over and everything goes blue, or when I’m angry, the only colour is red. If I’m stressed, they don’t mix, I just have colours flying at me, asking for my attention separately, consuming me.
So when you get a bit confused because one minute I am laughing and the next I’m sobbing, remember that I can’t make purple, no matter what I mix, and we’re all just going to have to get used to that for now. Yes, its overwhelming, and sometimes its the best, or the worst, or the most terrifying, but for me, its the best I can do.
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