Here’s the English version of this poem:
Poetry: Not Just Lust
hay que tomarnos tiempo para conocernos
antes de brincar en otra tragedia de amor
hay que ver que encajamos de verdad
antes de profesar “te amos” y “te quieros”
y no apresurarnos en empezar algo
que algún día nos destruirá
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:
goal setting
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.
The big question is “Do I still have BPD?” well I had another assessment done in late spring and I still wear the scarlet letters of mental illness, BPD. I was infuriated because I have worked my ass off in therapy, doing all of the healthy things, abstaining from sex and relationships, and reading everything I can to get better and I still have the diagnosis. My therapist did say my symptoms were a lot milder than when I first came in. She also said that it could take several years before I can say I’m “recovered”. She has also recently discharged me from therapy because I’m doing so well and at this point I might be using therapy as a crutch. Ouch. It sounds harsh but honestly, she’s right. Going back to therapy this time around, I went back to get better at regulating my emotions. It sounds strange because while I have done a lot of work and adhere to a strict routine, I still have trouble at times when life gets chaotic or there are big changes. I know too well the consequences of what happens if I don’t get help. So whether that’s medication changes, a refresher on DBT skills. reading books about mental health or even taking time off; I will do whatever it takes to get back to a normal baseline for me so I can continue to heal and thrive.
Another big thing that happened in this second year was that I was able to identify my values and live in alignment with them. Honesty, integrity, community, family, compassion and grace are just a few I identify with this year. Before my diagnosis, I was trying to survive and find solace in these pockets of temporary adrenaline rushes and happiness. I not only caused chaos but also invited it into my life over and over again. It was a realization I had shortly after things ended with me and C last summer. I think that was when I decided I needed to understand what true solitude meant without the distraction of anything resembling lust or romance. It was one of the hardest challenges I had to face. And I won’t lie, the loneliness was crushing at times and it drove me insane on some nights but I relied on my writing and my friends to get me through the worst of it and somehow made it to the other side. And on the other side, was my empowered and higher self. Am I all the way healed? No freaking way. But like I was telling one of my new friends when I was explaining my BPD diagnosis, “I was like Clementine from Eternal Sunshine of Spotless Mind but now I’m much better. I’m way healthier and much better at managing my emotions”.
to be continued in part 3
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:
But You Can’t Be Depressed, You’re a Mom
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.
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.
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.
to be continued in part two-
Around September,I started to logically understand how out of control my behavior was at times. The strange thing about it is it doesn’t feel like me when I’m acting that way. I’m a person who has always tried to have control over all aspects of my life. For example, when I was first diagnosed, I was naive enough to think that I could somehow “fast-track my healing” . I quickly learned that’s not how healing or therapy works. It didn’t matter how quickly I read my DBT workbook or did the exercises from there, how many poems I wrote about grief in one day, or how many healthy coping mechanisms I picked up along the way; healing and changing my behavior was going to take time and patience. I couldn’t speed up the process if I truly wanted to get better.
I needed to learn to sit with my grief, anger, mania, self-hatred, and any other uncomfortable and painful emotions and learn a healthy way to process and cope with them instead of chasing it away with booze, sex, or binge shopping. It’s been hard to do, and I’ve stumbled along the way and have made many mistakes. One thing I’ve learned this year is that changing unhealthy patterns in my behavior had to be the most arduous and difficult work I’ve ever done. For example, maybe one day I’m feeling fat and ugly, the old me would have gone binge shopping on Amazon for a pretty dress or reached out to one of the casual Joes in my life for validation; the new and healthy version of me had to ask myself the whys of why I’m feeling fat and ugly and what triggered this reaction in me, do I need to write about it, what can I do to make myself feel better that doesn’t involved shopping or the validation from others? It’s way harder to face my insecurities head on than chase them away with a quick and temporary adrenaline rush or serotonin fix. Throughout all this it helped to have an incredible support system who gave me what I needed emotionally to process, grow and move forward in my journey. Part of that support system was my therapist who was kind, compassionate, knowledgeable, and patient with me. I was really tough to deal with at times and I wanted to break up with her at times cause she pushed me a lot when it came to my driving phobia. I remember having a panic attack in front of her because of a driving exposure but she calmed me down enough so I could do it. I got paranoid after thinking she would leave me but she didn’t. She stuck by me through the end of our therapy sessions in January of this year. The few times I’d missed a session, she would call me to check in and talk to me for at least 10 minutes to make sure I was okay. She was also respectful of me and my experiences. I’ve had therapists in the past who talked down to me and were condescending and she wasn’t one of them. People talk about finding “the one” at the “right time”; well in my case, I found the “right therapist” at the “right time” in my life. Here is a poem I wrote about her:
From September to January, there was so much progress in my healing and mental health journey thanks to having the adequate resources and tools because of my therapist. I did beat a driving phobia (but that’s a story I’ll tell in depth later on) and I was free from suicidal ideation until May of this year. What was strange to me during these months was how I was learning to really live and enjoy my life. I remember that before my diagnosis, I’d get annoyed sometimes at having to spend time with my kids. During the months of September to December, something switched in me to have this new appreciation for motherhood and spending time with my children. My relationship with my three sons got better and I grew closer to them. I feel like I’m finally the mom my children deserve.
Here is a poem I wrote about them:
My Three Kings
My first king, I met at 17
when the nurse placed
an alien like being in my arms
She was like “feed him”
and I was like “how do I do that?”
What should I do with him?
Eventually I figured it out
My second king, I met at 24
as a birthday present, just like me
he had to make a dramatic entrance
but it was love at first sight
No one could take him from my arms
I knew what to do
My third king, I met at 30
He was a dream delivered
After a dream lost the previous year
He was planned, he was awaited, he was loved
He was welcome by everyone
with him, I felt a completion of love
1/24/2022
As I’ve also mentioned, my therapy sessions ended in January and after that I was on my own with my maintenance plan making sure I didn’t do anything to sabotage the progress I had made.
Aqui esta la version en Espanol:
Poesia: La Misma Historia
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
aquí esta la versión en español:
Poesía: Decepción
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?
I nurture my soil with love and everything that makes me smile
Excitement stirs inside of me thinking of all my untapped potential
and the poems and stories that are yet to be written
The soil I step in is solid and I am grounded and calm
Is this what’s called God’s love?
I wrote this poem in August of 2022.
Halfway through 41, I am truly alone
no potential love candidates
and sometimes the loneliness threatens to kill my soul-
But I know better than to suffer through another deception
so I process all of my feelings through poetry
Hoping it’s enough to keep the romantic in me
from making another mistake
Here’s is the English version of this poem:
Poetry: Crooked Turn
otro giro equivocado más en el amor y perderé la fe para siempre
porque siguiendo repetir la misma tragedia
es una locura que está acabando con mi espíritu, con mi alma
mejor sería quedarme sola que seguir perdiendo partes de mi
por mi anhelo de ser amada
Describe your life in an alternate universe.
I wrote this poem in August of 2022.
the facade of equality is cloaked in good intentions and lovely words-
and while laws have been passed to prevent discrimination
and to try to level the game of success,
it’s all a sham, it’s all a con
we still live in a world where the color of your skin and social status
and gender determine your prosperity
List 30 things that make you happy.
Here is the english version of this poem:
Poetry: Nothing More
como una tonta doy lo mejor de mi y me conformo con lo más mínimo
para sentir algo de amor
como una tonta me achicó hasta no existir para acomodarme a tu ego
como una tonta me quedo calladita y guardo mis opiniones dentro de mi
para que no me dejes
como una tonta pienso que esta vez tendré una fin feliz
por tanto esfuerzo que hago
como una tonta siempre repito la misma tragedia de amor
sin aprender mi lección
Life on the BPD 