My lack of worth of self-esteem allowed me to accept not even the bare minimum from lovers as long as they showed any interest in me, any sign of wanting me, I’d give them my energy made them the muse of my poetry put them on a pedestal where I worshiped them like a deity and made what I mistook for love my religion thought each one was the one because of my inability to find self-love it was the version of me who thought the world began and ended with the love of a man It was the version of me who didn’t know that alone I had always been whole, I had always been enough
My therapist said my diagnosis makes it hard to sustain relationships and I believe it wholeheartedly because my love data shows me many times anything involving love and lust crashes and burns because my romantic history is full of unhealthy and toxic patterns so now I avoid anything resembling feelings of intimacy I value my emotional stability too much to once again lose my sanity to another love that’s temporary
Pero, porque insistes en algo que nunca será y querer arruinar nuestra amistad estas perdiendo tu tiempo halagandome tratando de conquistarme porque siempre te considere un amigo, un hermano tratando de ser algo más sería una falta de respeto a la relación dulce y pura que tenemos
Cover me with a blanket of lies and tell me you love me tell me I’m the only one for you and false promises about you’ll never leave and how you’re not like the other guys Love me at your convenience, love me when I’m easy I’ll believe the fantasy and play my role of the perfect and polite princess until one day, I grow out of my role and explode and I’ll discover once again you’re like everyone else who can only stand me for a short while and accuse me of being a crazy bitch and leave
me menosprecias como si fuera nada, como si fuera una mujer ordinaria acaso no puedes ver mi magia? acaso no puedes ver que soy una diosa disfrazada con piel de humana? pero, no, tu me rechazas- pensando que soy una mujer ignorante, que soy una cualquiera ni siquiera digna de un beso- y no te puedo cambiar de parecer que pena, querido, a lo mejor pudiéramos haber sido el poema de amor más legendario y profundo en el mundo
consent is honesty and respect it doesn’t matter how many time I’ve kissed you It doesn’t matter how many times I’ve slept with you Always ask me if I’m okay with whatever you wanna do Instead of pressuring me, instead of harassing me with your supposed admiration for me with your stupid pet names for me I’m not dear, hottie, beautiful, girl or princess Call me by my god given name and maybe then I would take you seriously instead of ignoring you, pretending you’re a mosquito Impossible to get rid off
mis palabras te caeran como un balde de agua fría pero tengo que desahogarme-no puedo seguir tragándome tanto dolor y rencor quiero que te olvides de él, por favor- tu presencia causa conflicto y confusión tu presencia abre una herida del cual yo recién me estaba curando además los dos sabemos que no vienes para quedarte para siempre solo estas aquí para limpiar tu conciencia que no te deja dormir y te llena de remordimientos retrasados
Driving phobia filled me with shame and fear for 15 years and on a windy October day,I took my power back that day I learned not to listen to my inner critic rambling on about my incompetence, feeding into my anxiety and my constant insecurities that day I took the keys and drove and while it was absolutely terrifying it provided me with the understanding how I had the power all along to take the steering wheel of my life with a new determination and purpose to never again allow myself or others make me a passenger again it had been a role I had long ago outgrown that I had been afraid to let go of but that day I said “fuck it, it’s now or never” and I took a chance on myself and never felt more empowered
my doubts, my fears, my insecurities should pay rent for the immense space they take up in my mind they crowd me and make me question my worth on my low days they show up with intrusive thought saying I’m not good enough or I don’t deserve my wonderful life my doubts, my fears, my insecurities Constantly try to bring me down and sometimes even my affirmations aren’t enough
regresas para decirme que no puedes parar de pensar en mi que todavía me extrañas, que cometiste un error al rompernos y todo lo que alguna vez sentí por ti vuelve a la superficie y quiero cerrar los ojos y correr a tus brazos y empezar un nuevo cuento de amor contigo pero la razón interviene, y mi dignidad regresa al acordarme del infierno que viví cuando te fuiste y te digo “perdoname, pero no puedo cometer el mismo error denuevo” ,
On thursdays, I cry and cry because the loneliness gets to me because I want to belong to somebody, anybody because being an independent woman gets exhausting but then I remember I’m incompatible with love And by myself I’m enough and a relationship feels like handcuffs But then on Fridays, a sliver of hope walks into my DMs And a random man fills me up with compliments And I almost forget how love is a torment and I almost find hope again thanks to instagram
ni siquiera se tu apellido pero ya estas sacando la poeta que vive en mi ni siquiera se tu cumpleaños pero ya sueño contigo ni siquiera se donde vives pero tu ya ocupas un espacio en mi corazón
me in May of 2022 coming out of a major depressive episode
To the one who stay to love me Thank you, thank you, thank you I know I’m not always easy to deal with I know my brand of crazy doesn’t always bring out the best of me I know that my anger makes me a monster sometimes But you’ve stayed and dealt with it the best way you could Either calling me out when I’m dramatic or expressing your concern when I’m salty or impulsive The sense of community you’ve given me feels like my life’s remedy You’ve never asked me to change and really love and accept me
I think the news of Heather Armstrong hit me hard because well, looking on the surface, her life seems almost idyllic. This is a rich white woman who has all of the resources at her disposal to help her get to a much healthier state with her mental health and I’m like WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED? WHAT THE FUCK WENT WRONG? While I could speculate why or how this happened, I won’t. What I will say is that nobody could possibly understand why she made that decision or how much suffering she was in. This made me reflect on my own journey with recovering from mental illness.
I have battled depression and anxiety since I was a teenager except I wasn’t formally diagnosed with it until after I had my third child in 2012. It’s been a not so well kept secret in my family that I continuously tried to mask to seem well, normal to everyone else. For years, I’ve mostly kept my depressive episodes to myself because more often than not when I’ve disclosed I’m depressed, I’m met with the comments: “You need to get over it , we have no time for this” or “Think about your kids” or “But you have SO MUCH to live for”. I know the people making those comments thought they were being helpful but all it did was drive me further into a spiral of shame for having no control over my brain chemistry and being depressed. It adds fire to the fuel of my inner critic who tells me during this episode, “let’s add being a failure as a mom to your thoughts about being a worthless and terrible human being”.
The Elephant
The sun is shining Everything is green and bright And yet winter feels eternal In my heart and my mind I feel a profound darkness that Seems to seep and ooze everywhere Inside of me Is this what true loneliness feels like? Will I ever get rid of what feels like my forever depression? Or do I just learn to live with the elephant that lives on my chest? That I try desperately not to wake it up Writing, exercise, friends, tv- Everything to keep it calm But no matter what The elephant always seems To wake up
In a lot of my poetry, I’ve talked about the impossible pressure I’ve had to deal with in being a mother but I don’t think I talk enough about how this was modeled for me growing up. Growing up, I saw my mother as this larger than life woman who constantly worked hard and sacrificed for her family. She worked countless hours to provide for us. She was this superwoman who at one point had 3 jobs and still managed to keep a clean house and cook dinner. I remember her sleeping a couple hours after she got home from an overnight shift at her job and waking up to walk me to school in the morning. Throughout my childhood and adolescence, I never saw my mom breakdown or cry.
me and my mami is 1988 when she was busy being superwoman
The message I received and perceived was one that in order to be a good mother, you have to be this superwoman who balances everything perfectly all the time. Being a good mother also meant being strong and resilient and if needed it was necessary to suppress emotions to continue to function. When I became a mother at 17, I had these unrealistic expectations of motherhood that I wanted to attain. And we wonder why I ended up with a diagnosis of BPD-lol. Honestly, while I’ve healed a lot from my past, I feel like it’s still necessary to share it because this isn’t just my story. It’s the story of other mothers who are still ashamed about having a mental illness and more often than not, don’t seek help and mask, mask, mask until they explode.
me with my oldest when I was 18
I’ve often talked about how my children are one of my greatest motivators for continuing to move forward with my life, to try to continue with my self improvement; but what I have failed to talk about is how my children are a major source of guilt while I’m in a major depressive episode. If I had to be honest with myself and everyone else, when I’ve been in that really dark place with my depression, I’ve had thoughts about how maybe my kids would be better off without me, how my kids deserve a better mother than me.I’m coming from a very vulnerable place talking about this. I also want to add that I haven’t been in this dark place with these thoughts since 2021. It is a fucking scary place to be in and it’s something I would never wish upon my worst enemy. Thankfully, I have always been able to pull myself out of this headspace and seek help if I need to. However, once I start to get out of this head space, guilt over how selfish I was for not thinking about kids hits me and ooof I’m off to a shame spiral that almost loops back around to another depressive episode but nowadays I’m able to get a better handle on it. In January of this year, when I had another major depressive episode, my worst thought was, “I don’t think I’m doing enough to improve the lives of me and children ” which is irrational for many reasons. Anyways, I decided then and there that I needed to go back to therapy. It was hard to make that decision but in order to prevent my depression from getting worse; it was necessary. Some part of me felt like a failure because of how many healthy coping mechanisms I have now, how much emotional support I have from family and friends, and how much therapy I’ve had; I felt like I should be able to get this on my own. However, I’d rather be safe than sorry and get the extra guidance and help I need so I can get through this depressive episode before it gets worse. It hasn’t always been this way for me. For several years, I thought that the brave thing to do was to suffer in silence and try to get through my depression on my own. Journaling consistently since 2019 has helped me get through the worst of it but looking back on those journal entries, I’m filled with grief for the version of me who thought strength and being brave meant keeping it all in. I’m filled with grief at the version of me holding it together trying to balance it all and functioning at work when inside all I wanted to do was die or disappear. However, I hold compassion for that woman because she was doing what she knew best to survive. And sure at times that looked messy and unhealthy but at the end of day what matters is that I’m still here. Here’s a poem I wrote about my depression in 2020:
Darkness
The Darkness comes back with a fierce strength and takes over my mind I want to run I want to hide But most of all I want to die
The Darkness comes back like a hurricane and wrecks my body and mind and I don’t want to work and I don’t want to talk and I don’t want to breathe
The Darkness comes back and not even the promise of love keeps it away
Fortunately for me, I learned to work through my feelings of shame in getting the help I needed to get better. My mental health improved drastically after getting a BPD diagnosis and here’s the post about that:
I’m very fortunate that my meds, my therapy, and the strict routine and consistency I now have in my life has improved my mental health so much, my depressive episode and low moods are milder and my quality of life has gotten so much better. I know that even in 2023,there is still so much pressure on mothers to be superwomen, to be “brave” and fight their battles alone but it doesn’t have to be this way. I hope that any mother out there struggling with depression/mental illness who might happen upon my blog post understands that they don’t have to fight this battle alone. In this journey, it is important to understand that being brave can also be taking the first step to seeking out the help you need to get healthier. I’m lucky to have found my own village ( my support system, my therapists, my writing community) to improve the quality of my life; my hope is that other mothers find their own village as well to lead healthier and happier lives.
me and my youngest in May of this year-I’m way more present in and my other sons lives after getting the help I needed
I want to end this post with a poem I wrote in February of this year:
The Finish Line
I have yet to cross the finish line of my uprising, my marathon of healing- Sometimes I stumble and fall for a few days, a few weeks. a month when life gets overwhelming I dissociate and drive around aimlessly Forget about all the progress I made- but always get up and do the best I can Sometimes I mask well enough to fool the people in my life Sometimes, it’s not enough and they start asking what’s wrong but somehow I always manage to get back to a place where I move forward and evolve- listen to my therapist- healing isn’t linear-healing is messy and just because I stumble sometimes, it doesn’t mean I can’t cross the finish line
Below are some resources that helped me along my journey:
this was incredible helpful in explaining how unhealed trauma affected me
this book helped explain how ACE (adverse childhood experiences) are linked to different kinds of diseases
this memoir was the first that really gave me hope that I could recover from BPD
if you’re Latine/Latinx, I highly recommend this book, it validated a lot of experience as an immigrant woman and some of the racial trauma I experienced
DBT Therapy has been instrumental in my recovery
Back from the Borderline podcast episodes that have really helped me
One thing I want to add about the above resources I have shared is that I take notes from the books/podcast episodes . I jot down certain phrases, concepts, or quotes that resonate with me and/or I find helpful. I take notes on sticky notes and have a notebook where I taped them later in a notebook where I write about it as to why I related to it or why it was helpful. This method of mine works for me in finding understanding the book better or validating my experience. You don’t have to do this at all, of course. It’s just what I found helpful. Also, if you want more books or resources, feel free to contact me:
Lost between fantasy and reality I stay Reality feels boring and monotonous and to constantly dream is free I dream of traveling, of success of stability within and it’s nice to stay lost in the fantasy of what I want my life to be But I can’t and must return to my reality of always working, of always hustling because my dreams won’t come true unless I work to make them happen
Life on the BPD 