Borderline: The Sacred Diaries of Susanna Kaysen
Author's Note: These are the diaries of Susanna Kaysen before she was admitted to Claymoore (or in reality, MacLean) hospital. As a victim of Borderline Personality Disorder, before her diagnosis, elements of her illness became apparent. These are her recordings of the accounts.
Sophomore Year
Sometimes I wonder why I keep breathing when everything inside me is screaming at me to stop. Why don't I press the blade deep enough into my cold flesh for long enough to steal my last breath? Am I too scared? My pitiful wrist banging and scratching means nothing, as I am just barely scraping the skin. My wounds are diminishing, barely leaving their mark. Soon new ones will join them.
What is pain? Is pain this empty nothingness or a distraction from reality? Something to wake us up in the morning and command us to yield to it? Writhing, wallowing in agony until we get used to its ache and I become numb. Pain is just another word for the repetitive, monotonous bruising, beating, cutting. Pain is a state of mind, it leaves others trapped in their blind conformity, but it releases me. My self-inflicted pain lets me fly, but it keeps others grounded, stifled by their concrete shoes that they wear every day, because ignoring pain makes them feel safe, secure. I welcome pain with open arms, it's the kind of visitor that stays longer than I was expecting. I don't want help, I enjoy my pain too much. My wounded spirit keeps me alive, I bleed to make sure I'm alive. I don't eat because I don't need to, food and other mindless 'pleasures' keep humanity trapped. If you become addicted to this world, you won't remember how much you hate it.
Even my writings are lame and strangled, they're like angst-ridden school-girl wonderings, gripings. Sometimes knowing how pathetic I am makes me feel physically ill. I feel so hollow, both physically and mentally. God, I wish someone would blow my fucking head off.
Does guilt ever set upon you like a shroud of death, like an incurable plague? It eats you, infects you, decays you like a deadly virus. It devours your self-esteem. I hate myself so deeply and I wish I could have the courage to eliminate my pain. I almost want someone to know, to help me kill myself, but I can't trust a soul. Even Amy would turn me in. She can be such a bitch sometimes, turning a blind eye to my problems and fixating on her petty plights. She's a cutter, too, and smart, but she never applies herself, the fool. That's why she's failing Math and French, because she never tries. She'll either end up being a great author, or some depressed person in a rubber room. I think she makes up her 'issues,' thinking it will earn her some sympathy. Imbecile, doesn't she realize that her life is a freaking walk through happy land acid trip compared to the turmoil of some other people. Not me, necessarily, but generally her life runs fairly smoothly. Does she know what it feels like to be chubby? Abused? Insulted? Carted around like an inanimate object'? Hungry? Bleeding? Of course she doesn't, she doesn't know anything outside her world. Sometimes I think certain people are destined to live a violent, tragic, psychotic life, and others simply pretend they do. Assholes, what do you know? Nothing.
You know where you'll find me in ten years from now? In an institute, in a fucking mental institute. I'll be wearing a straightjacket, strapped to a bed, mumbling mindlessly and I will be lost. Sometimes knowing that I have issues makes me think I'm just normal, horribly average. I'm simply confusing myself now, so shut me up.
Sometimes I wish my brain would just shut down and I would be stupid, because then I wouldn't think of crazed ways to do things; today, I couldn't find a pin or scissors or anything to cut myself with, so I tried using my own fingernails. God, what a loser.
I have a premonition that I'm going to be murdered…or commit suicide, although I am terrified that I'll go to hell if I kill myself. I'll probably die in terror, screaming for help and then realizing that I finally get to die.
I'm so sick of perfect, thin, pretty, smart, artistic people. They make me loathe myself even more. People like Rina Finlayson and Megan Wall make me want to lash out irrationally. And I hate how there are no males that either meet my standards…either that or I just fuck guys (and sometimes men) that are desperate. Maybe I'd be thought of as 'promiscuous' in some context, but how many guys would I have to sleep with to be considered promiscuous? Two? Five? Ten? And how many girls would a guy have to sleep with to be considered promiscuous? Eleven? Seventeen? A hundred and nine? Most men worth having don't look at me like I'm alive. Maybe it's my chin or my nose or my general ugliness. I wish I could just look like Sylvia Plath. She's so goddamned gorgeous, I wish I looked like her. Maybe life would be better.
I wish I didn't have to eat. I don't chew or swallow my tick-tacks anymore, I suck on them and then spit them out. It's getting harder and harder not to tell someone, but I can't trust anyone, as usual. I try to exercise, but I still see the flab. I weigh about 136 pounds and I'm only five foot six. How disgusting is that? My goal is 105-110, but it will be so long before I get there at this rate. Actually, 105 would be nice, but I VOW not to go lower than that.