
“128,000 RIPPLES AND COUNTING”
… aaaaand I’m STILL making waves!
YOU CAN TOO!

"Secrets Make Me Sick No Longer"
Help me – I’ve fallen further in myself. I’m stuck here again. And I can’t see that I’m not digging my way out – I’m digging my grave. I’ve become my own demise. Paralyzed inside my mind. Arms are weak from holding up this front. No escape and no surprises. Complicated compromises. Hold me down when what all I really want is just to break free. Break free. Break free from everything. Break free before it breaks me. There’s got to be another way to start again. Tell me how you can be the brightest star and light up the sky? Well I can’t seem to even light up my own way and I’m burned out from trying. I’ve become what I despise. Paralyzed inside a lie. Arms are weak from holding back the flood. Sinking as the waters rise. Drink myself to sleep each night. I’m going under and all I really want is just to break free. Break free. Break free from everything. Break free before it breaks me. There’s got to be another way to start again. {Like A Storm}
I’m sure you’ve heard me say that I have suffered from, battled, and overcome a mental illness. I’m not sure, however, that I’ve ever said which one. “So, Cat, which mental illness was it?” DRUM ROLL PLEASE – wait for it – wait for it – wait for it:
Hi! I’m Cat Williamson, f/k/a “Girl Interrupted“. I HAVE BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER (“BPD”). Well, I did that is. This month marks the seventh year of my recovery, and I’d like to tell you about it.
WHAT IS BPD? The National Institute Of Mental Health describes BPD as “an illness marked by an ongoing pattern of varying moods, self-image, and behavior. These symptoms often result in impulsive actions and problems in relationships. People with borderline personality disorder may experience intense episodes of anger, depression, and anxiety that can last from a few hours to days.”
WHAT MAY HAVE CAUSED MY BPD? As with most mental illnesses, many doctors believe BPD is caused by a combination of genetic and environmental factors. I strongly believe that my diagnoses was indeed genetically and environmentally predisposed, especially inasmuch as I was exposed to many adverse childhood experiences (“ACES”) that may have triggered the development of my symptoms. Although I don’t recall being sexually or physically abused as a child, there were a vast number of instabilities that may have contributed to my illness.
I was ripped away from a closely interactive paternal family when my parents uprooted us from our home at a very young age. Keep in mind that because our family was somewhat enmeshed, my grandparents, aunts and uncles were “consistently present and close caregivers” at that time, such that the immediate, unexplained loss of them literally overnight was deeply traumatic to me. Likewise was the damage to my very impressionable psyche from both the inconsistent emotional and physical presences of my parents and different points in time due to issues of their own that were out of my control.
WHAT WERE SOME SIGNS AND SYMPTOMS? Most adolescents and adults with BPD lack the healthy coping skills required to handle even minimal amounts of stress or emotional discomfort and therefore often present with these signs and symptoms:
Someday I’ll revisit the somewhat comical story of how my diagnoses came about, but sufficed to say that when I first realized “what the actual HELL was wrong with me”, I was shaken to the core! Not only did I have a mental illness, but it was one of the most difficult to treat and stigmatic. Borderlines already think that “everything is wrong with them”, so having THAT label on my forehead? IT WAS KINDA LIKE A STORM! A torrential fucking cataclysm pummeling me 24/7, complete with lightening bolt surges of voices in my mind screaming “YOU’RE BAT SHIT FUCKING CRAZY”!
There is a very cruel woman in this world (who I believe is a narcissist) who used my mental illness to bludgeon and emotionally blackmail me in an attempt to socially posture herself while I was in a weakened state. She was a nursing student who claimed to have studied clinical psychology and someone I truly considered a friend, who after I was foolish enough to entrust with my precious vulnerabilities, set out to literally destroy me. Not only did she threaten to report me to the Texas Real Estate Commission in an attempt to have my license revoked, but she also “exposed me” to our very small school community. Thus became my daughter’s descent into social ostracization, anxiety, depression and suicidal thoughts of her own after being surrounded by her classmates on the playground one day and asked, “Is it true that your mom is a sociopath who’s been in a mental hospital and is unsafe to be around children”? Yes, that happened. That really fucking happened! The “first do no harm” medical professional leveled both me and my daughter with my “girl interrupted” secret.
Meanwhile, here I am, nine post-diagnoses years later. I did the work, know who I am, where I’ve been, and exactly where I’m going. That part of my journey is but a distant memory, except to say that moving forward I have and will take any opportunity that avails itself to share my “little girl interrupted” secret, as in below when I did so in a very public forum recently. It’s the one thing I’ve published that I’m proudest of so far, because just as “saying the words out loud” to those closest to me was the most healing part of my journey, so too was “writing the words out loud”:
“HOW CAN YOU COMFORT A FRIEND WITH BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER?”
So, there you have it. I’ve said the words out loud, but I’m not “girl interrupted” anymore. I’M THE WOMAN WHO’S A FUCKING MIRACLE … the STORM that finally “broke free”. My husband used to call me “The Borderline Whisperer”, because as I’ve walked with it and through it I’ve become accustomed to recognizing it well. In the last few years I’ve “had the conversation” with no less than a dozen people, most of who have sought treatment and are now fighting their way out of the storm. HE WAS SO FUCKING PROUD ME … “HIS BEAUTIFUL DISASTER WIFE” … and everything he saw me go through to beat it. He was my NUMBER ONE supporter and NEVER ONCE threw it in my face, or mocked me, or made fun of me, or made me feel “less than” because I was sick. There is NO FUCKING WAY I’d be writing this write today if it wasn’t for that guy … I know it, he knows it … GOD KNOWS IT! He carried the torch that God Himself prepared that lead me out of the darkness to The Brighter Side Of Grey, and I know he must be smiling right now as he watches me “go public”. How bittersweet is the irony that he that couldn’t find his way out of the darkness? Nevertheless, I am no longer ashamed to “say the words out loud”, because guess what? THEY DON’T DEFINE ME. That “little secret” makes me sick no longer because it’s NOT a secret anymore!
My name is Cat Williamson.
I had Borderline Personality Disorder.
Now I’m the …