Borderline Successful: One of Those Crazy Girls
Content note: mental health, recovery, self-image, references to past crisis behavior (no graphic detail); brief references to disordered eating; sexual language.
Moon: Waning crescent in Taurus
Sun: Gemini
Currently listening:
im too pretty for this — lela ebrahimi
mirtazapine — Hayley Williams
terrible things — Goldie Boutilier
I have deeply internalized that I need a warning label. Like if I name myself as hazardous up front, I’d be doing the responsible thing-protecting you from me, how dramatic. This manifests with me unfurling the scroll of preexisting conditions to anyone who gets too close.
And sometimes, sure, it helps. Sometimes the warning label is just language: context, first and foremost. A heads up that I’m sensitive, and maybe working really hard at being poised, and it’s exhausting, and you need to know that if I say I’m overwhelmed it’s not personal-I just need to get some air, you know? A reminder that I’m not a neutral object. I’m a person with a body and a nervous system that learned some things the hard way.
But does that make me “a lot”? I used to cry a lot. I feel bad for those ex partners. I used to not eat at all. It’s extremely complicated with that one ex partner. And if I was ever too much… well, they left me, so it must be at least somewhat accurate. I wouldn’t have dated 25-year-old me, and is that a horrible thing to admit in hindsight? Maybe. But I keep thinking I have to give fair warning for the person that has since become me.
Most of us don’t become “a lot” in a vacuum. We become it in rooms where our needs are treated like offenses.
I learned early that disclaiming myself can also be a kind of control. If I say it first, it can’t be used against me later. If I tell you the story in the right order, I get to be the narrator instead of the defendant. Here is the file. Here are the terms. Proceed at your own risk.
The problem is that a warning label doesn’t make you safer to love.
“I’m a lot”
“I’m a lot” is a sentence you learn to say before someone else can say it for you. A preemptive apology. A self-evacuation plan. Me trying to be polite about the fact that my interior weather has always been louder than whatever is happening outside.
“I’m a lot” is what you say when you’ve realized people prefer you in smaller portions.
Once you start apologizing preemptively, you start living preemptively-shrinking your wants before anyone can reject them.
I’m so deeply aware of how much I can be that I hide from myself. Keep the volume low. Keep the wants vague. Keep the feelings in a drawer with the socks I never wear. Because the minute I admit I want something real, I have to face the possibility that I’ll want it badly.
And wanting badly is dangerous, right? That’s the whole premise. Wanting badly makes you messy. Wanting badly makes you “too much.” Wanting badly is how you end up crying in someone’s kitchen at 1 a.m. like it’s your job.
So I get ahead of it. I tell you I’m a lot. I make it a joke. I make it a warning. I make it a little laminated sign you can’t accuse me of hiding.
Temporary
I have a terrible habit of assuming I am temporary, replaceable, forgettable-and, in essence, easy to abandon. Some may even call them “abandonment issues,” but we will refrain from psychoanalysis in this moment. (We’ll save that for literally any other moment.)
This assumption-that I’m only temporarily in people’s lives-has made me transient. I belong nowhere, with and to no one. I have no “circle.” I have no “scene.” I am the satellite friend of many people and many groups-some that overlap, some that exist only online. I am always coming and going. But this is not the sort of person you settle down with. When you put down roots, you want to know the ground is steady. I respect that.
So I don’t expect to be a permanent fixture with people. They will eventually land somewhere else, but for now they’re with me. I appreciate the connection, the experience, the attention. It makes for a good story, and some hot memories, and even some personal growth-but I’m not plot-significant in everyone’s life.
Sometimes I really am just some woman they slept with. Or almost slept with. Or wanted to sleep with. Anyway: I assume I’m a fuck, not a girlfriend. Because truth be told, I am. Frankly. I’m a good lay. Objectively. But whoop-de-fucking-do-me and who else?
I’m fun at parties and on dates. I’m a good wedding guest if you need a +1. I’m a pleasant addition to group activities. I’m that girl you invited to the beach once. I’m that girl you went to Ren Faire with. I’m that girl who showed you The L Word.
But now that I’m in my 30s, I wonder if I’m allowed to want to be a girlfriend-or if I’m only the free-spirited freak notch on everyone’s belt. Not that I don’t lean into that, but wouldn’t you? Objectify yourself before they can do it to you.
Oh no? You wouldn’t do that at all, and that sounds pretty fucked up?
Valid. Extremely valid.
And then I become the side character in my own life: always commenting, always reacting, always doing the little tasks that keep the plot moving-but never fully steering. Helpful. Compliant. Palatable. Present, but not present. Easy to invite. Easy to forget. Easy to replace.
Good behavior
The thing is, I’ve been on pretty good behavior for a few years now. I’ve been the version of me that doctors love. The version that makes charts look better. The version that turns crisis into “history.”
I’m in recovery or whatever. I’m healing so hard right now. I’m on meds again and it’s a stable improvement to my general quality of living-which is a sentence that sounds like a brochure and also happens to be true. Sure, I have an irregular and poorly established care routine with my general practitioner, but who amongst us is perfect?
The part no one tells you is that you don’t get applause for maintenance. You don’t get a medal for waking up and doing the boring things that keep you alive. You just become… someone who is alive. And you’d think that would feel like a victory, but sometimes it feels like a blank.
People romanticize your breakdowns and then get bored when you recover.
Once you’re “fine,” your pain becomes optional to everyone but you.
Good behavior is what the doctors called compliant. It’s what teachers call a joy to have in class. It’s what people who knew you 20 years ago shrug and say you seemed nice enough, but they don’t remember ever hanging out. It’s not a personality. It’s a survival strategy with better lighting.
And here’s the weird part: I wanted this. I wanted stability. I wanted the “boring” version of life where you don’t spend every day managing a fire.
But when the fire goes out, you look around like: okay. Great. So. Now what do I do with my hands.
The survivor montage (“roll credits”)
There’s a smugness in being the crazy girl that survived. Like: ha, been there, done that. Like I can show you the receipts and you’ll have to believe me-yes, I was real. Yes, I lived through something. Yes, I can take a hit.
Died in that field and walked home in soiled Tripp jeans. Blacked out in that basement. Kissed that girl on a couch and spiraled about her for three years. Roll credits.
Except the credits never rolled. Life just kept going. And being the most bruised person in the room isn’t a badge of honor outside of the psych ward. Who knew?
At some point the war story stops being armor and starts being a cage. A war story is not a personality. A scar is not a plan. Proof of damage is not a direction.
And I’m not saying the war story isn’t true. I’m not saying it doesn’t matter. I’m saying I keep trying to turn it into a resume. Like if I can prove how much I survived, it’ll make me easier to keep. Like endurance is a substitute for being chosen.
Now what?
Well now that I have survived, officially-now what?
When my main task is no longer merely keeping myself upright. When more is expected of me than just sleeping through the night and waking up in the morning. When the therapy pays off and it’s time to function.
I should know where to put my hands by now, right?
I should be able to state something true and interesting about myself without needing to dig deep. I should have an accomplishment. I’m working on something to be proud of, a life’s calling or something close-a reason to live that isn’t just: I’m alive because I’m already alive.
Not to sound too disdainful for my life currently-I do fairly well, all things considered. But sometimes that’s the problem. Because the moment you’re no longer actively falling apart, you’re supposed to become a person with desires. A person with momentum. A person with light in their eyes.
But what if I’m still learning how to want things without turning them into emergencies? What if I’m still learning how to be a person who isn’t defined by the worst year?
Because survival is a full-time job. And when you finally quit that job, you’re standing in the lobby like: okay. Cool. Where do I pick up my personality. Is there a desk. Do I need a ticket.
Reclaiming (or retiring) the word
I don’t know yet if I’m reclaiming psycho or retiring it.
Maybe reclaiming means I can say it without flinching and it doesn’t own me anymore. Maybe retiring it means I’m done pinning my identity to my symptoms like a name tag I have to wear at every social function.
Either way, I think the point is agency. The story can’t just be what I survived. The story has to be what I’m building. And it doesn’t have to be a grand calling to count.
Maybe what counts right now is embarrassingly simple: taking my meds. Texting back. Making something. Staying curious. Keeping promises small enough to keep. Letting “boring stability” be a love language instead of an insult.
Someone who is alive and moving and interacting and even performing well in whatever role-but there’s a glaze over their eyes.
Maybe that glaze isn’t failure. Maybe it’s just the part of me that’s waiting to come back online. The part that doesn’t know what to do yet now that the main plot isn’t survival.
If I’m a lot, I’m also a life.
I can be difficult and still be worth keeping. Those things are not opposites.
Atila
Bluesky: @atilacore
