Time Loop

Imagine our bodies as an intricate system of wires, plugs, and circuit boards. I don't mean fast or efficient like a computer — I mean how the mind operates, how the body is controlled by the brain. If one wire isn't plugged in, a whole lot of other things malfunction. If someone takes it apart and puts it back together with the pieces in the wrong place, you're left with a lot of problems. What you choose to eat. How you choose to respond. What resonates, and what doesn't make sense. Your brain is blocked by a wall. Or the opposite — you're so perfect you outperform everyone, in conversation, in work, in life itself.

This is about mental health.

I look fine, but inside I'm raging. Underneath the skin is a violence. The pain from my mind digs into my stomach, makes me nauseous, unable to stand. I'm still here. The pressure in my mind makes me so tired I can't speak and have to lie down. I'm still here. My body shakes and a cold shiver follows. All of it stems from my mind. And I'm still here.

I'm meant to feel, and to understand myself. It's my job to figure it out. But I'm blocked from the answer. Hitting myself isn't the answer. Hurting myself isn't the answer. Prescription drugs aren't the answer.

I suffer from BPD — borderline personality disorder. There isn't a treatment for it, not really. It's more about regulation: monitoring your surroundings, finding the triggers and naming them. Honouring what's worth your time so the memories that play in your head aren't the bad ones.

Time is my factor. Suicide attempts in people with BPD peak in their twenties. Completed suicides cluster between thirty and thirty-seven. All of it fits the bill. Is this really my diagnosis? Yes. And that hurts. It's like I'm on a timeline and I already know the ending, so part of me wants to get it over with, because I've been told I'm not worth it. The system has shown me I'm not worth it — the lengthy process to speak to a doctor that resolves into nothing, the police checks from someone calling the cops instead of calling me. People have shown me I'm not worth it, and that lands on top of everything I'm already carrying.

I feel so much. I think so much. If I had direction, if I had support, I could create and live again, the way I once did. I long for the connection I had — making art, sharing it with a community. I almost had a thousand followers on Instagram, which was huge for me. I used to never get likes or comments or anything positive. I had people around me, but I wasn't supported the way I needed to be.

Then I received a DM. A video of someone jerking off, asking to see my clit piercing. A handful of people knew I had one. The account had zero followers — it was personal. I was working from home as a tattooist at the time, close to my family in case anything went wrong again. That doesn't stop people. People can know your situation and it will never stop them.

I once did a tattoo for my ex's friend. It went badly. He went on vacation with a full-colour mango piece and it got infected so badly that all the ink came out — what was left was a ring. I was working at a studio at the time. I didn't have money for the best supplies, and the owner kept his inks locked up so nobody could touch them. The friend came to the studio to complain, more than once, instead of ever hearing me out, he showed up on days I wasn’t there, and asked when I was working to talk about it, which never happened.

Months later — and I mean months — he made a fake account called "shitty tattoos." With his thousands of followers, he posted everything. A grown man bashing a twenty-two-year-old working from home just to make ends meet. I cut myself in response. Blamed myself. How crappy I am. All of it. I made a mistake. It's not the worst thing. There are always circumstances. I messaged my ex to make him stop. He didn't even care, no response. 

I was twenty-two then. I'm thirty now. That was eight years ago.

I was happier then. I woke up every morning, drew something, played video games, talked to people, and most importantly, I made money. I was happy. I was travelling. I was living. People never liked that. Even girls never liked that. The one friend I still see occasionally didn't like that. I never understood why. I can only do so much. I'm only one person. People struggle to be an artist, to follow their dreams, to live in a world they actually want to live in — and the people around them are often the reason why.

This is what killed me.

I went to Paris. I met a guy. It was okay. I was open about my career and what I was building, and his response was "you should go to school." I paid for that trip myself. I was following my dreams. I was living them. What does going to school have to do with any of that? We didn't talk for months, and then he came back to tell me "we have nothing in common." So when you followed my Instagram in the first place, it was to get into my pants. That was all it was. Such a shame. This is someone's career. Someone's life. And in the end, it was just about sex. We didn’t fuck by the way, he ate me out and he jerked off in the shower. 

Such a shame.

These things add up. If I changed the narrative and said outright — I often think about suicide, please be nice to me — it wouldn't change anything. I know it would probably make it worse, because these people don't care. Trust me. Nobody cares.

I have BPD. Before that, I had mood affective disorder. Now it's BPD — something keeping me in a time loop until I run out. I'm smart enough, strong enough, to push things away and move on. But it happens so often that I'm thirty, and more lonely than I have ever been.

When I closed my tattoo business in 2020, I thought it was the right thing. COVID gave me a reason to step back, heal, move on from that toxic energy. Now I regret all of it. I want her back. I want that Nadia back. I miss her. I miss everything about her. I love her.

Who I am now — I can't recognize her. I see the girl with the tattoos in the mirror, a tapestry on my skin of everything I've been through, and I don't know who she is.

This is about mental health. Your jokes, your harassment, your hatred for the fact that I existed in the way I existed — it was wrong. It caused me to hurt myself. It caused me to hurt the relationships that mattered most. So I'm left with this diagnosis and a time limit, because experience has taught me nobody is going to get it, nobody wants to fix it, nobody wants to hear me, or read my words.

I just want to recalculate myself. Experience new things. Wash away what I've lived. What hurts most is the time I've lost — with my mother, with my brother, with my sister, who I've tried to reach when she needed me. The understanding I have for them is so deep it's broken things between us. That's what failure feels like to me.

When I say it's that bad, it's that bad. I can't think of one genuinely kind thing someone outside my family has ever said or done for me. I don't think that's normal.

I've never had a birthday party as a teenager or an adult. I've never had the kind of friendships where you make memories together. I've never experienced love — just the opposite of it. If there's a meaning to life, I had one once. I don't see it now.

Nothing about me screamed bully me, harass me. That was a you problem. Not a me problem.

Sitting here, thinking about all of it, adds to the weight of the diagnosis. If I had succeeded — if I had died — would it have made you happier? Would you have felt like you won whatever battle you made up in your head?

So this is my meaning, for now. I'll keep going. I'll keep posting my art for the rest of my life. And I will continue to walk this world alone. I just cannot accept any of this for myself.