Cartman

Most nights, after The Simpsons, we watch South Park. My husband loves the character Butters. I love Cartman.

There’s one episode where all the townsfolk decide to ignore Eric Cartman as a punishment for his obnoxious behavior. Cartman is a fourth grader, a racist loudmouth and a despicable human being. At first, Cartman gets desperate and tries to attract attention in any way. When that fails, he decides he must be a ghost. He assumes he's trapped on earth so he can atone for his misdeeds before entering heaven. As he tries to un-do his past, no one else understands what he’s doing and his behavior looks more bizarre than ever.

That’s what Borderline Personality Disorder feels like. When I was little, it felt like my parents didn't notice my existence. I was a little child and I fell and scraped my knee. I got scared in the middle of the night. My dog just died and I was distraught. My natural instinct was to run into my parents’ arms for comfort. But they told me that’s it was wrong to do that, it was selfish and shameful. They were busy, couldn’t I see that? They had big, important lives and they’d seen scraped knees before.

I tried to jump around, tried to attract attention to myself. It was kind of like being stuck in bubble that only I could see. Nobody else saw it - all my shouting and flailing seemed out of place. I kept trying different things - trying to figure out the extent and nature of my universe. And every emotion reverberated in my bubble and overwhelmed me. When something finally did penetrate the bubble and my parents actually saw me, I took note and tried to reproduce it over and over again. Maybe one time I said a little prayer or crossed myself. The next time, I’d do the same thing, even though it felt a little strange. Sometimes I got angry with my parents for all this nonsense. But they were the only parents I had and I had to behave. The angry side of me just split off to another reality.

At school, all the kids saw that I was weird. The intensity of my emotions didn’t make sense to them. I was an instant outcast. I made excuses and tried to manipulate the other kids into accepting me. When they became skeptical, I tried new things. I pleaded, withdrew, avoided getting too close. Everyday I felt anxious and empty. I hated myself and hated that nobody could see me. Hurting myself and thinking about suicide provided an oddly soothing escape. But when I talked about this, they put me in a mental hospital. The staff didn’t know what to do with me. Even the other patients could see that I didn’t belong there. When I got out I avoided therapists, fearing I’d be locked up again. So I hid in my mind; in places I could disappear to that felt almost psychotic. When I got older, I drank.

For the record: at the end of the South Park episode, Cartman manages to confuse bank robbers providing enough of a distraction for the police to end a hostage situation. Cartman is credited with saving the day, "armed only with the weapon of confusion." When Cartman finds out that his friends could see him all along, he is mortified and furiously swears revenge.