Chapter Thirty Six #2
I think about it. “Well, from the moment I did her interview, I knew I was going to like her. But when she got here, and I started to get to know her, she was—” I stop. “She was easy to be around. She understood me without me having to explain too much. She just knew.”
The pen is picked up again; more notes being written. More notes being written. I know she usually takes the odd notes when I am here, but this seems more than usual. Why does today feel different?
“And when she told you the first time that she didn't see you as anything romantically?”
Why is she making me think about this all again? My eyes find the plant in the corner and stay there as I say. “Like the floor dropped from under me, making me unable to breathe or think about anything else but not being loved back.”
“And last night?”
“I was angry, felt like she set me up to fall again.”
Dr. Palmer lets the silence settle between us for a moment. My head ruminates on everything. Then she says, “I want to try something, if that’s ok?” I agree with a slight nod. “I'm going to describe something, and I'd like you to just listen. You don't have to respond straight away.”
I nod.
“Sometimes people experience emotions at a much higher intensity than those around them. Not because something is wrong with them, but because their nervous system is wired to feel things more acutely. The highs are higher. The lows are lower. And when something threatens a connection they value, the response can feel overwhelming, like a switch is flipped.” She pauses. “Does that sound familiar at all?”
I don't say anything. But I begin to nervously pick at my sleeve.
“When that switch flips,” she continues carefully, “a person can see someone they care about in a completely different light. Not because that person changed, but because the pain is so loud it rewrites the story in the brain. One moment someone feels like everything. The next, like the source of all the hurt.” She holds my gaze. “We call that splitting.”
“Splitting…” I repeat in a whisper to myself. “Is that what happened last night?”
The question wasn’t for her ears, but she responds anyway. “I think so.”
She puts her notebook on the side table, both hands free now, leaning forward slightly. Not into my space, but closer. The way she does when she wants to make sure she can read me for what comes next.
“There is something else that goes hand in hand with what I've described, and I want to explore that with you. If you can, answer as honestly as you can manage. No judgement, just me trying to understand something a little more.” She folds her hands in her lap now; her eyes land on me gently in a way that quietly says she is listening and that it’s ok all at the same time.
“How much of how you've been feeling about yourself these past few months has been tied to how Maeve responds to you on any given day?”
I look at the floor.
How do I explain that it's all of it? That on the days she laughed easily around me, I felt like a functioning human being, and on the days she wasn’t around as much, I felt lost, unable to focus much.
When I was with her, I liked who I was. Easy Colt, someone who can be seen, who is liked. Someone people want to be around.
“All of it. I think.”
She doesn't look surprised. Doesn't look sorry for me either, which I appreciate more than I can explain.
“There's a term,” she says, voice quiet and even.
“It's not a clinical one, but it's widely used, and I think it's going to make a lot of sense to you.” She watches my face.
“Favourite person—It describes someone to whom an individual has formed a particular kind of attachment. The person on the other side of that attachment, without necessarily meaning to or knowing, becomes the centre of everything to the individual, impacting how the other person acts and feels.”
I don’t move, because every word feels uncomfortably familiar.
“The attachment can become so intense that it starts affecting how you see yourself.”
My throat tightens.
I think about every good day I've had these last few months. Almost every one of them had Maeve somewhere in it.
“I can see this is resonating,” she says gently.
“So, what does this mean?” I say.
Dr. Pamer sits back in her chair, placing the notebook back in her lap, hands folding in on each other. “Before I say anything else, Colt, I want you to hear this part first.”
I bob my head, filling my lungs with air, reminding myself I can breathe. There’s no need to panic.
“There is nothing wrong with you.” She offers me a smile, bending slightly down, drawing my wandering eyes back to hers. “Colt, I've spent a long time getting to know you. You're thoughtful. Loyal. Caring. You feel things deeply. None of those are bad qualities.”
I break eye contact, going back to looking at the plant in the corner. That seems to be the safer place to land on.
“Then why’s it that I feel this way? Why did everything you just say make sense to me?” There are more questions I want to let slip, but I stop myself. We’d be here all day otherwise, and I need the answer to the main question. What is wrong with me?
“That’s exactly what I’m trying to understand, and to do so, I’d like to refer you for a formal assessment.”
My brows furrow, eyes dart back at her with panic setting in my chest. Breathe, Colt. Breathe.
“For what?”
“For Borderline Personality Disorder.”
The room feels very still, the words hanging in the air between us. Surely, I’ve heard that wrong.
“What?”
Dr. Palmer’s voice remains calm, her eyes still soft and kind. “It doesn’t mean you definitely have it, but I think it’s worth exploring.”
I rush to my feet, heart hammering as I pace the room. “You're saying my personality's disordered?”
“That’s not what it means, Colt.”
“Then why call it that?” my voice cracks.
I think about my mother leaving. About the years of silence with Wade. About how Naomi broke things off. About how I’ve convinced myself that every person I've ever cared about had one foot out the door.
Too much, too sensitive, too damn broken for anybody to want to stick around.
My own words from last night come back to me, and for the first time, I hear them differently. Not as truth, but rather a fucked-up thought my brain has formed over the years.
“Colt—”
“No, just…” I run both hands down my face. “I don’t know… what to do.”
“You don't have to do anything with it today. You don't have to decide what this means. You don't have to figure your entire life out in the next ten minutes.”
My breathing starts to slow, and my pace follows.
“This assessment isn't a judgement, Colt. It doesn't change who you are. It simply gives us a map. A way to understand why you've experienced things the way you have.”
I throw myself back on the sofa as I listen to everything else Dr. Palmer has to say. The process, the wait times, and more reminders that this diagnosis, if I meet the criteria, does not define me as a person.
By the time I sit in the truck, everything around me feels weird and heavy. But underneath everything, there's a small trace of relief. Relief that I am potentially close to finding an answer to a question I’ve been asking my whole life. Why am I the way I am?
Borderline Personality Disorder. Not a disordered personality, just an understanding of how the inside of my brain works.
I rest my head back against the seat and close my eyes, Maeve's face last night immediately coming into my thoughts. The way she looked when I said what I said. Hurt. Confused. Like she didn't recognise me.
She was trying to do the right thing. And she has been nothing but honest with me from the start.
What scares me is that all these intense feelings won’t just fade in an instant, just because I know what a favourite person is.
But the least I can do is go make things right with Maeve, explain to her what I learnt today in hopes she understands.
Don't know whether she'll want to hear it.
But I know I can't let it sit the way I left it. I start the engine and head home.