To raise my children with empathy and respect for humanity is hard in times like these in times when everyone is selfish and individuality is praised In times when showing emotions is seen as week and there is still a stigma about seeking therapy but somehow, my firstborn got the message that money and selfishness are not everything and that finding empathy and compassion for his fellow humans is much more valuable than the idea of individualism and materialism society tries to sell him
They laid him on my breast and told me, “Meet your baby boy” and I was in shock the alien on top of me is mine? this wasn’t supposed to be part of my adolescence I’m only seventeen and some days I barely remember to brush my teeth and now I have this great responsibility and his beady and angry eyes questions as to why his comfort was disturb-he already hates the world and I think , same, kid, same
when it comes down to it, my mission in life is simple, it’s to be a good person and a good mom. that means being able to sleep at night with a clear conscious at night and knowing that I have done my best that day. that means giving my children the best of me most of the time.
Relief comes after a nap on Christmas day I woke up with so much joy and warmth in my heart I feel like I’m standing on top of a mountain I’ve been climbing forever A mountain climb that’s had a most treacherous uphill and loaded with many obstacles I’ve stumbled and fallen from many times but the universe, God presented me this gift of contentment for my life the understanding that everything had to happen for this reason to live in my childhood dreams of having my own family who brings me love and purpose every day of my existence
Quiero lo mejor para ti-porque te lo mereces, porque tu no pediste ser parte de este mundo pero la sigo regando con mis decisiones impulsivas con mis estupideces y no se como voy a salir de esta última atrocidad cometida que afectará el futuro de los dos
With excitement in his eyes, my son used to bring me pictures of made up monsters Drawn with crayons- With pride in his stance, he now brings me target sheets showing me how he’s well on his way to becoming a decent shot with a revolver When did my child go from crayons to guns? It seems like I blinked and he went from four to twenty four He went from being a rambunctious little boy who was hard to keep up with to a strong and independent man who no longer needs me And while I’m full of joy about this transformation- I still miss the carefree days of crayon drawn monsters
Me and my teenage son fight and I regret it the next day I’ve watched too many people mourn their sons this year I’ve felt the screams of those close to me asking God why he took their babies too young Young men who will never be fathers, Young men who will never see their children grow up into rebellious and sassy teens and while I understand conflicts happens between parent and child I also know we’re both on borrowed time and I don’t want our angry words to be the last exchange between us if its his or my last day today
My son holds the universe in his eyes with his potential, with his sense of wonder his eyes are not yet jaded by the inhumanity of this world and I dread when the day comes as his innocence starts to fade
In the beginning, it was just me and you – and it was hard making sense of being a mom the heavy weight of caring for another human felt like it was going to crush me at times and I tried my best with my lack of knowledge with my lack of judgment so your lullabies were the goo goo dolls and sugar ray and your bedtime stories were stephen king and cosmo the pediatrician did tell me to read to you- at 17, I thought he meant anything at 17, I was far from June Cleaver and I felt so inept at times and while other moms read parenting books on how to become mommy dearest I focused on school books to graduate from high school so we’d have a fighting chance so while you never had a typical mom you still lucked out with a mom who’ll always fill you up with love and strength a mom who’ll always have your back
mami cocoons me in her warmth, holds me carefully so I don’t break I’m her porcelain baby doll she nurses me back to health with devotion and dedication I’m a gift from the heavens- an unexpected surprise sent to complete our family and she doesn’t care if I came slightly damaged
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.
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 “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:
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 “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.
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
Life on the BPD 