Paula

I re-painted Paula because my style and use of colour has changed and I wanted her to match Maggie, What Brings Us Together , the new one I have on the way and Bourbon (who eventually will be re-coloured).  She is also a lot bigger than the original, painted on A4 instead of A5.

Soon Paula, and others, will be available on my Folksy store.

While I’m here -

Paula was one of my first proper blog friends. Another lady who I planned to run away with from our mental health problems and mental lives sailing on my imaginary boat to a place where all of that crap didn’t exist. We would be in the middle of the ocean and Paula the pirate mermaid would keep the other pirates (the bad ones and not to mention zombies) at bay.  Paula feels better in the water, more powerful and free, which is why she grew a fin, so she could stay in the water permanently.  She would also be better at protecting the crew that way and she would get to embrace the power, serenity and freedom of the ocean that you can’t get on land.

The swallows, as ever, carry the message of friendship, watching over us, making sure our souls are protected and we will always return to the place where we are most loved.

The sharks, to me, do not symbolise depression or fear. Sharks symbolise strength, power and survival.  Something which you need an abundance of to live with BPD and these are traits which remind me of Paula because she is just AMAZEBALLS.

I hope to come see you soon pretty lady.

Love Sailor xox

Errors like straws upon the surface flow: Who would search for pearls must dive below

I’m sorry I suck so much at everything at the moment.  Yes, it matters. I miss every one of you, but I’m finding it difficult to juggle blogging and working and painting and being mental.

In my head there is a hope.  Its small, most of the time I imagine it like a pearl, smooth surfaced, shining brightly, buried in the depths of the convoluted gyrus and suculus of my brain.  Only my brain isn’t pink, its shriveled and brown like a walnut, where all of the rest of the hope has worn out and the dark thoughts haunting it have atrophied it like a dead toad on a hot day.

It’s the pearl of hope that keeps me going.

I am lonely, even more lonely than before.  All of it is my fault, because I decided to keep myself safe.

This time last year, I was barely managing to get out of bed.  I had plenty of friends, but they tried to understand but they didn’t.  I got fed up of explaining and justifying my actions.  Shouldn’t I be accepted for the way I am, despite my flaws?  One by one, as I generally like to complain, I lost them.  Perhaps it was safer for them to keep away from me?  I know it is safer for me to keep them away from me.  I’ve given up trying.  I’m sure you understand, thousends wouldn’t.

This year I have no friends, merely acquaintances.  I don’t want people to get too close.  If they get too close I can hurt them and they will hurt me.  Besides, BPD makes it complicated because one day I love a certain person, next day I can’t imagine why I ever even liked them.  Sad but true, and I know that I’m doing it, but I can’t stop because without these black and white opinions I have fuck all to go on and even more confusion as I try to figure it out.

I have a new job and I get out of bed because I have to, not because I want to, most days.  Therapy has been reduced from once a week, to once every four weeks. I’m still on the same concoction of medications.

The pearl of hope is that things will change.

This isn’t where I am supposed to be.  I’m sure of it.  This is not how it was planned.  This is not how it was meant to be.

My mum always said you can achieve anything you put your mind to.  For the most part it is true, but how ever hard I think about it I will never grow wings and fly, I will never grow a tail to swim, so that is a lie.

My mum also says that everything happens for a reason.  As I’ve grown older, I’ve just grown more cynical in that now I think this is what optimistic people say to justify the bad things that happen in life.

Some people say if you want something you have to go out and get it. This might have been true if we were cavemen (women) and decided that we were going to start a fire, but now it seems you must have the means to the end.

I always wanted to punch the people who said “life is what you make of it” in the head.  My keyworker in hospital, Alex, would always say this, when I was in my deepest depression. I can’t imagine this would help any depressed person, let alone a 14-year-old who already thought her life is over.

I don’t know what I believe any more.

Some days I want to go out and change the world because sometimes I’m capable and it feels like that is the only way things will get done. Other days I get out of bed, go to work, come home, go back to bed because it doesn’t seem worth changing.  Sometimes the glimmer in the pearl is the size of a bowling ball, some days it is a pea.

Or is it that small that it’s turned into a pea again?

I wish there was a consistency.

I hope one day, if I wait long enough, enough time will pass and everything will just click into place.  It feels like I’ve been waiting long enough already.

Love Sailor xox

“Errors like straws upon the surface flow: Who would search for pearls must dive
below” – John Dryden

What Brings Us Together; What Keeps Us Apart

Yesterday I wrote about my struggle with friendships in the real world, but there are people here that I feel safe with.

Whether it is because each of you is far away, it somehow makes it easier.  I don’t know, the fact that because you are over there and I am over here means that you can’t abandon me because we were never together to begin with. It somehow makes sense in my twisted little brain.

All of my paintings, so far, have used my friends as muses.  It’s difficult to explain, but I need a purpose to paint.  I can’t paint “just because”, because it doesn’t work.  I have to want to express something, and I guess this is where the symbolism comes into it.  Each, so far, has been a tribute to someone who inspires me, and I am grateful for that.

I usually title my paintings after the person who is in them. But this one is different.  Actually, it is the first painting that has two girls in it. This one is titled ”What Brings Us Together; What Keeps Us Apart”.

Watercolour, ink, gouache and gold.

Rarely in life you find what some people call a soul mate. Soul mate isn’t the right word for me, it feels like it doesn’t do the emotional connection justice as soul mate is a very versatile term, with its definition being defined differently by different individuals.  Maybe ship-mate is a better description – someone who I’d let live on my ship if I had one, because I wouldn’t let just anyone on my ship.

I am the blonde mermaid in the painting .  I am a child of the sea. I long for the ocean in all it’s glory.  It’s one of the only places (apart from my bed) in this strange, alien world that I feel like I belong.

The other person is my ship-soul-mate-type-person. When I saw her in real life for the first time, shortly after our internet correspondence was born and a bond was formed between us, I could almost see and feel the reason we had connected was because she was another child of the sea.  A true ship-mate.  A mermaid. A soul mate.

I don’t want to gush, but I feel like that is probably where this is heading.  Do I care? Nope, I’m writing this, as ever, as if no one is reading.

The definition of soul mate ranges widely, and I cannot pinpoint it. It is commonly accepted that one will feel ‘complete’ once they have found their soul mate, as it is partially in the perceived definition that two souls are meant to unite.

I feel like this is what I have with my ship-soul-mate-type-person , our souls are united and it started with long conversations about swimming in the ocean and wanting to escape somewhere else by boat.  But the ocean is also what keeps us apart, floating on our two separate continents.

Other symbols in the painting -

Fully rigged ship tattoos were used as an amulet by sailors to ensure a safe journey.  This makes sure we are safe.

The anchor holds one steadfast against winds and currents that might lead us astray.  It holds us steadfast when the storms and winds of mental illness come calling.

The shells symbolise strength, and even in our weak moments we are stronger than we imagine, but as they are two halves of the same shell they also represent separation.

The pearls bind us together and to the ocean.  Pearls are highly valued gemstones and have been objects of beauty for many centuries.  Because of this the word “pearl” has become a metaphor for something very rare, fine and valuable.  Our friendship is rare, fine and valuable to me and I hiope the binding never breaks.

The swallow guarantees a safe return home.  It also represents love, care, affection, freedom and hope.

The Tudor rose is because it is the traditional heraldic emblem of England.  And here is where I am stuck.

Love Sailor xox

Fairweather

I struggle with friendships.

Maybe it’s me, or the BPD or the all or nothing thinking or the fact that sometimes I don’t feel human or even that I fear abandonment.

I just struggle.  Simple as that.  But that isn’t the way I want it to be.

Sometimes I relate to other people how I relate to myself.  I’ve always stuck with my moral of “treat others the way you would like to be treated”.  Unfortunately it doesn’t always work the same the other way round, because people treat other people, including me, like shit even if you are nice to them.  I see it in black and white terms, if you’re nice to someone they should be nice back.  Not in a sickly sweet way, but a mutually respectful way.  It all seems so simple.

Still, I continue to treat people the way I would like to be treated and it leaves me being taken advantage of.  I would never treat someone who I considered to be a friend badly.  Even if I was in one of those BPD moments where they had pissed me off and the tables have turned from love to hate (because, you know, there is no in-between).

When there is a struggle in a friendship, if someone is treating me badly or has not been there for me, I see it as my fault. It’s probably not all my fault, but I blame myself anyway.

I know I am a pain to be around sometimes.  I’m aware that sometime I say things in the heat of the moment, for example my suicidal thoughts are no secret to previous friends.  But I kind of thought that I should be able to tell friends these things, because they are your friends.

I know it is hard to hear some of the things that come out of my mouth, and I don’t want to share these with people I love.  But friends in the past have always said “don’t hide it, we want to help, we need to know when you are feeling this way” so I’ve shared the truth because it seemed like it was what they wanted to hear.  Turns out they were wrong and I was wrong – no one wants to hear some of the things I have to say and then they abandon you and then your BPD gets worse because you come to expect it of everybody.

Abandonment is scary.  I’ve been abandoned enough times now that I expect it of everybody.  Nothing is permanent, everything is temporary, in the end I’ll be minus a friend once more and it will be just me.

There are different kinds of friends.

There are friends you see once in a blue moon.  We see each other, we have a great time and dinner and then that’s it, forgotten for another six months.  I miss them when they are not there.  

There are the fair-weather friends that are all take and no give. The ones that only want to know you when you are high functioning and can’t deal with you otherwise.  They don’t check in to see how you are, despite you being there for them when they are having a rough patch or two and you’re coping with your own shit at the same time, because, to me, that is what friends do.  I don’t even know why I would class them as friends, maybe they are just people I know.

I don’t know the difference between friends and colleagues.  Maybe they are just more people I know, despite sometimes socializing outside of work and just because I am friendly and they are friendly doesn’t mean they are friends.  Some know about the BPD, some don’t because it’s too difficult to explain and I’d have to direct them towards my blog and then the whole world would end up reading and I don’t want that.  Not to mention I know they would gossip about me.

I don’t have childhood friends because all of those friends have been fair-weather friends and I have been ill and tainted with traits of BPD since forever. Even the friends I made in the nut house when I was 13 years old I don’t hardly speak to anymore.  Again, they can all be put in their categories – the ones that wanted to put the past behind them and forget it ever happened, leaving you behind with the memories, the ones that were “cured” and live a normal life and the ones who didn’t make it at all.   They will forever be in my heart.

Maybe it’s my fault.  I can be aloof and I take a back seat during social situations because I’m scared of losing what I gain, despite never even gaining it in the first place and being abandoned again, as well as being scared of people hearing my voice and judging what I have to say. Maybe I am a bad person.  Maybe I am a poor friend and that’s why I don’t have friends.  Maybe I’m just too unique in this world for people to understand and put up with me.

More recently there are the blog friends.  Once this was a strange concept to me.

My Auntie married a man who she met over the internet on one of those dating sites.  This was before the days of it being the mainstream and I wondered how anyone could ever have a relationship with someone they met over the internet, because it was not “real”, how could you get to know a “real” life person over the internet?

Now I totally get it.  The friends I’ve made here I consider more ”real” than anything else.  If you like me even though I say exactly what is on my mind, share all of my dirty little secrets, let the words tremble through my typing fingers from my brain with no filter to sensor out the bad things than I appreciate that more than anything. If you are having a bad day (or bad week, or bad life) and still find the time to sympathise and send hugs, it is the most amazing thing to me. I’d guess the friends I made here are real.  More real than anyone in the real world, despite the opportunity there is to be fake over the internet.

So maybe my struggle with friendships is not a struggle at all.  Maybe I pick the wrong people.  Maybe I shouldn’t try to be friends with everyone, although that doesn’t mean I can’t be nice.

I don’t know where this is coming from.  Or I do, I’m just tired now.

The thoughts of two-thirds of us xox

Lines and Colours

Reblogged from A Canvas Of The Minds:

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In my mind, I am normal. This is because I live with me twenty-four seven (OK, not always twenty-four seven because some of those hours I am asleep).

I have BPD. In the past, I never realised that I feel emotions more easily, more deeply, and for longer than others do. I thought the intensity of my emotions was normal. Turns out, it's not.

Read more… 1,320 more words

A new Canvas post. Not because I'm awesome, but because Canvas is.

Clean Water

I’m feeling better after yesterdays outburst. I just needed to say some things.  Today the water feels cleaner.

Love Sailor xox

Pain

** Trigger warning**

Being held under the dirty water.

Naked. Touching.  Waiting for my reaction. Stoic.  Switch off. Dirty things floating, including me.

Hair tangled, stuck to my face.

Green paint.

Laying on the floor.

Blood.

My baby taken away from me because I’m too crazy to look after it.

I didn’t even get to see it.

I have never been able to see it, but I always feel the connection, I only need to look.

I look in, I look out.  Invisible but I can feel it looking at me.

Ether.

Self hatred.

Murderer.

Vomits.

Prickles.

If I could only see your face.  If only I could remember to forget.  If only I didn’t hate.

If only, if only, if only.

You can try to be mindful, but everything is not always OK.

The water is too far away, too dirty.

Voices are too loud, too accusing.

The mirror is being too mean.

The ground won’t open up, swallow us and take us away.

We are full to the brim with empty.

Six arms, three pairs of hands and no one to hold onto but each other.

We made a vow not be hurt again. And again. And again.