Palace of Pain

There is hardly any other illness that is romanticised in such a twisted way as borderline personality disorder. If you were to ask most people about this, the answer would probably be: ‘Aren’t they the people who cut their arms and cry all the time?’

Self-harm is probably a common symptom among people with borderline personality disorder. My own knowledge of the condition is also very limited. In the song ‘Palace of Pain’, I therefore did not set out to explore borderline personality disorder in general, but rather to describe a specific form of the condition and the consequences for those who have to live with someone affected by it.

With borderline personality disorder, it seems that these people need ‘extremes’ to feel alive. However, this can also manifest itself in the pain being inflicted not on themselves, but on other people. Feeling the power to control others and repeatedly creating extreme situations that one controls and manipulates oneself also seems to be a way of feeling alive.

This is a very unpleasant situation for other people, but an adult can pull out of this game. But what if you are a child? And what if the person with the disorder is a parent? Then the child faces several problems at once. Firstly, they cannot recognise the disorder; they do not know what they are dealing with and so the child cannot even put a name to the situation. Secondly, the child still wants to love their parent and to experience love themselves, but that person is incapable of doing so. Thirdly, the child must learn to analyse every facial expression, every gesture and every word quickly and effectively, because if a danger is recognised too late, it leads to disaster.

Their own home is no longer a safe place, but a ‘Palace of Pain’. A place where the focus is not on growing up carefree, but on survival. Children who grow up under these circumstances display alarming behavioural patterns. You can wake such a child in the middle of the night and ask them questions. They will give rehearsed answers, because even in their sleep they are prepared for an attack. The child responds to questions with counter-questions to buy time. This is behaviour that is rather rare in children.

It is a distressing situation. It is no coincidence that the synthwave sound is so emotional and melancholic. The listener is meant to be drawn into the child’s desperate world – torn between the desire to love their parent and the reality of despising them. But the sound is also meant to convey what survival feels like: cold, lonely and painful.