People Like Me

By Marlena O 

They’ll tell you never to fall in love 

with people like me. 

People who have what i have.

we’re mean, we lash out,

 we push you away

 but pull you in like the tide

we cry and scream and cut and 

they'll always tell you were not good people, 

that we never will be. 

But they dont tell you what made us that way. 

that this isn’t genetic. 

It doesn’t just get passed down. 

Its the result of trauma

A chemical imbalance in our brain

So severe 

It completely alters the way we’re wired

How we respond, 

how we function, 

our quality of life 

They don’t tell you about how 

this is the one psychiatric disorder

Believed to produce 

the most intense emotional pain and agony

They don’t tell you how it feels. 

How theres nothing that can really be done, 

no ‘magical treatment’

Meds won’t even make that much if a difference. 

You probably dont know that 

75% of us are women

our amygdala are 16% smaller than the average persons

Most therapists won’t even work with us.

They can’t put you in our bodies 

when we feel any kind of emotion

if they did, you would see 

we don’t feel the emotions

the emotions feel us. 

We are ragdolls to our own minds. 

Puppets on a string. 

an entire other being is consuming me

and i dont have access to the control board

You’re frustrated? I am LIVID. 

the world is burning, about to end. 

I will snap at whoever is around me, 

say horrible things i dont mean, 

that i cant even remember saying after the fact.

You feel a little sad? I’m DEVASTATED.

 I am sobbing, sounds so guttural 

you would think I wasn’t even human.

You’re upset with someone? 

I will hold a grudge against people who hurt me 

for as long as i live. 

But first, i let them destroy me beyond repair

so i can be sure its really over 

after that, rough, you will never be rid of me.

I’ll be watching your every move 

I’ll always know what you’re up to

Who you’re with

I will haunt you forever,

i will make your life so unbearable

to try and compensate for the you put me in. 

I don’t just move on and forget

You might think I forgave you

But I’m just waiting to get you back 10 times worse

When you’re not expecting it

You dont know about the behind the scenes. 

The attachment to one person so intense 

that you don’t bother to keep up with anyone else. 

They become all you have, 

and when they leave you have nobody. 

So you spend all your time 

trying to ensure they won’t abandon you

but you end up smothering them in the process

they pull away 

and you hold on even tighter

they are afraid to say the wrong thing 

Once they’re gone,

you find someone else almost immediately

You don’t take time to heal and grow

To nurse your wounds 

So you carry it with you 

and let it eat your connections alive 

And with every person, 

it just builds 

And builds 

and builds

You know you need to be alone for a while 

But Being alone is unthinkable 

I can’t love myself 

unless someone else loves me too 

I crave love

I crave connection

I build this idea up in my mind

That it’ll be like a fairy tale

That Once I find someone

Who truly wants me

All my other problems will go away,

That I won’t feel like this anymore

Except that’s not true

It’s never been true

Love makes me crazy

It makes me go insane

I am inconsolable

I am dyaregulated

I am unproductive

I am always crying

I’m wasting away

When I’m in love

But to me

I’d rather be spiraling

The worst I’ve ever been

Then have to sit alone with myself

And be in my own mind

To protect yourself from me

You need to be mean

The mean ones have always been the ones

That I love the hardest

Through my actions

Through my words

Because I’m trying so hard 

To keep them in my grasp

They treat me like dirt 

And I will stay

I will apologize for their behavior

They can cheat on me

I won’t go anywhere anywhere

I would let them do anything

If it meant they would still be mine 

I’ll be so you can see right through my skin

I’ll cry so much I’ll throw up

I’ll plead with them

To Stop treating me this way

They say they will

But they won’t

So I shower them with love

And Gifts

And letters

All the things I wish they would do for me

To try to convince them that I don’t deserve 

to be Treated like an animal

It never works

I Waste all the love in me 

On someone who shouldn’t be receiving it

The ones I ruin 

Are the ones that would do anything for me

The ones that are patient

And gentle

And loyal

And try so hard to understand

The ones who buy books to learn about the way my brain works

I’m not begging for them to stay

Because I’m not scared they’ll leave me

I get too comfortable

They’re begging me To treat them like the humans they are

But I’m already too far gone

Love makes me crazy

So I set the one good thing I have

Up in flames

Burning a relationship

Into Ashes

that could’ve been so beautiful 

If I was somebody else

Somebody that deserved the pure adoration they gave me

And didn’t return it with such vengeance and hostility

They'll tell you never to fall in love 

with people like me

People who have what I have

And I think

They may be right