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[autumnnotfall1]

One other night that started with yet another question mark above her head. Too many questions she didn’t know the answers to. Every time she tried to collect word by word that popped out of her mind, she failed to manage to form it into one whole sentence.

Been having difficulties to separate all the mess in her head, she started to vision weird things in her dream. It was neither good nor bad, or she simply couldn’t tell the line any longer. One confuse girl, trying too hard to sort all things out with little to no clue to guide her.

What was it that really matter to her? She didn’t have the answer. But she knew one thing, there was a big chunk that was missing from the paragraph which probably would answer all of her questions. Or so she thought.

She stared at the ceiling of her room while fragments of nonexistence were pictured in a disordered way. All kinds of reality and imagination were mixed up that she could no longer tell which was which. Her head was spinning. Her eyes were itching. She was suddenly losing her ability to feel anything.

She was once again faced with a dead end where all the question marks never stopped pouring in until her pills started to kick in and sleep was taking her in.

[autumnnotfall1]

Another year has come to an end. A hell of a year where once again, a history of the past is repeating itself—kinda. This time, however, it doesn’t hurt as much as I thought it would. Perhaps because I’m now immune to feelings (re: numb), or perhaps I anticipated that it would happen.

2023, huh? Many things happened and many didn’t. But I will only take one lesson that I had to learn the hard way: people are not to be trusted. I learned and re-learned this lesson countless of times it seems. It’s like math that you’d forget as soon as the exam was over, and you would need to re-learn those in order to solve bigger problems or just, you know, helping your nephews do their homework.

Man, I cannot believe it’s almost 2024. I never imagined myself living this long. 2018 was my last attempt and it’s 5 years later I still have whatever it is to cling onto. I wish I knew what that is.

I guess there’s not much to say, considering I’ve been zoning out a lot and blocking out memories that I don’t want to keep deep outside my brain. I find that it’s the easiest way to cope these days. So with that, I will sum up 2023 with nothing but an insignificant year.

I will continue re-watching Harry Potter series until it’s January 1st (or maybe 2nd cause I don’t do movie marathon as well as I used to).

[autumnnotfall1]

Aku lupa cara menulis. Dulu, sumber tulisanku adalah perasaan sedih dan frustasi yang menciptakan dunia fantasi baru. Setiap malam aku menulis beberapa halaman baru meski satu-satunya pembaca tulisanku adalah diriku sendiri.

Depresif mungkin jadi tema utama. Mungkin seperti warna biru tua mendekati hitam. Aku tidak tau menulis cerita bahagia, karena aku tidak pernah tau kebahagiaan itu apa. Seingatku, membaca tulisan fantasi, lalu menjadikannya inspirasi untuk dunia fantasi-ku sendiri, merupakan satu-satunya hal yang bisa mengalihkanku dari segala suara teriakan di dalam kepalaku.

Sampai akhirnya, aku mendapatkan seorang pembaca setia. Seorang pria yang senang memuji tulisan-tulisanku serta memberikan secercah cahaya yang aku kira adalah bahagia. Tulisanku mulai tersisip cerita yang lebih cerah. Jika diibaratkan warna, maka kali ini aku menulis biru muda. Mungkin lebih dekat dengan biru yang lembut dan sangat enak dipandang.

Tentu saja, itu tidak bertahan lama. Aku semakin larut dalam kegelapan. Meski dengan kehadirannya, aku masih tenggelam di dalam suara jahat di kepalaku. Aku hampir lupa caranya bernafas. Bahkan, aku mencoba untuk berhenti bernafas.

Aku bangun dari percobaan gagalku untuk ketiga kalinya. Kepalaku semakin ribut, seperti tsunami rasanya. Aku tetap bernafas meski rasanya dadaku ingin menyerah menyalurkan oksigen. Semakin lama, aku mati rasa. Semua yang kurasakan tidak pernah bertahan lama. Setiap malam, aku hanya berbaring menatap langit-langit kamar dengan perasaan yang kosong.

Hal itu berlanjut bertahun-tahun, hingga sekarang. Aku bilang aku jatuh cinta, nyatanya dadaku masih hampa. Aku bilang aku marah, tapi terlalu meledak-ledak dan hanya dalam waktu beberapa saat saja. Kupikir aku sedih, tapi perutku mengirimkan signal ingin muntah. Sepanjang hari, lagi-lagi hanya kosong yang ada.

Kini aku menulis lagi. Entah kemana nantinya cerita ini pergi, aku tidak tau. Warna apa yang akan tergambarkan? Aku juga tidak yakin. Tapi aku menulis lagi. Bercerita pada lembaran kosong yang bisa mendengarku lebih baik dari siapa saja, dan menjaga rahasiaku lebih baik dari manusia manapun di muka bumi.

[autumnnotfall1]

how naive humans are. trusted people so much, got disappointed, swore to never trust anyone ever again. and repeat.

it’s sad, isn’t it? to make the same mistake and now it just feels… numb.

[autumnnotfall1]

in the midst of all the giant mess

do you have to still wake up the next morning?

all these scenarios rushing through your head

and only there it seems.

your understanding is a mere understanding

confusion after confusion comes pouring in

you’re now wondering;

do you still have to wake up the next morning?

laying in your bed so still

time’s passing but you’re barely breathing

your thoughts are pushing down like a drill

how do you wake up the next morning?

you can’t feel offended; that’s too sensitive.

you can’t feel angry; that’s not professional.

you can’t feel anything at all; that’s invalid.

why do you wake up in the morning?

in the midst of all the giant mess

you’re taking off to another flight again

silently running.

you wish to never wake up again the next morning.

[autumnnotfall1]

“Wow! You did your research.”

“As a matter of fact, I did. Trying to find the painless way,” I laughed of irony.

“So, third time’s a charm didn’t really work for you, huh?” She asked, taking notes while I shook my head.

We both sat in silence for a couple of minutes. No one said a word.

“What do you want to accomplish by this session?” She asked again.

“I actually have no idea. Whatever it is, I’ve started the cycle again and I assume you’d want me to have another session.”

“It actually depends on you. Whatever I said to you today clearly failed to ease your mind. You’ve been dealing with this before, and you anticipate how it’s gonna go.”

I nodded as a form of agreement.

Anxiety equals a part of anticipation and a part of assumption. If only I could have some control…

“So, I think I’m gonna see you again on another session. Or maybe I’ll be seeing one of your peers. But I’ll be here again.”

She smiled while she nodded her head. “You know what you need. You said you hate that people perceive you as a strong human being, because you don’t feel like you are one. But you survive this long.”

“Just barely.”

[autumnnotfall1]

What do you want to be when you grow up?

When I was a little kid, I wanted to be in military just like my father. It wasn’t long before I changed my mind because I grew up hating their behaviour. And for quite some time in my childhood, I didn’t know what I wanted to be.

After a few years, I remember telling my mum, “I wanted to work in a big company. I will be the cool independent woman who drives her own car and lives in a cool house in a big city.” Knowing full well that I hate big cities.

When I was in junior high school, I changed my mind. “I want to work and live and study abroad. Somewhere in Europe where they have falls and snow. I’d be involved in something that helps society or environment or fighting for humanity.” Boy, how naive was I.

It lasted for three years. In the next 7 years of my life after that, all I wanted was to die. It still occurs sometimes these days.

Void.

So, now that I’ve grown up, what do I want to be?

I have almost half of the third paragraph now. But I changed that dream long long time ago. And I am clearly nowhere near the fourth.

What about the fifth, then? Nobody knows, not even me.

What do I want to be as a grown up?

[autumnnotfall1]

People come and go.

I bet you’ve heard of this so often throughout your life that you’ve started to get tired of hearing it.

Kind of sad, isn’t it? When you think that the people you have by your side now is going to disappear sooner or later.

That friend you used to talk to everyday is now so far away you barely heard from them anymore.

You only call your family members twice every month.

Not long ago, you broke up with the one you thought would be by your side forever.

Your kids are going to grow up so fast that you wouldn’t realise they soon will have their own life.

You’re happily married, but in the end one’s going to leave the other, too.

That’s really not a scenario we like to imagine, but then again, what can we do?

At some point in our life; a chapter must come to an end.

But it’s even more sad that you’re too afraid of people leaving that you started to cut the bond first out of that fear. The worst made-up scenarios are filling up your head even when you know perfectly well they’re possibly not going to go that bad. Before you know, you’ve lost yet another important person from your life.

For me, sometimes it is necessary in some cases.

Cutting off connection is not—and never was—a particularly hard thing to do for me. I’ve done this so often and then I wonder why I never have friends that last. I have my reasons and it’s not just about fear.

The fact that I am a highly sensitive person is a blessing and a curse at the same time. I can sense tone from texts. I can feel when someone’s treating me slightly differently from they usually do. I can feel when a slight distance appears.

It’s a blessing when I choose to ask what’s wrong and fix things up as soon as possible, but that’s not the case for most of the times. I act nonchalantly like it doesn’t bother me and make me losing sleep. From the moment I start to feel things are different—in a bad way—I start to let go of any attachment as soon as possible so that when they actually leave, it wouldn’t cause me too much pain and the recovery from the loss wouldn’t take as long.

Trust me, you’ve been nonexistent in my life long before you bid your farewell.

This might be not the healthiest way of coping, but it works pretty well for me. Even though I would still cry months after your departure. What a shame.

Fight or flight? I have always chosen the later.

Starting life over in an entirely new place was never a challenge—given the fact that I’m a loner anyway.

But lately, it’s getting so much tiring. My sensitivity has been throwing me off, ruining my mood and my day to day life. I’m getting a severe paranoia that I’m so unwanted and all I want to do is just backing off from society.

The insecurity is getting so much worse.

Didn’t I say that life’s been getting better? So, why would I feel this way? Am I just bored? Or is it the BPD striking? Is it an episode? Or is it actually happening…

My mind is killing me.

[autumnnotfall1]

Home. A word that is so mundane. So very common.

Believe it or not, I’ve been searching for its meaning for a really long time. At first, I thought it was a place where you’re surrounded by family; but mine never felt like one.

I keep on searching, and again, I thought it was a person with whom you can fully be yourself. I thought I had one; but those arms that held me tight when I was down was gone. Leaving me with a cold and empty feeling, yet again.

I then stopped searching. I took my time to roam around and it brought me to a stranger who understood my point of view in life. We then became close friends, with care for each other without ever wanting to ruin it with unnecessary romance.

He was a comfort that I never knew I’d find. “I’d take a bullet for you, and you know that,” he said one day. “You should start to focus on the best you can do out of the worst situation. I believe you will find what you’re looking for eventually.”

It was such a nice thing to hear, and I realise how a little support can affect somebody’s life. I, not knowing my purpose in life, then started to believe that I could do something for my closest ones; starting from being a mere company when they need one. Mind you, I don’t have that many close ones.

But still, I didn’t find out what home was.

And when I almost gave up on trying to find ‘home’, answer found its way to me, through somebody I never knew would be such a significant part of my journey, despite of only being in talking stage for a little while:

Instead of giving me a false sense of security, he validated all my feelings, bad and good. An intuitive who didn’t realise how precious he was. He helped me to get back on my feet, but not in a way that caused me to be dependent on him.

I was able to find the ground again, and it was a good start.

‘Home’ is not a set of arms that welcome you everytime you need a shoulder to lean on, because as bitter it is to swallow; people leave eventually, sometimes so abruptly you don’t have the time to adapt to their absence.

‘Home’ is yourself. The only person that you will have at the end of the every day. The only person who will never leave you out in the cold. Because you will never let it happen.

‘Home’ is your own self. Being down on your knees won’t change that. You are the one who’s always there to hug yourself; whether it is when you crawl on the floor crying, or when you smoke the cigs to the deepest of your lung while being half-drunk.

I still am trying to accept that fact. I’m still trying to go through the journey of rebuilding my ‘home’; with loneliness, emptiness, and all those mixed up feelings along the way.

I’m still trying to fill up the empty spaces in which was filled from people of the past.

[autumnnotfall1]

The night is getting darker. The digital watch wrapped around her wrist shows 1.36 AM. She takes a sip of gin from her tumbler and continues her stare at the ceiling.

She won’t lie that the terrible lonely feeling she thought has disappeared still lingers there and once again she longs for the warmth brought by two arms wrapped around her.

She sighs and once again stares at the ceiling as if her life is pictured up there.

Her eyes feel terrible. She wants to cry but her life’s been good she cannot find a reason good enough for her to cry. Her traumas no longer bother her that much—she’s been in her accepting phase. Her hair looks pretty good tonight she can’t cry about how she always does it wrong. She has a pretty decent room to sleep in comfortably.

She likes someone who shows no interest in her but it doesn’t bother her at all for the reason she doesn’t know.

She wants affection, but when someone offers it to her, she refuses.

At this point, even she is confused with whatever she actually wants.

Once again she sighs and there’s a heavy feeling in her chest. Her phone beeps again, new texts just come in. She reaches her phone on the bedside table and sees a familiar name. She’s been ignoring texts from that name for days, hoping he’d get tired and stop chasing her eventually. Tonight’s not so different.

She opens the text and sees a few bubbles there:

“Your new profile picture looks so pretty”

“Too bad I can’t see your smile”

“Would love to see that smile of yours hehe”

“No thanks,” she whispers, fully knowing he won’t be able to hear it.

She puts the phone back on the bedside table and continues staring at the ceiling which now is magically showing a picture of mountain-view with breezy-slightly-cold air. Obviously she’s imagining things. She likes staring at the ceiling because she can project her imagination into pictures or even animation there—like this one where she sees herself living in a small mountain house with chilly air because she hates hot air. There’s also a waterfall that can be seen from the other side of the house—water is a necessary element for her.

Those are only in her head, unfortunately, because when she looks around she finds herself still laying in her bed in her small rented room that’s quite messy because she hasn’t put things in its place. But that doesn’t matter.

That mess, in a weird way, brings her comfort.

[autumnnotfall1]

# What it’s like to live with BPD

Have you ever wonder how people with BPD live? No? Well, let me tell you. Obviously, even though people with BPD may have similar symptoms, how each and every individual may experience it differently. This writing is based on my personal experience, others might have it the other way.

And no, I’m not gonna talk about the extreme mood swings and emotional instability that a lot of people might already have known about, but further to how it affects my daily life.

Feeling things so intensely that it’s hard to see the other things around. When I’m feeling down, I’d be so down and couldn’t see any way to stand back up. I’d be down on my knee, not knowing how to do simple tasks because I fear I might fail and ruin everything. Sometimes, it’s even hard to get out of my room and do my responsibilities, because the fear of making things worse is so overwhelming that I started to isolate myself. It won’t do much further if I was born a privileged kids who doesn’t need to work to pay my bills. Can you imagine how it affects my job that I do to fulfil my needs including going to psychiatrist and get proper medication? Well, let me paint you a picture:

It’s like needing air but being unable to breath. Feel it yet? See it?

The same goes with other kind of feelings or emotions: anger, sadness, happiness, joy, and worst of all is, emptiness. Imagine feeling uncontrollable anger when you have to face other people; yes, it will ruin the fuck out of everything. And do you think feeling happy so intensely is good? Wait until you make reckless and impulsive decisions or actions that will lead you to stupid and regretful outcomes.

And the emptiness. It’s easy to know when you’re angry, or sad, or upset. But feeling nothing at all, makes your head wonder so wildly, trying to figure out what the fuck is going on. You simply lose interest in everything, not knowing what you actually want to do in your life, and live in a walking body that knows no direction. Can’t find the meaning behind things, and this leads to a neglectful act of abandoning all the things that matter.

Speaking of abandoning things, as someone with BPD, I experience a severe abandonment issues. It’s hard to believe that people won’t leave me, eventually. Losing touch with a person feels so painful that it may cause me to abandon everyone; thinking that it’s best to do that before the other parties do. This happens a lot, and it’s just so foolish because deep down, I perfectly know that they might have other things to do and responsibilities to finish. And I perfectly know their worlds don’t revolve around me.

All the stupid questions will pop out like wild stupid cockroaches;

*/Are they not into me anymore?/*

/*Did they lose interest?*/

/Did I do or say something wrong?/

/Are they mad at me?/

/Is it true what he said about how he truly feels towards me?/

/Are they just saying that to calm me down, but never really meant it?/

and hundreds of other assumptive questions that’s likely to be untrue. Or… is it? The point is, it’s destructive. It’s not like I don’t trust people, but things that happened cause me to doubt everything, or to be more exact, afraid that the past traumas are repeating themselves.

My head always wanders; and it’s mostly not to a happy place. It’s fun to picture certain imagination in my head, fun things that I’d want to happen. But then, without knowing, I’m no longer behind the steering wheel. I’m suddenly being driven into the picture of something so painful that my body starts to feel the ache. It’s like laying on the sand in Hawaii, and abruptly being pulled away into a very dark tunnel with no way out. Yes, not only it ruins my reality, it’s also doing harm into the world of my imagination where I’m supposed to be in control.

Shit! It’s now happening while I’m writing this. It tries to distract me so I stop writing. I’ll try to write everything down for whoever the hell you are reading this. Just in case you have to deal with someone like me in the future, you will have a little bit of reference. However, I can’t promise this will be as whole picture as I intended to make in the first place.

I also often feel that I am living only to be a burden to others. This leads to me trying so hard to be independent and never asking help from others. This may sound good at first; being able to stand on my own two feet. But the thought of being too independent makes me feel a severe loneliness. Do I like to be alone? Yes. But do I want someone to be alone with? Also yes. The longing of two arms holding me tight is creeping inside me so often, but also the fear of being a burden.

If back in the previous paragraph it was like needing air but can’t breathe, now it’s more like needing air, and it’s available, but not having the guts to step out and breathe the said air. It’s connected to the mentioned abandonment issue as well.

I have never feel like I am enough. I always feel like I’m not worth the effort that I forgive people who give up on me easily. That the bare minimum feels so overwhelmingly special. It does not mean that I don’t appreciate the minimum, no. Because to me, even the simplest things matter. But this somehow causes me to overlook my worth. I feel insecure a lot, but never mention it because in my mind, being insecure is a sign of codependency, i.e. needing other’s validation to feel good about myself. So I keep it quiet.

This might be a little out of topic, or not (?) but I just got out of a three year relationship back then, and I felt extremely worthless. I got drunk a lot, smoke more than I usually did. Until one night, when I was tipsy while playing games with one of my closest friends, he said something that somehow, helped me through.

/“You are a catch, you know that? If things were different, I might’ve dated you. You are not easy to handle, that is correct. But I’m telling you, everyone would be lucky to have you on their side, either romantically or platonically. You care about your close ones so much. And when you count someone as important, you’d be willing to give everything you have, or do everything in your power, to make them feel secure. Despite of saying that you only wanted to take a bullet for me because you just wanna die, I know that you are such a sweet and kind soul./

I couldn’t say a single word. I wasn’t sure whether to believe it, but those words, in a weird way, helped me through. He’s never the sweet kind, so words like those aren’t usual to come out of his clever mouth.

See how that is the kind of codependency that I was talking about? Needing validation to make myself feel good? And that is not a good thing, right?

[autumnnotfall1]

“Cause if I had my way, you would always stay. And I’d be your tiny dancer.

Cause I adored you, I just wanted things to be the same.

But tomorrow never came.”

i picked up the line, when i knew i wasn’t supposed to

in a deathbed i was putting on a smile and joking around

a wholesome moment happened that i never intended to

brought me a little something and left me in astound

“it’s just a phase,” i said. “a temporary one.”

but how long was the temporary, i never calculated

there i was, standing in a different spot, with the same sound

i could hear a stalemate was on the run

we’ve come to the present

and temporary is still apparent

damn it lasts so long i’m afraid it’d become permanent!

West Sumatera, September 19 2021.

[autumnnotfall1]

She lost it, yet once again she did.

Just about when she thought she started to figure things out, started to find pieces by pieces of puzzle to fill in the empty spaces, she screwed it up.

What was she really looking for? Did she actually want the completion? Was she really that naïve to think that she could collect all the lost pieces long after she lost it? Or was she being too stupidly hopeful that somebody would hand it to her?

The fact is, deep down, she knew that completion is just a utopia that might never exist in the first place.

So, why was she trying too hard to have it? To get a taste of it?

Once again, she was there, sitting with her face on her knees, drowning in the endless thoughts that never shut up. Trying to fight a losing battle with her mind.

“CAN YOU JUST STOP??!!?” She screamed out to the thin air. “Just for a moment.,” she continued, her voice was toned down. “I’m tired…” This time, she whispered very quietly, wishing somehow it would abruptly leave her alone.

But it never did, and in a way, she knew it was all she’d gotten on her side.

[autumnnotfall1]

fake it til you make it, they say.

this too shall pass, they say.

could it be just me who passes?

[autumnnotfall1]

a tiny ray of light that is blocked by fear

a teeny bit of fire that refuses to die

been always there, lingering

but the darkness seems to manage to crawl its way in

[autumnnotfall1]

in suffocation i’m manifesting things that might never happen.

in suffocation i’m manifesting you.

[autumnnotfall1]

today i told my psychiatrist that i didn’t know what i feel, what i have to do, what i wanna do, or to simply put it in a word; lost.

i told her, one minute i could be talking to a friend and laughing, and suddenly spaced out into the unknown.

tonight, a slight hint of pain is creeping in.