Like Bruce Banner, Only Pervier: BPD & BDSM

Life with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is sometimes a big ol' case of Hulk smash — doubly so when you're a member of the kink community.

Perhaps if I hadn't been so distracted by UrbanDictionary's second definition of the phrase for so long, I probably would've put some of the pieces together (j/k, but how else was I gonna work that in?). For shit's sakes, Master and I had been calling my sudden behavior shifts "hulking out" for years without directly guessing what was up.

The worst BPD moments between us always goes the same general way (or used to, before I was aware of wtf was happening). Some small misunderstanding would crop up in our vanilla life — usually about issues as ridiculous as the entropy that always seems on the verge of overtaking my/Our apartment.

Legit, sometimes I'm afraid I'm going to find trilobites evolving from the dust bunny maw beneath my couch. So for the sake of example, let's use this house-cleanliness state of decay as today's BPD trigger of choice; it's not like it's necessarily a better or worse situation than usual, but I'm going to fixate on it today because I'm mentally out of sorts and huzzah for obsessive tendencies.

I silently fume for a while, burgeoning anger far disproportionate to the severity of the possibly-real, possibly-mythic trilobite army massing beneath my butt cheeks. Master notices me behaving increasingly thorny towards him (which as we all know is the opposite of horny, and therefore THE WORST THE ABSOLUTE WORST), but doesn't necessarily understand that this is a rapidly escalating situation.

Master makes a wrong move — like walking out of the room to get a moment to clarify His thoughts (how dare he!) — and that simple action is like dropping a match into the felching swamp gases that are my abandonment issues.

And then the green gal's home.

Yeah, yeah, it's all fun and games when it's a twerking Hulk gif, but in our example scenario I'm screaming at Master about hordes of phantasmagoric trilobites and how him not cleaning up is indicative of him not caring about me and physically turning his back on me becomes the damning evidence that he never loved me all along.

I'm exaggerating in terms of subject matter, but only a little and for the sake of comedic effect, so hopefully you'll forgive me. It's damn near impossible to unwedge my tongue from my cheek, even if I'm merely typing.

The cycle's unmistakable, though. Small thing turns into massive divide, which makes my ordinarily happy life look like an apocalyptic wasteland.

So the worst part, the part I can't really even joke about, is feeling like an entirely different person when the flip switches in my head and the world goes bad around me. I believe those fears: that He doesn't love me, like I've never been really loved. Like everything I've worked so hard to build — especially in the way of relationships — has been a colossal, sick joke. I've gotten better at recognizing things when I'm on the far side of the singularity as Dark Elegy, but historically that's been a hellish way to live. I've meandered my way down the gauntlet of emotional abuse (once from a parent, several times from partners), which absolutely explains how my personality came to be(PD), but I've also come close to wrecking my relationship with Master over stupid little shit like our proverbial trilobites, shadowboxing the ghosts of relationships past.

Realizing that your brain is prone to gaslighting yourself is like sitting on a pilot light and hoping no one lights a match. Realizing that you're hurting the people you love along with yourself is far worse.

Pictured above: with apologies to Loki, we needed a bit of levity tharr. Thx bro.

I've been kinkier longer than I've known I have a personality disorder, so integrating those lives can be messy, and this past summer (tales from the kink side in future posts!) was a big huge heap of madness that I'm still processing. Being in such close contact with other people outside our dynamic was a sort of reset, showing me how far I've come in terms of distress tolerance — and how far I still have to go.

My BPD is one of the biggest reasons I'm a RACK player (Risk-Aware Consensual Kink). It's hard to be Safe, Sane, and Consensual when your own sanity is a relative concept.

Finding the right medication has been an unspeakable relief. There's no magic pill for BPD, but one of the nonmagical kind can help stop me from transforming into an id with legs. As always, the power is in me, but the help doesn't hurt.

I'm truly fortunate Master is such an understanding person (even as He's cutely glaring at me for writing this post instead of devoting myself to His needs completely. #submissivelife). I'd imagine a lot of people who met in the scene as we did go through similar phases of dynamic shifts, being more or less capable of sustaining interest and energy in our kinks. He's supported me through not only my own waxing and waning interests, but the initial phases of awakening to my own inner hulkitude, and he helps me discover the silver linings of BPD — which, astonishingly, do exist. Would that everyone could be so lucky to have that sort of kindness reflected back at you as you realize what's actually going on inside your own mind.

Master says I have a pretty big heart; though that might be attributable to my bulging green physique requiring a robust cardiovascular system, I suspect he means I feel a lot. I'd have to agree (again, though, could just be the huge surface area of my mighty green skin). But if I have to have a spirit animal/superhero doppelganger, there are far worse choices than ones whose genitalia are wildly speculated about in pop culture (go me!).

Improbable as it seems, kink and BPD aren't the worst of friends ... or so seems to be the case if there's any truth to my life. Or memes.

xoxo,

Elegy