I wrote this poem in early 2006 about my husband. We have always had completely different love languages.
Emotions for you
sway from
Good to bad
Every day
And I wonder
Why “we” can’t ever be
Balanced
Instead of
the disorganized mess
that we are
I wrote this in 2006 when I was frustrated and fantasized about leaving my husband.
What if I don’t think?
About our precious link
And decide to go
Without letting you know
And let you wake up
Free of our never ending rut
What if I don’t feel your love
And am no longer good enough
And continue to fight for us
And leaving you becomes a must
What if I choose to be free
and leave you abruptly
and live my life without you
because I finally learned my value
I love you
but I hate you
I miss you
but you’re a jerk
I desire you
but your love is awful
I want you here with me
but you make me suffer
I want to kiss you
but you steal my calm
I keep you in my heart
but with you I lose my mind
6/30/2022
It’s been a year since I received my life changing diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder and so much in my life has changed because of it. I started therapy sometime around late June and I had to do a 3-hour mental health assessment in two separate sessions where my therapists asked me questions about past trauma and past patterns of behavior. It was a really, rough week emotionally for me because of that and other personal stuff going on in my life. I sat down across from my therapist as she explained how Borderline Personality Disorder diagnosis ended up on my concept map.
My reaction was one of numbness and shock. And then I made the mistake of going to the internet and looking it up and well BPD gets a bad rap for good reason. After reading all the bad things about BPD, I thought “I knew I had issues and was kind of messed up, but I didn’t expect to be this fucked up, this broken”. It doesn’t help that a couple of things that stand out on the internet about BPD are “BPD is the most painful mental disorder “Or “BPD people are manipulative” or “Some people with BPD are incapable of love”. It didn’t help that at the time I was diagnosed, I was also having a mental breakdown and my relationship at the time was on the rocks. When I told my friends and family about my diagnosis, most of them were supportive and encouraging but some were in denial and didn’t fully accept it. I was told “I couldn’t have BPD because I’m not so awful” or that “it’s not a big deal”.
A couple of weeks after my diagnosis, I was broken up with. While I don’t want to go into the details about the events that led up to the demise of that relationship; I will say that the last day I saw my ex, there were a couple of things he said to me that really impacted me and made me really look at my life. I won’t say what they were, but it was useful for the next part of my journey. The breakup validated my worst fears about myself, “I’m unlovable”, I’m hard to love”, “I’m always going to be too emotionally unstable to be in a relationship” “I don’t deserve love” “I always fuck up everything good in my life” “I’m too fucked up and broken to be loved” etc., etc. Y’all have read the poetry and stories about how I don’t handle breakups well-ever. So, I’m lying-in bed crying and thinking all these things and don’t want to get up. I was on vacation when this happened so I could’ve stayed in bed all day and it would have been fine. However, something told me to keep going and getting up. The rest of the month of July is a blur to me at this point. I did document through video and journaling what I did so I know what I did, however there are parts of that month I don’t remember living.
I know I kept up with my therapy appointments and worked every day and wrote. Something I had to do for therapy was keep a daily diary card monitoring my emotions and any situations that brought out strong emotions in me. The main emotions I felt the months of July, August, and September were anger, sadness, and despair so filling out my diary card was a task but also necessary for me to get better at coping with life.
Something my current therapist said in group therapy was how grief makes one take a stock of life and how you’re living it. After the breakup, while yes, I felt this immense grief over that situation, I also felt grief and anger over other traumatic events in my life I hadn’t healed from. It was like I had this closet full of unprocessed trauma that was about to burst open at any time and in July, the door busted wide open and out came well, almost everything I kept inside of me well hidden. Shame, guilt, anger, fury, despair, sadness over past trauma were feelings I became well acquainted with for those first three months. I felt stuck at times in this emotional fog but somehow kept going. I continually asked myself what the purpose of all my hard work was and at first it was so that I don’t ever “split” on my kids like I had on other people in my past. I also had to learn a new language with my BPD diagnosis. I know that sounds weird but with all the new vocabulary words thrown at me, it’s what it felt like. In June and July, I learned real quick what dissociation, masking, and splitting was because that’s basically what I did those months. I also learned the term hypersexuality which I’ve addressed in some of my posts and poetry in this blog. Reflecting on everything that I’ve learned I can understand how my behavior can seem scary and unsafe to some people. I’ve finally had a deep understanding of how much of my erratic and impulsive behavior has greatly impacted my life.
To be continued to part two…
Resources:
BPD Terminology:
https://shitborderlinesdo.freeforums.net/thread/37/important-bpd-terminology
Here is an episode from my favorite podcast “Back From the Borderline” about breakups that resonated with me: https://open.spotify.com/episode/19fVPtpfy8bsO2qEKQueWv?si=8NWz6oVVQ52coU1g-Bcwyg&utm_source=copy-link
It was April of 1996 and I had just broken up with my boyfriend of 3 months after he had grown distant from me. I was in a world of despair and teenage angst and longed to no longer exist. I was feeling this rush of intense sadness as I was walking home from school. I looked at the cars on the street and thought about how easy it would be to end my sadness if I got run over by one. As I was alone in my thoughts, I stopped paying attention as I crossed the street and wasn’t aware that a car was coming. It stopped within inches of hitting me and the driver honked at me and yelled at me. I continued to walk in shock of what had just happened. I didn’t know then but I would be walking into many more BPD episodes like this one.
Fast forward to the summer of 2021 and I’m 40, the mother of 3 kids, work 2 jobs, and have a complicated love life. I decide to go back to therapy due to some recent trauma and driving anxiety. I do a 3 hour assessment and when the feedback comes back, it’s there on my concept map: I have Borderline Personality Disorder. I expected the driving phobia but the new diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder was definitely unexpected.
What is Borderline Personality Disorder?
According to Mayo Clinic, “Borderline Personality Disorder or BPD is a mental health disorder that impacts the way you think and feel about yourself and others, causing problems functioning in everyday life. It includes self-image issues, difficulty managing emotions and behavior, and a pattern of unstable relationships.“
What are the signs and symptoms?
Causes for Borderline Personality Disorder:
Risk Factors include:
Learning about this disorder has been overwhelming and also life changing. Some of my friends didn’t think it was possible for me to have BPD because I’m too nice. I was also kind of in denial at first until I did the research and thought damn, my life finally makes sense to me. I’ve been coping with intense emotions since I could remember and have a pattern of risky and impulsive behavior and sometimes self sabotaging my own success and romantic relationships. One minute my mood can shift from happy and joyful to full on anger and sadness if I am triggered by feelings of rejection, abandonment, being criticized or judged. I also have a tendency to villainize people if I feel threatened by them. Also, when I feel like my life is “too normal” or “too boring”, I seek out an adrenaline rush and create chaos.
Throughout the years, I’ve leaned some healthy coping mechanisms like journaling, writing poetry or blogging, exercising, mediocre dancing and singing. I’ve also had some unhealthy mechanism like drinking, binge shopping, binge eating, having sex for only validation purposes. I’d like to think that I’ve gotten better with time because I’ve become more self aware of myself and my need to survive not only for my myself but also for my kids.
I’m hopeful that with this new diagnosis of BPD and therapy, I’ve have way better coping mechanisms to become a better version of myself. I’m hopeful that going on this new journey, I’ll not only be surviving but I’ll be thriving. I also hope that I heal the girl in the picture above who was a teenager trying to find love for within the arms of a any dude because she didn’t know how to love herself.
I wrote this poem in 2002 about my oldest son’s bio dad. I had a lot of angry emotions about how he abandoned him.
A license to create is what shouldn’t
Be given to those who don’t know how to
Appreciate their child’s laughter
Or comfort their high pitch cries
A license to create is what shouldn’t
Be given to those who don’t understand
What it takes to be an example to
Those that descend from them
A license to create is what shouldn’t
Be given to those who leave children
In the dust to follow their own desires
Without looking back on their offspring’s
sad little face that whimpers,
“Daddy, come back”
I wrote this about my husband in 2006 when I thought he was being distant.
You didn’t think that I wouldn’t notice
That you have stopped caring for me
That when I reach to touch you
There is no response
How could something that started so beautiful
And intense end up so bland and empty
We’re together
But worlds apart
You no longer share
Your worries, your dreams
Everything that we once were
Has been shredded to pieces
But both of us deny it
You won’t tell me what’s wrong
Our silences are starting to be dreadfully long
Why can’t you just tell me
The whats, whys, and whens
Of falling out of love with me
And get our breakup over with.
I wrote this poem in 2004 when I was depressed because I felt my husband pulling away from me.
I think sometimes
It is better to die
Than to live this big lie
We like to call life
I think sometimes
It is better to escape
Then face
Such an unfair fate
I think sometimes
It is better to have the earth eat you up
Than to have to hurt so much
Over treacherous love
I wrote this poem in 2004 when I was pregnant with my second child and mad at my boyfriend (future husband) for his lack of affection and attention to me. I was obviously very upset when I wrote this poem and instead of talking to him I wrote and bottled up my anger.
You refuse to see
All the hurt you’re causing me
With your indifferent ways
It’s a miracle you haven’t yet gone astray
You refuse to see
Our son is paying the fee
He may still be in my belly
But the tears you cause me
Also affect him
You refuse to see
That one day soon you’ll lose me
If you don’t stop
Being so fucking cold.
I wrote this poem in 2004 about my husband, then boyfriend. I guess I was mad about his lack of affection. As you can see, this is a pattern for me. I bottle my emotions up until one day I explode.
If you don’t want any of this
You should just leave
I can’t take anymore
Of your uncaring words
I don’t want to keep you from
Having your fun
So just go away
You only hurt me if you stay
Go back to the way you used to be
Alone, happy, and free
And take your precious independence
You prefer it to our relationship nonsense
So stop acting like you care
To us, it wouldn’t be fair
Adieu, adios, and goodbye
To our enormous love lie
I wrote this in 2004 about my husband who I thought was being distant at the time. As you can guess, I don’t deal with rejection well at all and this is one example of many of how my mind deals with it.
Your frigid ways turn me into nothing
I don’t ask for much
but to you I ask for the world
I try so hard to make something
Out of the nothing
That has become us…
But all of it is meaningless to you
So I wrote this poem in January of 2004 when I was dating my husband and maybe I was foreshadowing my future with him (sort of-haha). I think that maybe I was paranoid he had someone else at the time because he was such a private person. Reflecting on this now is kind of strange because I was the one that ended up with the indiscretions. I was 22 when I wrote this and I have I think that this is a good example of “splitting” meaning that I went to black and white thinking about him.
FALSE FAIRY TALE
Everyone believes that you and I
are the real deal
That we are perfect
and don’t have issues
Little do they know
that you treat me with no worth
That to you
I am not your only girl
That I close my eyes and ears
and deny to myself the fact
That your indiscretions are real
that you just used me as a tool
To have everyone fooled
That you have the perfect wife
And you are the perfect husband
but I am too tired of this
False fairy tale
I have to get out of this lie
Before I lose what’s important
for the sake of your arrogance
So tonight I leave our once “happy” home
so I won’t lose
All that’s left of me
I wrote this in January of 2003 about John. Maybe he tried to come back to be an FWB and I got mad and that’s what inspired this poem.
Why do you continue to be
such an asshole to me?
With your pathetic games
you make yourself look lame
You expect me to sit around and wait for you
whenever it’s fucking convenient for you
but I guess this is my fault
for letting us almost fuck
So now I have to tell you something
I will no longer be your fucking fling
So start to forget
that we ever met
Go on your merry away
and stay away
for i am lot more
than an on call whore
I wrote this in January of 2003 about John. I’m telling y’all when I get obsessed with someone I’m like the mild version of Joe Goldberg.
You had no clue
How I felt about you
Because you were too hard headed
to put us through the relationship test
because you wanted to be free
Instead of wasting your time on me
It’s really sad
But I’ll have the last laugh
Because one day you’ll realized
I could’ve been your ultimate prize
But now it’s too late
for you have offended your fate
I wrote this 20 years ago on November 1st right before the great breakup of 2001. I wish I could say that I get over breakups quicker now but that would be a lie. After fights or breakups with partners, I seem to always go back to the girl I was in my teens and 20s. My brain is wired that way and I’ve accepted it. It’s something called age regression that shows up in people with Borderline Personality Disorder. Fear of abandonment is so severe that some of us will feel like we are literally dying after a breakup. Some of us will stop eating, some of us will sleep for days, some of will self harm or have suicidal ideation. With each breakup, I’ve noticed I’ve acquired healthier coping mechanisms. Nowadays, I’ve learned to listen more to what I need in order to heal than what doing what I used to do to escape the pain of heartbreak. My method now is cut off all contact with the ex, exercise, write a LOT and do loads of self care. I’m careful not to fall into any quick escapes from my feelings like going on tinder and trying to find someone new. Do I think I will ever get better at accepting a breakup like a normal person? I don’t know but I hope so. While I’m thankful for all of the inspiration and growth that comes from every breakup ;it’s also very overwhelming, exhausting and draining at times.
You showed up unexpectedly in my life
Like a pleasant surprise
Calling and seeing me every day
Making me dinner
and leaving me roses on my dashboard
I thought “finally, the one has come”
Suddenly all of those nice things
started becoming scarce
The dinners, the roses, seeing me
became non-existent
Even talking to you on the phone
has become too much of a bother of you
I’m no fool, I know exactly
where this doomed thing is headed
Pretty soon you’ll give me some lame excuse
As to why “we” can no longer be
And my heart will shatter
into pieces yet again
There will be nothing left to say
I’ll just realize once again
You’re just like every other fool
Life on the BPD 