To everyone I know,
Thank you for caring. Thank you for checking up on me. Thank you for answering my pleas for help. Thank you for noticing I was drowning, and for choosing to reach out your hands and save me. Thank you for valuing my life when I couldn’t value it myself. Thank you for noticing I’m gone, and for worrying about me. Thank you for being my friends. Thank you for including me. Thank you for talking to me, and inviting me to meet up. Thank you for telling me you care. Thank you for reassuring me you’re not going anywhere, and that I’m not an awful person. Thank you for letting me know you miss me.
Thank you all for passing on your wishes and letting me know you were thinking of me, on the first anniversary of the death of my granddad, my first loss, it meant a lot to know I wasn’t alone in my grief. Thank you for letting me know that people are there for me in hard times. Thank you for the sympathy when I was so ill I was scared I wouldn’t be able to breathe. Thank you for showing concern about my worsening mental health. Thank you for not taking my behaviour personally, and for seeing it as me needing your support. Thank you for not giving up on me. Thank you for forgiving me and helping me improve my life. Thank you for your great communication and advice. Thank you for not hating me.
Thank you for understanding my mental illness, or at least taking the time to learn about it if you didn’t understand it. Thank you for listening to me. Thank you for validating my feelings, my experiences and my way of thinking. Thank you for not acting like you know my own illness better than I do. Thank you for making me feel safe to open up to you.
Thank you for not taking sides against me. Thank you for giving me the benefit of the doubt. Thank you for being so compassionate. Thank you for your patience and tolerance of the difficulties I face because of BPD. Thank you for understanding my fear of abandonment and for not putting me through that fear, by leaving me for weeks and weeks at a time, isolated, thinking you all hate me. Thank you so much for easing my fear. Thank you for putting my mind at rest. Thank you for rallying round me at the shittest point in my life. Thank you for remembering who I am outside of this mental illness. Thank you for wanting me to stay alive, and caring about my desire to end my life.
Thank you for sharing with me. Thank you for opening up to me, and letting me BE a friend to you. Thank you for being close to me and for giving me a hug when I so desperately need it. Thank you for seeing that I’m in need of that kind of contact, having nobody for myself I don’t have an emotional connection, so it means a lot. Thank you for putting me as a person before my political beliefs. Thank you for seeing my worth. Thank you for making sure I see my OWN worth. Thank you for wishing the best for me. Thank you for hoping I find my own happiness with someone one day. Thank you for understanding the loneliness I feel, and making allowances, and making a tiny bit of time for me, to make me feel less alone. Thank you for actively doing things to make me feel better, rather than just saying you wish there was something you could do. Thank you for taking the initiative and doing something nice for me. Thank you for appreciating the things I did for you. Thank you for understanding why I can’t be there for you right now. Thank you for telling me you’re not going to leave me. Thank you for seeing my good qualities and reminding me of them when I’m being hard on myself. Thank you for giving me hope. Thank you for encouraging me. Thank you for your silent presence when I don’t want to talk, but don’t want to be alone. Thank you for making me feel good about myself. Thank you for not seeing me as a lost cause.
Thank you for all the effort you put into caring about me, and for not being indifferent towards me. Thank you for making me feel you can’t live without me. Thank you for leaving me in no doubt that you’re my friend. Thank you for your consistency, your loyalty and your empathy. Thank you for standing by my side through everything and never forgetting I’m your friend.
Thank you.
Thank you for thinking everything I’ve just said is true, when it’s the furthest from the truth it could ever be.
xxxx
More Harm Than Good 