CHAPTER 1 - ME, MY SHADOW AND THE VOID
BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER
This is my hand—or at least, it starts there. What you’re looking at isn’t really a portrait. It’s a kind of map of internal noise. My attempt to visually translate what it feels like to live with Borderline Personality Disorder, from the inside out.
The title borrows from the film Me, Myself & Irene—a comedy, yes, but strangely relevant when seen through a Jungian lens. It touches on identity, The Shadow, and the contradictions of being split in two. For me, the title breaks down like this:
Me is the version I show the world. Polished. Adaptable. Morally upright. Whatever you need, I’ll become it. It strives for perfection and lives for order and form.
My Shadow is everything I hide—sometimes even from myself. The anger, the impulsiveness, the rawness that resists control. It abhors conformity and thrives on chaos.
The Void isn’t just emptiness—it’s deeper. A quiet internal space where ideas form before they find words. It’s where this image was born—literally. The artwork sits inside a black square, a blank canvas representing the Void itself.
You’ll see that echoed in the SMOKINCAT speech bubbles scattered across the piece. Sometimes they’re filled with noise—exclamations, symbols, chaos. But here, many are silent—empty gateways to the Void. They haven’t yet asked a question or sparked a conversation. Like mini black canvases, they’re waiting—just like the larger one this whole image grew out of.
And grow it did.
The SMOKINCAT creatures across the fingers—jagged, wide-mouthed, intense—are different versions of me. Not literal, but emotional. Some shout. Some freeze. Some distort. And some days, it really does feel like they’re all trying to speak at once. That’s the fragmentation I live with.
Each finger becomes a loop—repeating forms, never quite the same. That’s how my moods work: repetitive, overlapping, volatile. And the tiny spaceship-like shapes? They started as alien craft. But now I can’t unsee them as padlocks—maybe a symbol of the tension between wanting to contain myself and needing to break free. That back-and-forth is constant: self-imposed structure clashing with emotional chaos. The paradox of living in both light and dark.
The upside-down crowns at the fingertips? Those speak to identity—or more precisely, failed identities. Every time I think I’ve found something solid—something that feels like “me”—it flips. Doesn’t fit. Slides off.
This image isn’t a diagnosis. It’s not here to fix or define anything. It’s what happens when I stop trying to tidy things up. When I let the energies overlap. When I accept that The Void—the black space—isn’t a threat, but a beginning. A place for questions. A space where stories start.
Me, My Shadow and The Void is me speaking to myself—without filters, without masks. Letting what’s usually hidden find its own shape, to explain why the surface feels so complex.
Through the looking glass I go.
MARC CRAIG