poetry: sinning
I wrote this poem in September of 2022.
I used to lie about my sins when I went to confession-
to have something, anything to confess to arouse interest in the priest
to not feel the burden of goodness on me-
and the priest gave me prayers and rosaries to atone for my made up sins
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Song of the Day 😪 those damn rose colored glasses 😪
Song of the Day 😪 the last 4 years were just pretend 😪
Song of the Day 🥰were there clues I didn’t see 🥰
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poesía: tiempo
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
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Song of the Day 🥰🥰💗💗
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Canción del Día 🥳entonces vamos a competir🥳
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Song of the Day 😪”clear as shit I was not the issue”😪
2 Years since my BPD diagnosis-Part 3: Healing through Storytelling
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.
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2 Years since my BPD Diagnosis-Part 2: Do I still have BPD? What are my values?
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
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2 Years since my BPD Diagnosis-Part 1: Divorce and reconnecting with my Homeland
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-
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A Year Since My BPD Diagnosis: The Beginning was Tough
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 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 “I 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 “BPD is the most painful mental disorder “Or “BPD people are manipulative” or “Some 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 “I couldn’t have BPD because I’m not so awful” or that “it’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, “I’m unlovable”, I’m hard to love”, “I’m always going to be too emotionally unstable to be in a relationship” “I don’t deserve love” “I always fuck up everything good in my life” “I’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.
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.
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 “split” 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
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Song of the Day 💗Take me to the lakes💗
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Poetry: Guilt
I wrote this poem in February of this year inspired by my oldest son.
the guilt visits me over the mother I should have been
I should have been older, wiser, married
but instead you ended up with an immature teen mom
who read you Stephen King instead of fairy tales
who played you Matchbox Twenty instead of lullabies
who wore you on my hip like a new fashion accessory
who missed the signs early on that you were different
because I was too self absorbed looking for love
but what’s done can’t be undone-
I hope one day you understand
I did the best I could with what I had
Life on the BPD 