Borderline Personality Disorder makes you feel. A lot. For me personally, music, movies and TV shows have always been triggering. I tend to get lost within the fictional world and my mind starts believing I am a character within that story. With "Red (Taylor's Version)" having just come out, everything that Taylor Swift felt while writing these songs, I feel when I listen to them. Leading up to the release of this album, fans were saying that they wanted their significant others to break up with them so that they can feel what the album is supposed to embody. Having BPD, I did not need that.
"Better Man (Taylor's Version) (From the Vault)" puts me in the shoes of a woman in a toxic relationship desperately wishing that the relationship could have worked out. "The Last Time (feat. Gary Lightbody of Snow Patrol) (Taylor's Version)" pains me just as Swift's experience must have pained her. And do not even get me started on "All Too Well (10 Minute Version) (Taylor's Version) (From the Vault)." I do not have someone to cry over, but it still feels like Swift is singing about me and my life and my relationship. Granted, this was absolutely the point of the album, but it hurts more than I could have ever expected it would.
I had spent the few days since the release crying over this album and this fictional relationship that I have never been in. To escape the dark hole that this album had put me in, I went back to another recent release that I have been playing on repeat - Jesse McCartney's "New Stage." Frankly, I am not sure if that was a good move, as listening to McCartney sing about his relationship with his now wife, Katie Peterson, makes me crave a perfect relationship just like theirs.
Is there anyone who would not want their partner to write an entire album about how wonderful they are? As a someone with BPD, all you want is to be loved and constantly reminded that you are loved. The tough part is that this is real life and as much as 12-year-old me would have hoped, I did not marry Jesse McCartney. Instead, here I am forcing my brain to understand that my life has nothing to do with the music I listen to.
Can music be relatable? Absolutely. Additionally, music can heal the most broken of souls. Although it sometimes hurts me, I will never be able to deny the beauty that music brings to the world. I think what I need right now is to play Kesha's "Woman" on repeat to remind me of how badass I am.
