Borderline (The Arcadia Project, #1)

by Mishell Baker

I tried to remember my former Hollywood manners, then remembered that as a mental patient I had a license to say whatever the hell I wanted.

I hated optimism; it served only to remind me how inconceivable the depth of my failure was to normal people.

Any emotion, good or bad, lasts only a few moments unless we feed it. We are especially good at feeding anger, and Dr. Davis called the bits of kindling we toss onto the fire “anger up thoughts.” We use them without thinking, and it takes practice to pick them out.

At eighteen, I drove two thousand miles west toward the siren call of Hollywood, hoping it would drown out the cruel voice in my head that I thought was my father’s. By the time I found out that the cruel voice in my head was my own, my father was two years dead

“Sometimes after a trauma, mediocrity is exactly what we need. But I think you are past that now.”

“Residence Four? Out of how many?” “Three.”

Months’ if not years’ worth of compressed longings unpacked themselves to fill the empty space.

I love a day I haven’t screwed up yet.

Also, any criticism you offer, however mild, may be met with verbal abuse or even physical violence.”

My mounting anger interrupted the fragile connection between mind and mouth,

When you’re Borderline and want to survive, you learn to shrink from guilt, because it can spiral out of control and leave you staring down a bottomless void. People throw around the term “self-loathing” without really knowing what it means. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.

Learning’s optional but highly recommended.”

He started the car, looking irked, as though I had started crying on purpose. Men seem to think that women do this on a regular basis, which is bullshit. Just because you don’t feel something, it doesn’t mean the other person is faking it. You know who thinks like that? Sociopaths.

I love people randomly and suddenly, and it’s a curse most of the time. When it isn’t, it’s a lifesaver.

we tend to take any “no” as a personal insult and feel driven to turn it into a “yes” on the spot.

They can’t all be wrong, can they? There’s something wrong with you, deep down. Everyone can tell.

Stop it. Stop thinking. Fix something you can fix,

“I am never telling anyone anything again.” “You don’t get to have it both ways, Millie. You don’t get to have people care about you but no one poke around in your business.”

I could feel a Borderline paradigm shift. Without a stable sense of identity—something most people have mastered by the age of four—it becomes very easy for other people to tell you who you are just by the way they treat you.

“Hey,” he said as he punched it in, “what do you think about keeping all this just between us for a while?”

oh this is not a good guy

You think you’ve given yourself forty lashes for everyone you hurt, and then you realize you’ll never know the numbers.

I knew not to take it personally; Dr. Davis and I had worked on this. What is the goal of this interaction? My goal was to get information, not to stroke my ego.

I probably should have felt weirder talking about this stuff to a complete stranger, but it had been a long time since I’d had anyone but a stranger to talk to,

“I wish I could tell you,” he finally said. “Why can’t you?” “You’ve said you’re a friend of Berenbaum’s, and I can’t—”

I had learned that trying to soothe an angry person is like pouring gasoline on a fire. There are only two good ways to deal with someone’s anger: give it what it wants, or failing that, agree with it.

I loved dropping “in this economy” into conversation; it was like a get-out-of-logic-free card,

“Is everything about work for you?” “What else have I got?”

To minimize suffering, according to Dr. Davis, you must apply something called “radical acceptance.” Basically, this means ceasing to fight things that are beyond your control.

“We’re swimming in your culture every minute. Meanwhile, my culture thinks bipolar disorder’s my fault for not going to church. My culture can go fuck itself.”

You can’t judge a culture by its assholes.”

I don’t think that the instant desperate attachment Borderlines feel really counts as love, but I had never felt any other kind of love, so I didn’t know.

I was really angry when I first read this quote. And then when I finished the series, I realized the whole point of this quote was to spend three books thoroughly refuting it <3

“It’s easier to dehumanize someone than to try to understand the context of a violent act.”

You have to protect your heart, or you have to kill it. And if you kill it, well, what happens if you come across someone who needs it?”

“She could cast a charm on an object,” Caryl said, “a charm that psychically compelled you to kill yourself.

um.

“If I die, you can say ‘I told you so’ at my grave, and that would probably be more fun than working with me.”

I should have fought. I would have, a year ago, or at least showed some spine. But I wasn’t that girl anymore. Nor did I have that exact spine, not to put too fine a point on it.

I felt the break, like glass shattering inside me: that swift protective alchemy that turns hurt to white-hot rage.

I screamed at him. “I’m a person! I’m a person!” But I wasn’t, a familiar voice whispered to me. Not to him. Not to anyone.

Even if what you said was true, that only makes it worse. Truth should be left in wrapped boxes for people to open when they’re ready. When it’s used as a blade, they vacuum-seal the pain somewhere deep inside, sealing the truth in with it, until it’s time to turn it inside out and cut someone else.

From a Borderline’s perspective, nothing is beneath her worth, because she has no worth. A person with no worth can’t hope for forgiveness,

ha. haha. ha. ha. (ouch.)

“It doesn’t matter what I want,” I said. “I won’t get it.” “That don’t mean I won’t enjoy hearing you ask. Make it good and I might let you in.” I stood on a precipice with only the dimmest idea of how important it was: not just to the case, but to myself as a human being. I felt the kind of fear I should have felt a year ago, looking down from a seven-story building. But this time I had to step forward. Some part of me had grown enough to know I wouldn’t shatter, even if it felt like I would. “I want forgiveness,” I said.

I’d have to break the silence with something spectacularly lovable if I was going to survive the ensuing conversation, so I tried to quarantine my crazy away from the rest of me. Picturing my own little construct, I imagined stuffing my rage and lust and fear and self-loathing into it, leaving only the person I would have been if someone hadn’t put my brain in backward.

“I know how hard it is to forgive,” Gloria went on blithely. Apparently she’d recently armored over that weak spot. “But hon, the only way to be a better person than those who hurt you is to forgive them and show them kindness.”

It’s not either/or. This is a thing they taught me. Emotion Mind and Reason Mind. They can work together. You don’t have to get rid of your feelings, you just have to keep them out of the driver’s seat. I’m not saying it’s easy.”

For the first time since my fall, I had imagined something beautiful happening with me in it. The real me, missing pieces and all.

the only person your feelings are any trouble to is you.”

“I’ve missed you too, Millie,” she surprised me by saying. Then she ended the call, probably afraid she’d overload her familiar with all the feelings she was refusing to feel. That was the whole point of him: a miniature dragon-shaped carry-on bag for the traumatized mess that Dr. Davis would have called her Emotion Mind. I could have used a trick like that myself, but not being a warlock or a wizard, I had to deal with my mental health issues the old-fashioned way: by paying a lot of money to talk to people about them.

emotional-regulation disorder;

“I’ve tried to put her onto Araceli as much as I can, because of your . . .” She trailed off politely. My borderline personality disorder. My brain damage. My amputated legs. Pick a card, any card. I was a controversial candidate to work a drive-thru, let alone provide meaningful assistance to one of the most powerful women in Hollywood.