One thing about having BPD is the numerous addictions that
it comes with. One such addiction I had was prairie dogs. I became completely
obsessed. One mid-summer afternoon a friend and I were trolling the zoo when we
came upon a newly renovated exhibit. It was the prairie dog exhibit, and there
were 30 prairie dogs pups romping, digging, playing, kissing, (they do kiss and
at one time I though there scientific name should be Basium Spermophilus Lateralis, Kissing
Ground Squirrels) rolling, squeaking, and acting like a circus of fat, furry
clowns.........
I was completely mesmerized. I couldn’t stop thinking about them, even
after leaving the zoo; I thought and thought about them the way children think
about sweets.
I bought a zoo membership that week and visited the prairie
dog exhibit on my lunch breaks. I bought books and read every site about them
online. To my delight, I found out that they could be pets, and so I began
calling all over the mid west looking for a pet store that sold them.
That is a completely different and long story, but I went to
great lengths to bring my best friend prairie dogs home. I spent many happy years with them; the whole time,
being consumed about their well being and getting time to play with them.
In the prairie dog pet world, prairie dogs are often referred
to as PD’s. My brain, being under the influence of it
obsessions, at first when I read Borderline Personality Disorder often abbreviated
as BPD I instantly thought Borderline Prairie Dogs, which in turn made me think
of refugee prairie dogs. I thought of their land being taken over and them as
poor little, war torn vagrants headed for the border of Mexico.
It’s not that hard to see how BPD and PD’s share some common
history. Prairie dogs were once happily being prairie dogs, digging, chirping,
playing, eating, and being eaten.
They were just being what they were created
to be, but then people came who didn’t like them being the way they were. They
thought they dug too much, chirped too much, and they were just in the way of
their progress to build things and plant things. The people saw no value to the
prairie dogs being on the land. After all, they did not help in bringing
shopping to shopping malls, nor were they made of strobe lights or caffeine.
The people decided to wage war against the prairie dogs; they shot them, bombed them, scorched them, and poisoned them. They even went so far as to suck them out of the ground with giant vacuums.
The prairie dogs
in turn dug trenches, and made plans to defend and attack. They massed together
as one untied, furry army, but it was not enough. The people also gathered
armies and brought in tanks, nukes and germ warfare. The prairie dogs days of
romping and thriving were over, and they, with knapsacks in hand, headed for
the boarder of Mexico. Not really, a lot of them went to New Mexico,
Albuquerque to be exact.
But in all this, and knowing prairie dogs as well as I do, I
can say they are the most determined creatures on earth. They do not give up. If
at first you do not dig a hole in the pillow, and then you get scolded for
trying to dig in the pillow, try; try again (when your caregiver isn’t looking).
You will make the pillow your playground.
A person with BPD should not give up either. Getting over
ingrained fear, self hatred and neurosis is hard. At times it seems impossible.
There are many scars from the previous battles that have been fought, but one
must go on, and get on with living beyond the boarder, pushing on into lands of
belonging and success.
Just ask these prairie dogs what going on and surviving is
like in the face of those who doubted and defied you:
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