Whatever Happened to Baby Katy? Speaking Out

Read Time:2 Minute, 26 Second

By A Borderline Personality Blog

I haven’t posted in a while as I haven’t been feeling too good. Swings and roundabouts really, the joy of BPD.

Coming across this picture of me when I was little, I feel compelled to write a post, especially because I’m feeling low. I want to try to answer the question: ‘Whatever happened to baby Katy?’

I didn’t know

When I see this picture, or really any picture of me when I was young, I feel immediately sad. The kind of sad in the way that I feel sorry for the child in the pictures. I want to protect them now as an adult and try to make everything OK. It could be, I suppose, that it’s my way of trying to protect my younger self from feeling like I do now and having this diagnosis.

The joyful innocence of a child makes me envious. Even the joyful picture of me as a child — although my childhood wasn’t a happy one. A world where even though it wasn’t nice, I didn’t really know what the world was supposed to be like.

I have no memories

It all goes in a cycle about learnt behaviour. Because I didn’t know anything different I believed that my childhood was just ‘normal.’ And learning that it was anything but normal, I switched off. Even to this day, I don’t remember significant events in my childhood. Photos of holidays when I was young, I have no memories of.

Even though it’s me, right there, standing in that picture.

I have new insight

I don’t want to take away from the good memories, either. There WERE good memories. I remember a handful of holidays. There were times I remember, times where I’d laugh so much that I cried. I remember family friends and growing up. It just all seems very very blurry.

I believe that becoming a stepmother gave me a completely new view of what being a child should entail. It also gave me a newfound resentment for the people who were supposed to take care of me. My love for my stepdaughter makes my heart burst and I would do anything to protect her from hurt. That gave me a new insight into what a childhood should be.

She needs me to speak out

So what the hell happened to baby Katy? She had it rough, that’s what, and she learnt to not speak as she wouldn’t be heard. Also, she learnt that the environment she was in was very damaging and she learnt that those foundations develop into BPD.

I still smile like baby Katy. But baby Katy now has her voice and maybe that might make people very uncomfortable. But she needs to speak out.

I’m doing it for you, kid. We’ve got this.

Reproduced with permission, originally posted on aborderlinepersonalityblog