I used to live in a world full of regret, sorrow, and resentment
until I no longer wanted to live in misery
so I let go of everything and everyone that didn’t serve me
and held onto everything and everyone who helped me grow
and now I’ve blossomed with love, with purpose and for once
I’m full of happiness, calm, and serenity
And I finally feel free to love my life,
to love who I’ve become
I wrote this in July of 2022.
Morning rain makes me want to lay longer in bed
and listen to music and cry
cry about everything that could have been
but instead I get up and start my day
even try to get excited about it
because if I give in to my depression
for even one day
my inner critic wins
I wrote this poem in June of 2022.
Feeling the fatigue of life makes me want lay down
in an endless sleep-
Some people call it suicidal ideation
I call it relief from grief-
But that’s when I use all of my coping skills
write sad poetry, or write a gratitude list
or just allow myself to feel everything
I’m trying to escape from
and constantly remind myself feelings like this
are always temporary
and tomorrow could bring new and exciting things to see
I wrote this play for my creative writing class in college in 2006.
Characters
LACIE-Female/Age 28
JASON-boy/age 8
DAD(DALE)-Age 56
MOM(MARY)-Age 45
Setting
This takes place in a nice and clean kitchen and there is a refrigerator with pictures and Jason’s drawings and also a table.
LACIE enters following MARY into the kitchen door and sits down. LACIE puts her coat on the chair. LACIE is coming home from prison. LACIE walks with a slight limp and sits down.
LACIE: Damn, Mom, the kitchen looks a helluva lot different compared to the last time I was here.
MARY: Well, I guess I forgot to mention to you. We renovated the kitchen last summer.
LACIE: Well, I gotta tell ya , you really outdid yourself.
MARY: Yeah, well with your dad’s new job, we’ve been able to do a lot of things around here we always wanted to do but never had the money to—
LACIE: Wait, Dad got a new job? God, he’s been at Phillips Assembly for years, I thought he would stay there forever.
MARY: Well, ya know we thought it was time for him to move on to something else…something where he could better our situation.
LACIE: Still, Dad and change, you know damn well those are just two things that don’t go together.(Looks at fingernails and bites them.) So, where is he working?
MARY: Dacute Enterprises. He’s an overseer for their assembly line.
(LACIE bursts out laughing.)
MARY: Hey, what’s so funny?
LACIE: Who in their right mind would give a drunk a supervisory position?
(MARY frowns.)
MARY: Well, maybe things have changed more than ya think.
LACIE: Whadda ya mean?
MARY: You’ll see. So, how does it feel to finally be back home?
LACIE: Pretty good. But damn, I didn’t imagine that so much shit would change ‘round here.
MARY: Hey, watch your language around here!
LACIE: It didn’t bother ya before.
MARY: Well, we don’t talk that way no more.
(LACIE gives MARY a dismissive look.)
MARY: Ya know, for Jason’s sake.
LACIE: Okay, then.
MARY: So, ya hungry?
LACIE: Yeah.
MARY: Whadda ya feel like eating?
(MARY goes to the refrigerator and looks for something to cook.)
LACIE: Anything really.
MARY: Okay.
(MARY pulls out something to cooks fridge. LACIE looks at JASON’S artwork on
the side of the fridge.)
LACIE: So, these are Jason’s drawings?
(MARY closes fridge and looks proudly at artwork.)
MARY: Yeah, creative ain’t he?
LACIE: Yeah, I see that. I can’t wait ‘til he gets home. Me and him have lotsof catching up to do.
MARY: Don’t get so excited , we really do need to talk about—
LACIE: Later, I don’t feel up to listening to one of your talks…had to listen to enough of them when you use to visit me.
(MARY lets out a big sigh.)
MARY: Okay.
LACIE: So, when’s he coming home?
MARY: Well your dad shoulda picked him up from voice lessons ten minutes ago so they should be home maybe in 30 minutes.
LACIE: Voice lessons? What the….I mean, when did this happen?
MARY: Six months ago,the reverend at church heard him singing one day and thought he was pretty good and so he suggested voice lessons to fine tune his instrument, whateva that means. Your dad didn’t wanna let him at first, but Jason, as always, found a way to convince him.
LACIE: Church huh? Since, when did y’all start going to church?
MARY: Well…
LACIE: Ya know something; I need a beer about now.
(LACIE gets up and looks in the fridge for a beer.)
LACIE: Where does dad keep the beer nowadays? I can’t find it.
MARY: Your dad doesn’t drink anymore.
(LACIE slams the refrigerator door and sits down.)
LACIE: What do you mean dad don’t drink no more? You gotta be joking right?
MARY: Now why would I joke about something like that?
LACIE: He don’t drink no more? At all?
MARY: Nope. It was one of the conditions the social worker gave us that your dad had to agree to so the state would let us have custody of Jason. I wanted him to tell you himself, but—
LACIE: What the hell! I mean I know I’ve been gone for a while, but sheesh I expected at least a few things to stay the same.
MARY: I thought you’d be happy your dad stopped drinking. I know it’s something you used to always whine about.
LACIE: I know I did, it’s just that…
MARY: What is it?
LACIE: Never mind. Well, at least I can count on one thing and that’s finally getting to know my kid. I can’t wait to see him. I wonder if he’ll still remember me—
MARY: We need to talk.
LACIE: I told you, I don’t feel like—
MARY: You just don’t know. There are some things that we’ve had to tell—
(DALE enters with JASON running. Jason notices Lacie and hides behind Mary’s chair.)
MARY: I wasn’t expecting y’all so soon. (Gives DALE an accusatory look.)A call sure
would’ve been nice.
DALE: Well, I didn’t expect J’s lesson to let out so early and since I was—
JASON: Who’s that?
(Lacie approaches Jason slowly.)
LACIE: You should know who I am, now come over here and give your –
(Dale immediately gets in between Lacie and Jason and pulls Jason to him, faces him.)
MARY: Sister a big hug. Don’t ya remember we talked last week about a sister that might be coming to live with us?
JASON: Oh! Now, I remember! The one living in…in (Jason starts scratching his head)
DALE: Europe for the past six years.
JASON: That’s right…Hey, I’m Jason
(Extends hand to LACIE, LACIE grabs him and hugs him, JASON is real uncomfortable. LACIE won’t let go of JASON, MARY goes and rescues JASON from LACIE’S grasp and pulls him towards her. LACIE’S eyes tear up.)
MARY: Jason, honey, why don’t you go wash up and go to your room for a little while your dad and I catch up with your sister.
JASON: Okay, Mommy.
(JASON leaves, but looks back in kind of a weird way at LACIE.)
(LACIE stands there for a minute and then walks towards where JASON went, MARY stops her by grabbing her by the shoulders. They’re facing each other.)
MARY: Don’t!
LACIE: Sister? Europe? What kinda lies have you been telling MY son?
DALE: Keep your voice down, the boy will hear you.
(MARY motions for LACIE to sit down but LACIE won’t.)
MARY: Sit down, please, your dad and I need to explain a few things to you.
LACIE: Explain what? That you have basically stolen my son from me… YOU promised me he would know who I was once I got out. No fucking wonder you wouldn’t bring him to come visit me. I ain’t gonna listen to this shit.
(LACIE heads towards the door to get JASON but DALE stands in front of the door.)
LACIE: Get outta my way, you—
DALE: Sit down and shut up and LISTEN to what me and your ma have to say if you care about Jason at all.
LACIE: Shit! That’s funny coming from you considering all my life the only thing you ever cared about was your fucking Rolling Rock. I wouldn’t be in this fucking mess if you hadn’t been such a sorry-
(DALE slaps LACIE across the cheek, MARY pulls them apart, all three of them just stand there for a moment.)
LACIE: I don’t need this shit! I’m getting my son and leaving this hellhole!
MARY: Please, Lacie, don’t be so damn stubborn and hear us out—
LACIE: Why the hell should I?
(LACIE walks towards the door again.)
MARY: If you’re not a completely selfish bitch, you will-
(LACIE stops and faces MARY.)
LACIE: Selfish, like you should be one to fucking talk calling ME selfish when you’re the one who wouldn’t stop HIM(pointing to DALE) from beating the shit out of me when he—
MARY: Just calm down and let me explain some things to you
LACIE: I guess I’ll have to just so you leave me alone. (Crosses her arms with a scowl)
(MARY sits down.)
MARY: Okay, okay. When you had your little incident-
LACIE: Damn, you make it sound like I tripped and fell or something.
DALE: What your ma means is that when you were arrested, we found out all of a sudden you had a son.
MARY: Yeah, you don’t think it took us by surprise? You were gone for two years and we looked everywhere for you—
LACIE: And so because you’re pissed off at me, you decided to get back at me by telling MY son that you are his parents.
MARY: When are you going to learn the whole world doesn’t revolve around you? What we did was out of love for our grandson. Now just listen…as I was saying we looked for you everywhere.
DALE: And then the cops come up to the house one day and tell us you have killed your husband and if we could take our grandson in.
MARY: A grandson that needed so much out of us and we had no choice and saw ourselves raising your son.
DALE: We started to see things in a new way, ya know.
MARY: All we wanted for him was to grow up with a normal family… so yeah
for his well being…we told him we were his parents, and you were his sister.
LACIE: I can’t believe you did this!
DALE: What did you expect us to do? Tell him that his real mom was in jail for killing his father.
LACIE: Oh and you think I killed him for fun or something, I had to kill that asshole to save both me and Jason…you don’t fucking understand…that sick bastard had already broken my leg and when I found him trying to mess with Jason…I knew I had to do something to save him from that monster and I didn’t care if I went to jail for it.
DALE: What’s done is done, there’s no turning back. You can either stay here and live under these conditions or you can leave.
LACIE: I can’t fucking believe this, Mom, I expected you out of all people to understand. Don’t you understand? Everything I did, I did it for him!
MARY: I do understand but …you should understand, we were left with no other choice other than to do the right thing for him.
LACIE: And that’s all you have to say!
DALE: Like I said before, you can either live with this or you can go.
LACIE: I guess I’ll just have to—
(A basketball bounces into the kitchen and JASON enters the room skipping looking for his ball.)
JASON: Just came to get my ball…
(Picks up basketball and holds it.)
MARY: What did I tell you about playing ball in the house?
JASON: I’m sorry …won’t do it again…sheesh.
LACIE: Hi…
JASON: You okay?
LACIE: Yeah, I’m fine…I’m just a little sad.
JASON: Why
LACIE: I have to make a choice about something important.
JASON: Why?
LACIE: Because I just have to.
JASON: Um…okay. (gets his ball) I got an idea… maybe if you play some b-ball with me…you might feel better.
LACIE: That’s actually not a bad idea.
Both Lacie and Jason go out together.
I wrote this poem in June of 2022.
Could you spare me some validation and affection,
so I can feel like a real person?
I thrive on the love and attention of lovers
I don’t know how to feel whole or enough by myself
And admitting it is so embarrassing
But wait, don’t go…
Fuck it! I’m done with this life of dishonesty
here comes my brutal truth-sorry if it bothers you
but I’m done reigning it in for the comfort of others
I’m clingy and melodramatic with emotional warts and all
and even though my truth scares off everybody
At least now I’m free to embrace and love the real me
I didn’t know what kind of post I was going to write for Mental Health/ BPD awareness month but then I saw the news about the death of blogger Heather Armstrong appear on my newsfeed. Here’s an article about her passing: https://apnews.com/article/dooce-heather-armstrong-dead-83c8f4812bda1766301793ea3afb02cb
I want to preface this by saying that I haven’t had a suicidal ideation episode since May of 2022 and here’s the blog post about that:
Borderline Awareness Month: I Could be 1 in 10
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.
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.
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:
A New Diagnosis: BPD
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.
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:
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:
Contact Info
I also want to add other helpful resources:
Below is a link to find a therapist and other mental health professionals-
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists
Here’s the English Version of this poem:
Poetry: Three Years Too Late
ahora recién reconoces tu error y me pides disculpas
ahora recién decides enfrentar el dolor que generaste
al negar la existencia de nuestro hijo
ahora recién quieres desempeñar tu papel de padre
después de tu desgraciada ausencia de tres años
esperando que te perdone como si nada paso
lo siento, pero vete de aquí–
el no necesita a un infeliz en su vida
que nunca pudo dar la cara por el
que prefiero esconderlo y olvidarlo por tres años
que quiere usarlo para limpiar su conciencia
para sentirse mejor
I wrote this poem in May of 2022.
The princess and the queen live within me
And they each serve a purpose
the princess cares about the men in her life
She’s soft and submissive, kind and generous
She’ll do anything for love, she’s loyal
But sometimes the princess get taken advantage of
And the queen steps in
The queen is determined, she is strong and opinionated
And ambitchous and bossy
She’ll do anything to protect herself and her kids
and gives zero fucks about anyone else
And lately I’m trying to find a perfect balance
of embracing these two beings who live within me
I wrote this poem in May of 2022.
Some days I can’t deal with the boredom and restless
It all leads to chronic feelings of emptiness
And I asked myself
Is it time for another depression spell?
And I’m annoyed by me, by everything
I attend to whatever I think my brain and my soul needs
Sometimes it’s music, sometimes it’s sunshine
Sometimes it’s writing
Sometimes nothing appeases the Gods of BPD
And I just to deal with my emotional instability
I wish for at least a week of tranquility within
Instead of a pendulum of ever changing mood swings
When will I finally get calm and peace?
I wrote this poem in May of 2022.
Old insecurities come to visit me again,
they shake up my newly acquired confidence
they tell me I’m not smart enough and I’ll never be truly loved
They tell me the only thing I have going for me is how sexy I can be
Otherwise I’m a waste of a person because of my bpd
And I try to shut it all down and not once again drown
Because I have made so much progress and have come so far
Only to once again fight an anxiety and depression war
but it’s daunting and exhausting not to let the negativity get to me
So here I go once again, trying to calm down my brain
from negative and intrusive thoughts by covering myself with self-love
I wrote this poem in May of 2022.
I wonder where all of my money goes
but then I go home to the bottomless pits
that are my kids
and then I go upstairs to my bedroom
where my closet is exploding with clothes
and then I look under bed full of shoes
and then I go downstairs to my record player
and looks at my various vinyls
and we won’t even talk about my newly
acquired furniture from Amazon
now I understand
my money goes to my busy life
and my BPD spending impulsivity
I wrote this poem in April of 2022.
Deep inside of me
is a treasure chest
full of wonder, full of splendor
Deep inside of me
is a treasure chest
full of sadness,full of sorrow
Deep inside of me
is a treasure chest
full of love, full of laughter
Deep inside of me
is a treasure chest
full of anger, full of hate
I wrote this poem in April of 2022.
I feel raw with emotions
It’s like someone has ripped off
the scab of an almost healed heart
and it’s bleeding once again
And while this time
it’s not pulsating with anger and rage
it still hurts
like a small paper cut
you can’t see but it’s still there
I wrote this poem in April of 2022.
I wish I could be perfect to everyone in my life,
the perfect mom, the perfect coparent, the perfect mistress
but the pressure gets too loud within me
And I need to get away from how I want to be perceived
I’ll never be the perfect anything
I’m never be June Cleaver or the perfect dream girl
I can only be authentically and imperfect me
And maybe me and everyone in my life
need to accept that’s the best I can be
I wrote this poem in April of 2022.
I told the full moon to listen to my pleas
to lessen my pain
to turn me from victim to victor
I told the full moon to let my mind rest
and stop my intrusive thoughts
that tell me I’m worthless
and not good enough
I told the weary moon to fill me
with self love
instead of self hate
Life on the BPD 