the nostalgia of Lima sets in and I ache for the sights, sounds, and warmth of my homeland- even though it’s been a few days I want to go back already I don’t feel myself fully in American my body’s here but my spirit was left in lima maybe because the few memories I have of Lima are happy and mostly pure from trauma whereas in America it’s been tragedy after tragedy disappointment after disappointment and while I’ve planted my roots here with my children my spirit now resides somewhere in Lima
One day the memory of you will fade away and my heart will be grateful for that- because I can’t move on to a new love story until I stop dreaming of you until I stop writing about you It wouldn’t be fair to me or to him to attempt to write a new love story when remnants of the old one still show up in my poetry
let’s forget our past love stories and focus on the one we’re living the one we’re still writing let’s agree that anyone before you, anyone before me were just practice for the honest and magical love we’re experiencing let’s focus on our present and start planning our future that’s waiting to be lived that’s waiting to be written
My son holds the universe in his eyes with his potential, with his sense of wonder his eyes are not yet jaded by the inhumanity of this world and I dread when the day comes as his innocence starts to fade
running in the sun warms my body, warms my thoughts it invokes my need to worship it like my ancestors before the colonizers declared it wrong and pagan but they couldn’t erase my blood and my DNA and my deep connection to the Sun, my ancestral GOD Always bringing me to the surface of gratitude and love
I used to lie about my sins when I went to confession- to have something, anything to confess to arouse interest in the priest to not feel the burden of goodness on me- and the priest gave me prayers and rosaries to atone for my made up sins
As far as what my future holds for me, I’ve been doing a lot of long term goal planning and manifestations the past few years and that’s been working for me. Here’s a recent blog post I wrote about it:
The past 2 years was me trying to find out who I was and what I wanted out of life. I had this very vague idea, almost like a sketch but now I have a clear picture of what that is exactly. Getting out of survival mode was crucial for this development and I’m excited about the future. One thing I can tell you is that there will definitely be more storytelling. In fact, for the month of September, I’m telling my story chronologically with some of the moments in my life that most impacted me. This came about organically as I was planning blog content for that month and I said, “fuck it, let’s do this” and “let’s see what happens”. I think that so much of my healing happened because of my storytelling. It was important for me to retell my story because that’s how I took ownership of it. It helped turn me from a victim to heroine in my story and this has been monumental to my healing process. Of course, sometimes that looks crazy and messy but it only proves what a resilient and powerful Queen I am to still be standing despite the chaos and trauma I’ve been through. Here’s a poem I wrote in April about it:
Sharing my story
I’ve taken off my mask and stop repressing my true self- And while it’s terrifying at time, I show the world my authenticity and vulnerability I share the parts of my story that are terrible, happy, sad, lovely, crazy, beautiful, and tragic so others don’t feel alone and find solidarity in my chaotic and bicultural story of love, rage, defeat, hate, and resilience And bring to light my rich and vivid experience of the duality of being a rooted and rootless, Peruvian and American, a hateful and kind woman living her life fearlessly and shamelessly
I restarted this blog a couple of summers ago as a way to cope with my mental breakdown and at the time I had only 17 followers and now I have more than 300 followers who have been incredibly supportive and encouraging throughout this self discovery journey. Thank you to all of you who have given me this safe space on the internet to share my story through blogging and poetry. This has been incredibly instrumental in helping me in my recovery from BPD . It’s given me a sense of love through community that I didn’t know could exist and I’m incredibly grateful and humbled by it. Anyways,if you’ve made it to the end of this blog post, you’re the best. I’m not sure what year 3 after my BPD diagnosis but I hope I continue to evolve and live a life with purpose for the betterment of myself and my kids.
It’s Bichota Season and like Karol G says, “La Vida es Mia”-it’s me and my meds against the world
It’s been 2 years since my BPD diagnosis and some things have changed, some things have remained the same. I still have the same two jobs and still adhere to my strict routine of consistency and routine with exercise, writing, and therapy. I’m still on the same meds for my anxiety and depression. All of that has helped with my continued progress and growth. And I still continue to suffer from major depressive episodes but it’s not as bad as it used to be and here’s a blog I wrote about it recently:
What has changed overall has been me. I remember last year writing about how I was living an authentic life and while that was mostly true, there was still something I had to take care of to make this true, my divorce and telling my youngest son about it. I went back to therapy to navigate these big feelings in actually starting the process and following through and telling my youngest son about it. I’m glad to report, I filed for divorce a couple of months ago and told my son who took it better than I expected. After this, I felt like this major burden of guilt and grief has been lifted off from me. It was hard, really hard to have lied about this part of my life for the past four years to my son and to other family members. Three of those years, I felt like I was leading a double life as I had to be careful not to let one part of my life bleed into the other. It was awful and reflecting back on this, I think this was a major trigger for my mental health breakdown in the summer of 2021. Feeling guilt and shame with the immensity of emotions that comes with BPD is horrible and something I would never wish on my worst enemy.
me and my youngest son on his birthday
Another major thing that happened in year 2 is that I took two trips to my homeland, Peru. The first one was in September of 2022 and the second one was in March of this year. Both times I went, it was amazing and the first trip helped me reconnect with my roots and find a sense of identity I had been searching for all of this time. I hadn’t been back since I was 9 so it had been 32 years since I had been home. It was strange, glorious, amazing and overwhelming at the same time. It felt like I finally found a piece within me that had been missing all of this time.
Finally home after 32 years -September of 2022
The second trip was even better because I took my oldest son who hadn’t been on a plane since he was an infant and we got to visit my dad’s hometown of Oxapampa. I think I’m still processing that trip because it was so special and meaningful to take my son to Peru and show him his and my roots. I’m honestly still processing both trips and I’ll write about both of them later. What I can say is that both trips helped in my healing and recovery process from my BPD symptoms. Before, I was still floundering when it came to trying to establish a stable identity. That changed radically after I came back from my first trip.
me and my oldest son in Oxapampa, Peru in April of this year-the beer in Oxapampa is the BEST EVER-anything else is MID
From February to July, I’ve continued to maintain the healthy coping skills I’ve acquired in therapy and have made even more progress. I started group DBT therapy in April and that’s also helped me tremendously. Listening to members in that group talk about their issues has made me gain a lot of perspective. I’ve also had a few obstacles along the way of course. In May, I upped my dosage on one of my meds that ended up with me having a major depressive episode, here’s a blog post about that:
A year later, I can honestly say that I’ve been successful in managing my emotions in a much better and healthier way. My growth has been phenomenal in many areas of my life due to my hard work. I’ve had incredible support from my therapists, medical providers, friends, followers, and family who’ve helped facilitate my growth by encouraging me and giving me the space I needed to be who I needed to be at different parts of this process. Sometimes that was a complete emotional mess, sometimes that was an angry and salty poet, sometimes that was a cringy mom or a moody coworker. Restarting this blog and creating content for it has been instrumental in my healing process and has been a great outlet for the inspiration and creativity I’ve had during this time. Another beneficial thing I’ve done is simplified my life by letting go of anything that doesn’t serve me. I keep my life simple with work, kids, friends, family, and writing and this is the right combination for me to maintain my emotional stability. I’ve learned to prioritize my mental health above everything else because the consequences for me and everyone are too great for me not to do so. I understand now that the “old me” before her diagnosis was trying to have “everything” and well, that extended my emotional bandwidth to the point it was detrimental to my mental health to the point that I constantly lived in a flux of emotional dysregulation. I don’t blame anybody or even myself; I did not have the knowledge or awareness at the time to do any better.
I’m not completely where I want to be because I have two areas that I still have problems with: -sticking to my boundaries especially when I feel pressure from others to bend to their will and desires -my cognitive distortions which include black and white thinking and thinking in absolutes I’ve lived with these cognitive distortions since I can remember, and it’s been really hard to break these unhealthy thinking patterns but I’m working on it.
There is a lot more to say about this journey, but I’ll save that for later throughout this year. To conclude, here are a few thoughts: To have an immense amount of progress and growth this year; I had to learn to be brutally honest with myself about things I had been lying to myself about for too long. I had a tendency to blame others when I felt terrible about my life. This year, I changed that pattern and I had to learn to hold a mirror to myself and take accountability for any harm I’ve done to myself and others and that was extremely difficult to do. It also meant facing some of my biggest fears and insecurities and that was fucking hard. Sometimes it was so much work, I wanted to give up but I didn’t. And now I’m here, at a place where I’m truly happy and content with myself and my life. And to not have major depressive episodes every other week where I’m stuck in this rut of misery feels like a type of freedom I can’t describe. To manage hard emotions like anger and sadness without it affecting my whole week or my whole day is something I always felt was impossible until now. And while I am thankful for everyone that’s been helpful in my journey, I feel the most gratitude to myself and my determination and resilience. I had always known myself but just this year I’ve finally started to understand myself and finally felt a sense of freedom to be who I really am without a need to filter out the crazy or hard parts that make me the complicated and resilient human that I am. A year later, I no longer allow life to happen to me and feel powerless and have an immense need for validation from others. Now I’m a person who lives a life with intention and purpose for my own betterment.
Video taken 5/15/22, 5/22/22, 7/3/22- To get a place of emotional stability and permanence has been worth all of the tears, notebooks and journals full of self reflection, poems, essays, etc, miles walked or run, and countless hours of therapy. Let’s see where I am in another year! Excited about my future! My new concept map 😍🥰
I let go of control over what I can’t change and allow the source to do what’s best for me because faith has always shone a light in me because I’ve never felt alone because of her she has the power to transform, she provides the hope for me to go on as I walk towards self worth, confidence and empowerment in my heroine’s journey
I’d rather be berated and hated than ignored and treated with indifference call me a lunatic, call me a bitch call me the worst mistake of your life JUST CALL ME ANYTHING! Then I’ll know I won because I’ve imprinted on your memory
nothing ever happens to my exes after they leave- they don’t blink, they don’t flinch, they don’t need therapy and I’m so incredibly jealous of that! They’re carefree and without any feelings- Absconding without blame or any responsibility While I’m left in a spiral of shame and regret and many times losing my sanity How many more mental breakdowns will I have before accepting= love is always a dangerous game for me- no matter how casual and detached I try to be my nature will always be to give, give, give Until I lose parts of my identity Maybe this is how I keep attracting narcissists?
Life on the BPD 