My Dad recently gave me a New Yorker cartoon in which a man standing on a street corner angrily demands that everyone reads his latest blog entry on waffles. And not that he was offering recipes or tips on buying a waffle iron, he merely wanted to share his opinion.

This satirical scene encapsulates my feelings towards blogs, blogging, bloggers, and essentially anything related. In a world constantly swollen with too much information, useless blabber, and pointless rhetoric, I do my best to stay away from the digital world of the blogosphere.

Yet here I am. In my defense, I wanted to start a website...not that the content would have been much different, but the slight change in medium would have made me feel more at ease. The website, however, proved too difficult to edit and thus I caved, turning to the easiest format to post my words onto the screen.

As one who enjoys writing, I've always been taught that a crucial job of the writer is to make the reader give a damn about the words on the page (or screen). I'm unclear on how much progress I've made in my ability to do so, and for the purposes of this project, I see no reason to force it. One can give a damn, if one so chooses.

And so, I'm sure the reader may be asking, "What then is the purpose?" It's a great question, and one that comes with only a convoluted and incomplete answer.

I first heard my therapist mention the words Borderline Pesonality Disorder in the spring of 2007. It wasn't until that fall, that she "officially" gave me a BPD diagnois, which I now refer to as Borderline Disorder. What has followed has been a journey where I often feel like I'm not moving. The thrills of self-discovery give way to confusion, the confusion gives way to worse, the worse gives way to medication, and I accidentally wonder on to the path to recovery and then run backwards, run sideways, run as far away from the road as I can. The entire time I've tried to navigate my way through a broken mental health care system while constantly keeping a look out for scenarios in which I may be stereoptyped such as when filling out health profiles for insurance, job applications, and the sort.

Yet, inside of me exists a person stronger than my paranoid exterior, wanting to have a coming out party. I have Borderline! And here's what it is and here's how I'm going to get better, and here's why you and the rest of society should know about this disease.

But society and the people who comprise it, have their preconceived notions that are hard to break after they have been reinforced for so long. How can I use my words to educate, when my words will be filtered through the "Don't forget, he's kind of crazy" mentality.

Even within my own family, I feel there is little understanding of this disease and that is no one's fault. It is extremely difficult to define and explain, and I sure as hell don't understand it fully and I'm the one that has it. Additionally, as I run away from recovery, I question whether I do indeed have the disease, but as I made the decision to go off my previous medication, it is apparent that I must accept the diagnosis, because without that recognition, any hope of recovery is simply delusional.

So, it is with this blog ( I can't belive I just used that word) that I hope to accomplish a few things. One, I want to improve my ability to articulate what it is like living with Borderline Disorder. Second, I want to open communication with family and close friends. But this is the hardest and scariest thing for me to do. In essence, I am asking for help.

As financial restraints and lack of transportation prohibits me from visiting my therapist on a regular basis, I currently have only myself to depend on while managing the disorder. But I recently ordered a book entitled, "Borderline Personality Disorder Dymestified" and as I made my way through the first chapter, my eyes began to well-up, because never have I had anyone explain my life in such accuracy. The DSM-IV listing of Borderline charecteristics is simply too cumbersome and ambiguous to really connect with my life experiences.

While I've yet to finish the book, a cental message is that communication with loved ones and friends is key to recovery. The first step in communication is to let everyone know that even though my wounds are not visibile, I am broken.

Typing those fear inducing words makes me want to turn around and abandon the whole project. I can only imagine what a reader would think. "Everyone's broken, it's not that bad." Indeed, the struggles we experience as human beings can always be viewed as less severe in the heiraarchy of suffering. But when one breaks an arm, the arm cannot heal if the wounded person says, "It's not that bad, people are starving."

At the risk of using hyperbole, recovery is my only option towards living a life that I want to live. Whether I choose or am able to stay on the path of recovery remains unseen. But in this young life having already gotten dangerously close to abusing substances and dangerously close to other forms of harm, that I may be able to talk about a future point in time, I sure as hell have to try.

I don't know whether I will be posting shorterm more frequent posts or longer more infrequent ones, but if you have received an e-mail, I ask that you ask yourself to see if you have the time to check in once and a while and educate yourself about Borderline and allow myself to do the same by communicating with you.

Love,

Joshua