My husband is being SO selfish. Or more accurately, has been being a selfish prig in some really important, significant ways for some time now. This always happens when he stops with the 12 step meetings, sooner or later. It is also partly my part for focusing way too much on him; on trying to self-soothe by making everything all about him, by trying to make him my security blanket by giving him too much and asking too little. Much too little.

Of course, it's possible that I have totally lost perspective, and am sort of destroying our relationship. It is always very, very difficult to tell. Am I recognizing boundaries and asserting my needs, or am I being a psycho bitch throwing out unreasonable demands? You wouldn't believe how hard it is to be sure. The only way to find out sometimes is to see what happens, down the road.

I recently came across the realization that I have an honest-to-god personality disorder. What this means is daunting. It means my brain is essentially, physically, chemically damaged. It was damaged by what I experienced as an infant and child. I believe I am what's known as "borderline," which means borderline psychotic. I can pass into psychotic when I experience enough stress. Otherwise I exist on the borderline.

I know beyond a shadow of doubt that my mother is borderline. I just finished a book on borderline mothers and it explained what I thought was inexplicable. In a way it took a weight off my shoulders. There is no explaining what happened to me as a child, but there are other people in the world who understand, because they went through it too.

And they have damaged brains too.

The upside to all this is the realization that no matter how long I work, no matter how hard I work, I will never be normal. I will never experience a normal life. I will always be much closer to suicide than normal people. I could easily be one of those people who commit suicide at 65 to the total confusion of their friends (if they  have any) and relatives (if they have any).  I will never have a normal memory. I will never remember much of my childhood. I may never feel particularly good about myself, no matter how hard I throw myself at that wall, trying to recover. 

I may never care enough to have a clean kitchen or clean floors or weeded gardens or watered lawns. Never. Death may be a huge relief when it comes.

That means that my failure to get well so far is in a way, normal. Strangely, that comes as  a sort of relief. I have a disease, like people with leukemia or addison's. I have a disease, like Jane Kenyon did, and if you scanned my brain, you would see its traces, and there is no cure for it, although if you keep at it for years and years you may see the symptoms abate somewhat. But there is no crossing over into normal.