Kind of unsettling, isn’t it? Its supposed to be.
This was a hard tattoo to get. Partly because I was spending 160$ of my -5$ budget, broke down n jobless, lined up at flash day on my third coffee of the day. But moreso because this tattoo represents the unsettling bits of me, displayed right on my fucking arm to remind myself that it’ll always be there.
Before I understood borderline, I always referred to it as my ‘3AM self’. Just like how kids have a fucked up name for masturbating before they realize what masturbating actually is (or was that just me?). Sitting in my darkened room in solitude, half a bottle in, watching ‘chilling screaming 911 calls’ on youtube. Perhaps texting an ex, perhaps listening to the Weeknd (early shit, please) or Lana and completely staring into nothing. Definitely self harming in one way or another. Cutting myself off from every bit of reality, suffocating myself. I always felt like a different person in those moments. Wearing a mask that no one sees, or perhaps not wearing a mask at all. I could never discern whether this darkened side of me was the real thing or just a temporary facade, and being terrifiedly certain it was the former.
Learning more about borderline, I came to solidify the fact that it was the real me. The real, unpretty, destructive, flammable and deceptive to anyone but myself version of me. And I was addicted to it. I may always be. We all crave a certain amount of darkness in our lives, and I was lucky (if you could call it that) to have a little bit right inside of me.
That used to scare the fuck out of me. But now I find comfort in it. Its my little darkness nook, and I like to retreat to it. The man will always be there, and that makes me not need him as much. I still like to have my alone time, and I still like to get dark, but carrying that little piece with me everyday makes it a lot less daunting to get into.
I also find I’m more accepting of other people’s indiscrepancies now. I try to find the smokeface in everyone else and when I do, I compare faces and find hardly any difference. We’re all just trying to survive with our own addictions, and they come out in the most fascinating ways.
So I take the good with the bad, because it’s all human.
What does your smokeface look like?
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still ill - mental health mecca 