That which yields is not always weak.

There exists a series of books, by Jacqueline Carey, that speak to me very deeply. And I think that a number of aspects would speak to all of us who live with Borderline Personality Disorder. I also think it would speak to most all of humanity, on some level or another.

Those who know me know that I have a great capacity for love. They also know that I am capable of great forgiveness. I feel as if they go hand in hand. I feel like you can't have one without the other.

In the Kushiel's Legacy series the main characters are often those who are capable of great emotions. Great love, deep hate, huge forgiveness, massive heroism. Which, if you've ever known a Borderliner, is often the case in my life. Because we can't moderate our emotions, we live from one nerve sizzling intense emotion to the next. Flipping swiftly from adoration to loathing almost effortlessly, and in an impossibly short amount of time.

"When Love cast me out, it was Cruelty who took pity upon me" - Phèdre nó Delaunay (Kushiel's Dart)

Isn't that just the case of it all, for us? To feel cast out by all that is good, and for cruelty itself to have taken you in? To find a sort of pleasure in the pain we inflict on ourselves, on the pain inflicted upon us by others. We become pain-bearers. Capable of bearing the excess pain of the world, and offering up forgiveness unconditionally.

The sacred precept of these books, the foundation of the entire tapestry is so simple, so elegant, so very, very hard. "Love as thou wilt."

When I read that line for the first time, my heart chords were plucked into life. Yes. That is the mantra of my life. Love.

And even still these books said the things that lived in my heart that I could not put words to.

"Let the warriors clamor after gods of blood and thunder; love is hard, harder than steel and thrice as cruel. "

If war and conflict were to walk away from me, I would smile. If love were to leave, I would be felled.

And now the quote that shook my foundation to the bits.

"We are all these things [...]. Pride, desire, compassion, cleverness, belligerence, fruitfulness, loyalty...and guilt. But above it all stands love. And if we desire to be more than human, that is the star by which we must set our sights. "

These emotions control our lives, and for those of us with borderline, it's even more complex, more intense. We cannot cut these emotions away from ourselves, because we *ARE* these emotions. I am a creature of emotion, flighty, whimsical, child-like.

But love. That is so hard for us to bear.

If I can guide myself by the star of love then I am less lost to the maelstrom of my emotions.

This is how I choose to deal with my disorder.

Because though I bend, though I may yield, I do not break, and I am not weak.