What If This Diagnosis Were To Be Creatively (Generously, even Affectionately) Re-written?

The essay 'Choosing The Margin as a Space of Radical Openness' (1989) by bell hooks has been flitting round my mind for a while.

In this essay hooks writes:

'I am located in the margin. I make a definite distinction between that marginality which is imposed by oppressive structures and that marginality one chooses as a site of resistance - as location of radical openness and possibility.'

I wanted to leave you with a few questions which you may (or may not!) want to explore. I'll be right here exploring them alongside you too.

• Do you ever feel 'in the margin'? Do you always feel there or do you move in and out?

• Are there spaces which make you feel more, or less, 'in the margin' than others?

• Are others in the margin with you, or are you alone there? If others are in there with you, do you feel close to them or not?

• If you feel you are 'in the margin', do you feel this as marginality 'imposed by oppressive structures' or do you feel this as a 'site of resistance ' or a 'location of radical openness and possibility'.

• Does your diagnosis of BPD ever feel like a source of 'possibility' for you? Does it ever open you up to (positive) experiences that you otherwise may not have been open to? This question is not an attempt to trivialise or silence the pain and agony associated with this diagnosis.

• If you haven't ever experienced being 'in the margins' as a 'location of radical openness', would you like to? What might it look like? What might you do or say? Is there anyone you would want by your side?

I'm exploring the possibilities of what this diagnosis could look like for me if it were to be creatively rewritten as a construct which looked at me generously, favourably or even affectionately, rather gazing at me as an subject of wild excess that must be tamed. I think of this as an exercise in hope.

-Rosie x

Reference:

bell hooks, 'CHOOSING THE MARGIN AS A SPACE OF RADICAL OPENNESS', The Journal of Cinema and Media, No. 36 (1989), pp. 15-23, Drake Stutesman; Wayne State University Press.