2 Years since my BPD diagnosis-Part 3: Healing through Storytelling

me at open mic sharing my story through poetry

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, β€œfuck it, let’s do this” and β€œlet’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

2 Years since my BPD Diagnosis-Part 2: Do I still have BPD? What are my values?

bad bitches go to therapy-me about to go see my therapist in July of this year

The big question is β€œDo 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 β€œrecovered”. 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.

a few of the mental health book I’ve read to help me understand my diagnosis and trauma

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, β€œI 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”.

my favorite self lives in alignment with her values

to be continued in part 3

A Year Since My BPD Diagnosis: The Ending / A New Beginning

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:

Borderline Awareness Month: I Could be 1 in 10

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 β€œold me” before her diagnosis was trying to have β€œeverything” 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 😍πŸ₯°

A Year Since My Diagnosis: The Middle-Therapy Works

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 β€œfast-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.

that DBT workbook I’ve started 5 times and I still can’t get past chapter 8-lol

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 β€œthe one” at the β€œright time”; well in my case, I found the β€œright therapist” at the β€œright time” in my life. Here is a poem I wrote about her:

The Healer

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 β€œfeed him”
and I was like β€œhow 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.

Video taken 1/5/22 and 1/16/22-during this time, I really started to thrive-it felt like years of progress within a span of 6 months

to be continued…

A Year Since My BPD Diagnosis: The Beginning was Tough

Video taken 6/15/2021 before my BPD Diagnosis-I was burnt out and miserable AF

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 first concept map-made on 6/30/2021, altered by me in Mid July

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 β€œI 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 β€œBPD is the most painful mental disorder “Or β€œBPD people are manipulative” or β€œSome 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 β€œI couldn’t have BPD because I’m not so awful” or that β€œit’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, β€œI’m unlovable”, I’m hard to love”, β€œI’m always going to be too emotionally unstable to be in a relationship” β€œI don’t deserve love” β€œI always fuck up everything good in my life” β€œI’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.

Video taken 7/16/21, 7/19/21, 7/24/21-the start of this journey was difficult and rough-I was in and out of suicidal ideation mode for 2 weeks straight

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.

my first diary card-first two weeks of July

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 β€œsplit” 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

A New Diagnosis: BPD

Me at 16

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?

  • An intense fear of abandonment, even going to extreme measures to avoid real or imagined separation or rejection
  • A pattern of unstable intense relationships, such as idealizing someone one moment and then suddenly believing the person doesn’t care enough or is cruel
  • Rapid changes in self-identity and self-image that include shifting goals and values, and seeing yourself as bad or as if you don’t exist at all
  • Periods of stress-related paranoia and loss of contact with reality, lasting from a few minutes to a few hours
  • Impulsive and risky behavior, such as gambling, reckless driving, unsafe sex, spending sprees, binge eating or drug abuse, or sabotaging success by suddenly quitting a good job or ending a positive relationship
  • Suicidal threats or behavior or self-injury, often in response to fear of separation or rejection
  • Wide mood swings lasting from a few hours to a few days, which can include intense happiness, irritability, shame or anxiety
  • Ongoing feelings of emptiness
  • Inappropriate, intense anger, such as frequently losing your temper, being sarcastic or bitter, or having physical fights

Causes for Borderline Personality Disorder:

  • Genetics.Β Some studies of twins and families suggest that personality disorders may be inherited or strongly associated with other mental health disorders among family members.
  • Brain abnormalities.Β Some research has shown changes in certain areas of the brain involved in emotion regulation, impulsivity and aggression. In addition, certain brain chemicals that help regulate mood, such as serotonin, may not function properly.

Risk Factors include:

  • Hereditary predisposition.Β You may be at a higher risk if a close relative β€” your mother, father, brother or sister β€” has the same or a similar disorder.
  • Stressful childhood.Β Many people with the disorder report being sexually or physically abused or neglected during childhood. Some people have lost or were separated from a parent or close caregiver when they were young or had parents or caregivers with substance misuse or other mental health issues. Others have been exposed to hostile conflict and unstable family relationships.

Source: https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/borderline-personality-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20370237

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.

Poetry: 5 AM

I wrote this poem in August of 2022.

At 5 am, I woke up and wrote a 4 page poem
about how I wasn’t enough and proceeded to crash my car
and my therapist asked if I wanted to die-
And I was like β€œnah, I just couldn’t reign my impulsivity in”
at least this time I got control of the car and didn’t fuck
anyone else up

Poetry: Favorite Words

I wrote this poem in July of 2022.

two of my favorite words

My favorite words are my sons names
names that taught me about patience
and unconditional love
names that have made me get up
when I didn’t want to
names that fill me with faith and hope
when I’m about to lose it
names that make me want to become
a better person than I was yesterday
names I live for
names I would die for

Poetry: Insecure

Aqui esta la version en espaΓ±ol :

Poesia: Demaciado Sencilla

you told me I’m not wife material
so you dropped me like I was nothing
but not before you took me to your bed a few times
but not before filling my head with the illusion
that you wanted a future with me-
Are you sick in the head?
Is this how you always operate?
Finding an insecure girl to get your primal needs met
and later on dropping them like a bad habit

Poetry: The Real ME

I wrote this poem in July of 2022.

the real me…

The emotional scars are starting to fade
As I’m starting a new phase
A phase full of love and laughter
A phase full of introspection and humility
and while I’m alone as I start this phase
I’m happier and healthier
I’ve taken off all of my masks
I’ve discarded my need to be loved and accepted
This is my era
One where I finally allow myself
To let others see the real me

Poetry: The Coffin

I wrote this poem in 2019.

Me at open mic on 7/7/2023

Our relationship slowly wilted
Too many broken promises
Too many sacrifices on my part
I gave you my youth and you two children
and you couldn’t give me an ounce of affection
I tried to melt your icy cold wall and you denied my warmth
And I tried over and over again to save us!
But how do you save something that continues to die?
Date nights, long conversations,accommodating to your needs continuously,
and marriage counseling
but all of it was useless and completely pointless
So I gave up and let our marriage fall into a coffin
along with your broken promises to change
I even kept the coffin open with a slight hope we could fix us
But one day I got tired of waiting, waiting and waiting
and I decided to close the coffin and nail it shut-
It was time to bury our lackluster love

Poetry: Some Days

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?

Poetry: Is my mood stabilizer working yet?

I wrote this poem in May of 2022.

me in May of 2022

Fuck you, fuck me, fuck everyone
Is my mood stabilizer working yet?
and fuck, fuck, fuck my brain chemistry
it makes me so angry and crazy
Sometimes I’d rather feel nothing
than constantly feeling everything
Between my anxiety, depression, bipolar
And bpd
I can’t trust my brain to tell me the difference
between right and wrong
I can’t trust my heart if my feelings are valid
or if it’s inner critic preying on my insecurities
on day likes this I’d rather disappear
because being me gets so exhausting

The Art of Compassion and Grace

Daily writing prompt
Describe a decision you made in the past that helped you learn or grow.

I still ache inside at times
over past regrets, over past mishaps
it’s when doubt in me starts to rise
And I fear another emotional relapse
but then faith whispers to me
let go of your past and focus on your present
and I float back down to reality
and once again gain confidence
my past and trauma never defined me
it’s part of my heroine’s journey
at times I may have been terrible
but I’ve always taken accountability
at times I’ve felt irreparable
but it’s a false story I told myself
I’ve finally learned how to knock out
those thoughts of how awful I’ve been
I’ve learned the art of compassion and grace
for myself

Poetry: Best I Can Be

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