Finding My Borderline

Finding My Borderline (Intro)

I've always felt like there was something fundamentally fractured within me. Even as a fourteen-year-old, a time when my classmates seemed perfectly content existing in their 'normal,' well-adjusted bubbles, I was perpetually battling internal hurricanes. They worried about pop quizzes and crushes; I wrestled with emotions that roared through me like wildfires and fears that clung to me like suffocating shadows. I just never knew what it was. It was always weird, always intense, but for a long time, I just learned to live with it, to mask it, to pretend. I was Parline, a regular girl. Or so I desperately tried to be.

Then, two years later, at sixteen, life threw a curveball that shattered my fragile equilibrium. Daniel, my anchor, my boyfriend, the calm in my personal storm, announced he was moving out of town for college. He was seventeen, a year older, brimming with excitement for this new chapter. And I... I couldn't help but imagine the abyss that would open between us once he left. The thought of him just going, just like that, without me, twisted something vital inside me.

The farewells began to feel like a slow, agonizing bleed. Days turned into weeks of escalating dread. I was suddenly swamped by an overwhelming tide of emotions, a dizzying cocktail of despair and raw terror. The familiar emptiness, a hollow ache I knew too well, returned with a vengeance. And alongside it, a new, insidious fear for his safety, a suffocating worry that consumed my every waking moment. Every siren, every news headline, every delayed text sent my mind spiraling into catastrophic scenarios.

One evening, unable to bear the gnawing anxiety, I called Amy, my yellow person, my safe space. My voice was a choked whisper, raw with unshed tears. "Girl, ever since Daniel moved out of town I've been feeling so incredibly empty. I don't know what to do. It's like there's a hole inside me, and I'm terrified something bad will happen to him."

I remember Amy's calm, steady voice. "Par, I'm sure you're just worried for his safety, it's normal. Call him once and see how he is. I'm pretty sure he just missed your ring."

A few minutes later, my thumb hovered over Daniel's contact. I took a deep breath, trying to slow my racing heart, and dialed. It rang. And rang. No answer. My breath hitched. Panic began to climb my throat. I called him again. Still no answer. My heart was pounding, a frantic drum against my ribs, twice its normal speed. It felt even more harder this time, a dull, aching throb in my chest. I couldn't stop myself. My fingers, numb and desperate, dialed his number again. No answer.

At this point, logic completely abandoned me. My thoughts spiraled, dark and furious. Was he cheating? Was he with another girl, already forgetting me, forgetting us? The fear of abandonment, a silent monster I'd always tried to ignore, roared to life, consuming every rational thought. My hands were shaking. My vision narrowed to a tunnel, the world outside disappearing. The last thing I remember was the cold linoleum floor of the kitchen under my bare feet, the glint of steel, and the chilling thought that if I couldn't control this, if I couldn't stop the pain, maybe I could at least feel something else. I picked up a knife, and with a detached sense of purpose, I cut my wrist. I could feel the strange warmth of the blood dripping out of me, slowly at first, then faster, pooling on the tiles. And then, mercifully, everything went black.