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Have you ever noticed that when you are in a car and you look out the window, everything outside is a blur and you can’t really focus on one thing. Pretty colours wash past and you can just about see flashes of houses painted white, with cute little windows. You think you see a dog and a boy playing, there are flowers on the side of the road and the sun is shining brightly...it’s all very normal and there’s nothing wrong so you smile contentedly as you drive. Then, suddenly the car has to stop, maybe for a robot or another car. You’re still looking outside and you’re looking at exactly the same landscape- except now it’s all in focus and you can see the cracks in the walls, the smashed glass in the windows, the trash on the side of the road, hidden in the flowers. You see that the boy and the dog aren’t really playing- the poor dog is tied to a stick and he’s just trying to get loose and the boy is pitifully thin and sad, glaring at your car dejectedly. Before you can react the car starts moving again and to you, sitting safely in a comfy car with air conditioning, it could all have been a dream and whats out the window looks pretty again. Except it wasn’t a dream- and the beauty you once appreciated has now been ruined by the truth.
My doctors say that it’s normal for a girl like me, a girl with BPD (Bipolar Disorder), to feel happy for a long time and then feel intense bouts of depression or anger, but what do they know about what I feel?? I feel that my life is like that car ride, one minute I can be driving along happily, and then out of the blue I see how ugly everyone and everything really is underneath. People who say they are your friends are actually all liars and secretly they hate you. You can’t trust anybody- not even yourself, especially if you are like me. I am the “extra” in my family, or at least that’s what I call myself. They don’t really need me and they don’t understand about the car ride, they don’t understand anything!!! They always pick on me and in their eyes I see that they will never love me or see that I wish I wasn’t always stuck in the car- seeing the beauty but knowing that around the corner is the truth and constantly tensing, waiting for the beauty to be ripped apart . All they see is that they have an ugly, useless teenage daughter who doesn’t just have normal mood swings, but who is actually insane, whereas their other daughter is perfect. She is beautiful, clever, kind and above all calm. How I hate her. Sometimes I just wish I could pull her perfect, blonde hair out and scratch at her eyes.
No, wait, actually I don’t. It’s not Katie’s fault she’s so amazing, and she really is amazing, she is good at everything and everyone loves her and one day she will be a famous something or other. Once upon a time we were actually very close, but then she went and got that boyfriend and forgot about me. I don’t really blame her, I would forget about me too, if I could. She says that she’s always there for me, but I know that if I told her some of the things I did she would make them take me away, no matter what she says. At the moment nobody knows anything about the scars on my legs...or the beautiful escape route I keep under my bed. Sometimes, when it all gets too much and I truly see how useless and awful I am, I try to punish myself with little cuts.
They are never obvious or dangerous...I’m not stupid, but it’s actually kind of beautiful seeing my life trickling away, just another thing trying to escape from me. I almost feel sorry for all those little blood cells, I just wish that I could let someone else, someone more worthy, take them, and use them to do something spectaculour. Maybe when they were driving they would stop the car, paint over the cracks, buy new glass for the windows, clean up the litter and wash away the graffiti, find the dog a home and the little boy a job. Sometimes I wish I could die and somebody really amazing could take my place. Somebody totally opposite to me. Somebody special.
