I suffer from a personality disorder known as “Borderline Personality Disorder“. This disorder, in a basic sense, polarizes and intensifies my emotions; so when I feel embarrassed it feels like complete humiliation, whether real or imagined, anger turns into incredible rage. The emotions are also either good or bad. There’s never an in between. So when Frank Ocean decided to delay his album release…again, my disorder couldn’t help but rear it’s ugly head.
I first discovered Frank Ocean in high school. I heard a few of his songs and I became a fan. Then in 2012, when I was 16, channel ORANGE came out. It was the album that made my summer that year. The melodies and lyrics were calming and provided amazing insight into the mind of Ocean. So you can imagine my extreme frustration when, at the age of 20, there’s still no second album despite many announcements of one. My BPD took hold at this point, “You lied to me! I thought you were different but you’re just like all the others!” I didn’t even know who the others were, I was just so intensely angry that I needed to compare it to something.
Then something happened; something that set this delay apart from the others. On his website there’s an extremely bizzare live stream of something going on in a workshop. I don’t know what this is alluding to, but it’s making me increasingly impatient. When thinking about it, the constantly delayed release of his album, and the public outcry of this delay, is a perfect allusion to how people with BPD perceive abandonment. When someone does even the slightest thing, like cancelling plans or going to do something with someone else, a person with BPD can feel intense feelings of emptiness and pain. The person may be hanging out with a mutual friend or even just delaying your meeting by a day or two, but that feeling of betrayal still permeates. This makes the person on the other end of this emotional tirade afraid to do anything wrong, or worse cease all interaction with the person with BPD, confirming the sense of abandonment that initially was never really there.
The same could be said about Frank Ocean. His reasons for delay could completely valid and understandable reasons, but because he gave us so much before we expect to get more a second time, and any deviation from that is considered betrayal and our trust for him is lost. But, like with BPD, it may hurt him as much as it hurts us. He wants to be there but can’t and every time he can’t all hell is let loose upon him. Eventually he may just quit music because he feels as if he’s never going to satisfy the crowd, and, in the end, confirm our imaginary sense of abandonment. I may be reading to deeply into it, but the parallels seem too similar to not compare. Lets just hope that if he is finally releasing the album, all the impatience and irritation would have all been worth while.
*Side note: If you know anyone with Borderline Personality Disorder, please take the time to understand the disorder and the effects of it.
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