What I Cannot Stop Thinking Because of Borderline Personality Disorder

I can’t stop thinking.

I never have.

It comes hard and fast, each thought coated by the very poison I seek to escape from. Alas, there is no respite. No reprieve. Each thought that invades my psyche threatens to topple my sanity, to embroil my mind in the deep, dark toxins that are my own pain.

You are not enough. You are worthless. No one will ever be with you. Everyone already left, and everyone will leave. They know you’re faking it. They look through your façade. You’re unattractive, clingy, needy. Paranoid. Destructive. Broken. Worthless. Worthless. Worthless.

Each stake drives itself unerringly deep within my heart. Deep within my mind. Deep within my soul. The pain intensifies at times, sending pulses through my heart. The pulses are life-leeching. The pulses drain me, enervating my mind, peel away at my ability to conceal the pain. My limbs turn to frost. My blood chills. My head pounds in sync to my pounding heart. So many thoughts. So much pain. Perpetual agony, each minute a furious battle for dominion over my mind, trying to shut out the pain completely, trying to ignore everything. Distraction. Anything. Anything to take it away. Anything to stop. Anything to stop thinking.

Anything to stop thinking.

To think is to feel. To feel is to hurt. To think is to hurt. That process has refined itself to the point of instinct, transitioning straight from the thought to the pain in a fraction of a second. The repeated battering unto my own mind wears me down. The pain sees to itself to topple me, to destroy me. And I can’t stop it. I can only escape. I can only run. And now, I can’t even move.

I have lost the ability to conceal. My mask, my façade, my front of which I convince other people, but especially myself, is broken. Happiness is but a distant dream, an emotion that has bequeathed itself from my presence, renouncing my persona, leaving my mind. It is not an emotion I can enjoy in its purity. There is no joy. There is only paranoia. Fear. Sadness. Despair. Guilt. What if it doesn’t last? What if I did something wrong? What if I hurt someone without noticing? What if I drive them away?

You always drive them away. You always screw up. You always hurt. You always think. Pathetic. Weak. Desperate. Thirsty. Whore. Broken. Undeserving of company. Fated to solitude. Your pain is your penance. Your pain is your deliverance. Your pain is your destiny. Wallow in it, pathetic boy. You will never be happy. You will never have company. You will never break free. You will never, ever, ever stop thinking. You will never stop hurting.

Clingy. Needy. So needy. So clingy. Yearning to the point of forsaking everything just to have affection. Physical affection. Spiritual affirmation. Mental assurance. So much want. So much yearning. So tugged toward any form of affection. And once it is even slightly in reach, you lunge. You grasp at the farthest fringes of the possibility, of the straw that dangles, so appetizingly, in front of you. You claw and scratch, frenzied to just have a taste. Just a taste to sate your insatiable appetite of affection. Any sort of company, of affection, of assurance, you engulf and consume to no end. Never sated, never full. Never enough. Thirsty. Hungry. Ravenous. Driven to insanity just for any sort of affection.

Falling for people so hard, so fast. Willing to do literally anything just to see them safe. Just to see them happy. Just to see them well. They will be your everything. They are your world. She is your world. When you see her, everything else quiets. The environment falls away around you, and you momentarily exist only in the vacuum with her. Unbridled love blossoms for anyone willing to show you attention. You just want to be with them. Always. To make them happy. For them to make you happy.

And that’s where the thoughts come knocking once more.

You’re annoying them. They’re tired of you. They don’t want you around them. You’re making them uncomfortable. You’re hurting them. You don’t deserve them. They don’t deserve you. They don’t deserve this curse. They don’t deserve this fate. You are the only one who deserves this fate of solitude. You need to be alone so you don’t hurt anyone. You don’t deserve their company. They’re too good for you. They don’t need you. They don’t need someone who’s broken.

The thoughts go to war with each other. Every minute, the pain rekindles, crashing down onto my mind, trying to drown me in sorrow. In despair. In pain. And most times, it wins. Through the haze of agony, you hold on to anything you can find.

You remember the promise. You will not hurt anyone. You will not hurt anyone, physically, emotionally or mentally, for as long as you live. But you are hurting. And therefore you turn it inward. All of the rage. All of the fury. All of the hatred for who you are. All the misery you have inflicted upon yourself, day after day, night after night, the fury builds. The contempt seethes and broils within you.

Why? Why are you like this? Why do you hurt yourself? Why are you so stupid? Why are you so toxic? Why are you so useless? Why are you so worthless? Why can’t you stop thinking? Why can’t you stop hurting? Why can’t you be “normal?” Why are you so desperate? Why are you like this?

All the questions, all the whys — they flit around my head, bombarding me with themselves, again and again, each volley awakening a new wave of images, a new crest of pain. The continual bombardment pulses within me, exhausting each fiber of my being, tearing each neuron apart. And yet, even with all this agony, I cannot stop.

I cannot stop thinking.

I cannot stop hurting.

I.

Cannot.

Stop.