More Crazy Tracy

Tracy writes about Borderlines:

"Many people have asked me, "Tracy, isn't it time for your meds?" Wait, that's not it. They've asked, "Tracy, what is a borderline and when is it okay to execute them?" Well children, a borderline is many things and they have many traits (most of them hard to pronounce). I like to refer to them as "chaos makers" or "razor-toting shit-slingers." For the purpose of this highly fascinating blog entry, let's just say a Borderline is someone who makes things break and who can cause annoying body twitches and temporal lobe seizures. You won't find that definition in a book anywhere, but it is about as dead-on as you're gonna get.

Okay, what a borderline really is, translated into regular speech devoid of all psychobabble:

They have:

Intense relationships that usually result in the borderline getting hurt and which will suck every fucking bit of energy out of your pores, whether they are your patient, your lover, or your Avon Lady. They usually end up getting hurt because murder is illegal in most countries and you can always say they tripped down the stairs.

Repetitve self-destructive behavior, (usually involving blunt objects which aren't even capable of opening an envelope, much less capable of sawing through very thin wrist skin), which you must promptly respond to by restraining said borderline and in which you must spend the rest of the shift filling out fucking paperwork or filing police reports.

Chronic fear of abandonment if you have to go to the fucking bathroom and leave them alone for five seconds. Other such incidents that cause this separation anxiety are funerals you must attend ("You'd rather be with a dead person than with me?"), weddings ("You'd rather be at your sister's wedding than with me?" or major surgery ("You'd rather have your gallbladder out than be with me?").

Hypersensitivity, meaning an unusual sensitivity to nonverbal communication. Your Behavior: *reading a letter and laughing out loud* Borderline's Thought Process: *she's not sharing that with me, she must not want me to know about it, what else is she hiding from me, she must be cheating on me, that fucking whore, where's a razor?*

It usually takes me five seconds flat to tell I've got a borderline on my unit. The twitch will begin in my left eye before I even put my purse down. Subtle hints will descend upon the unit like a black pestilence. There will be in-fighting among the staff. There will be a patient in restraints (probably not the borderline). The fire department will be on the unit checking for gas leaks. The stapler will be out of staples--the printer will be out of paper. The patients will be out of, well, patience. It's pretty damn ugly.

It's probably best if you remember this old adage, "Borderlines don't have relationships; they take hostages." Proceed with caution, a big stick, and enough Ativan to drop a moose."

"Every nurse has a "favorite" patient, at least in the field of psych they do. Most nurses love schizophrenic patients. There is a reason for this: schizophrenic patients are incapable of bullshit. These patients suffer from the "cancer of mental health," and though they may tell you they've been abducted by alien hemotologists and had all their blood sucked out, it's not bullshit. It's not a lie. It is truth to them.
That kind of delusion is much easier to deal with than the chronic alcoholic who refuses treatment, is in the hospital after his fifth DUI arrest, and tells you that he doesn't have the problem, the "fucking cops do." And that is easier to deal with than the fucking borderline who comes onto your unit, feels slighted by your "attitude," and decides to report you to the Patient Advocate because you won't let her have a cigarette and you haven't been kissing her ass well enough. That's still easier to deal with than the borderline who cuts her arms to shreds with a pocket knife she smuggled onto your unit inside her vagina and then blames you for not searching her properly and leaving her in an unsafe situation.
Fucking borderlines! *shakes it off*"


Fuck, no wonder The Doctor was all, 'don't ever tell anyone you're borderline.'
Weird, though, because I'm about 2 years into her blog now, and there's not an ounce of her that's not just like me - borderline traits included.