TheBanyanTree: Borderland Diaries, excerpts continued as we work towards completion of this project, and are you still reading the subject line?

[Monique]

Naming This Book

 

This was not easy, and several iterations were attempted. We had a great
name, based on a diagnosis of schizophrenia, but when that diagnosis was
tossed aside in favor of schizo-affective disorder, we moved on.
Schizo-affective disorder just isn't compelling enough. The multitude of
diagnoses and the pace at which they changed was a challenge in more ways
than naming this book (this is, after all, what the book is about), but we
settled on Borderland: A Life On The Edge originally because of the
borderline personality disorder, but then because, even should that
diagnosis change and metamorphose into something else (usually something
elses, these things coming in clusters), it still describes our lives during
the most troubled days. 

 

At its worst, Stew's illness was a constantly changing sea of emotions, and
it was a situation that precluded him from having much interaction with
other people, other than me. Not only was Stew isolated from the niceties of
social interaction that would have helped him feel not so alone as he
battled his demons, but so was I, as his caretaker, as the person with the
skill (more an instinct than anything else) that could deal with him best. I
saw how other people took minor things for granted, such as how their day
would go (no psychotic incidents expected, no surprises, the utilities would
always stay on, demons would be expectedly absent, there would be no need to
try to put the shattered pieces of a person back together after a day at the
office), and I envied them while scoffing at their concern over what I
considered minor details. If only, I thought to myself, I had THAT to worry
about instead. I pictured it as a space separate from everyone we came into
contact with, on the edge of a cliff. We lived in a shady borderland, with a
precipice behind us that we could have easily fallen over at any time. 

 

We may have even fallen over the precipice now and again, as we lost our
footing, but we never fell so far to the bottom that we couldn't climb back
up. 

 

Stew is now farther from that precipice than he has been in years, and so
close to the line that separates us from them, that I have no doubt he will
traverse it. Sometimes he does, quick forays into the land of the supposedly
mentally well (though I find that to be a rather ambiguous term, as
indicated by the "supposedly"), with longer and longer stays there. Less
emotional upheaval, and even though, now and then, he may experience some of
the old feelings that remind him how close he was to the precipice, he is
easily reminded that uncertainty, doubt, loneliness, are all part of the
human condition, and he is able to let the disturbing moments pass with far
less discomfort than in the past. 

 

As for me, I'm mostly on the other side of that indefinable border, though
still in recovery. It is a different world out here than the one I lived in
for several years. It's like learning to walk all over again.