Relationships

I was born into an ordinary family. My mom was from a very tiny inland town you’ve probably never heard of. She was the first child in her family and had four younger siblings. As the eldest, she took on the burden of caring for the family from the time she can collect rice field.

Every morning she had to prepare breakfast for everyone before going to class. She woke up before the rooster crowed, lit the fire, and cooked noodles with a few vegetables for the whole family. Then she quietly closed the door and walked along a rugged mountain road for an hour and a half to get to school. As you can probably tell, my maternal grandparents were not wealthy, and neither were my grandparents on my father’s side. She barely finished middle school and left the town for jobs. Later, my mom and dad went to a small fishing village near the sea to look for opportunities. That’s where they met and eventually had me.

It was the beginning of the twenty-first century when I was born in a military hospital. My parents were about the same age then as I am now. They were young and busy, trying their best to work and raise me at the same time. When I was six, they moved to another city for work and left me with my grandparents. When I was seven, I moved to another elementary school in my parents’ city. Even then, I still rarely saw them and mostly lived with my grandparents on both sides. Four years later, I moved again to a new city and a new school, where I finished elementary school.

The same thing happened in middle school. Over nine years, I transferred five times to different schools, all because my parents’ workplaces kept changing. I kept making new friends and then losing them. I became more and more experienced at making friends, but it became harder to truly trust anyone or rely on them, because I knew that one day I might suddenly have to leave again. I was very confused on how to respond to them. I intentionally kept a distance from them to avoid separation which I know will happen to me one day.

Instead of hanging out with classmates, I hid at home and became severely addicted to online games. My parents only came home a few times a month, but my friends in the games logged in every day to have fun with me.

My heart slowly closed itself off from the turbulence of the outside world and stayed lonely and silent. My classmates held birthday parties, events, and all kinds of activities without inviting me. Most of them knew each other well and understood how to make good friends and talk to people. I didn’t. I couldn’t find a place for myself in the real world.

My grades dropped. I got into fights at school three times. I felt both soft and easily hurt inside, and at the same time irritable on the outside. Many times I felt deeply sad, but I pretended I didn’t care. I shouted at my parents at home over tiny things. I stopped listening in class and sat in the back of the classroom so I could secretly read novels on my phone. I spent almost all my weekends and holidays on gaming, because I felt like I had nowhere else to go.

I was an outsider to the big “family” of classmates around me, and I didn’t really know what was going on because there was no one I felt I could talk to. I tried to help everyone, hoping they would like me more. But in the end I realized many of those people were not real friends. They were just using my goodwill.

It took me years to ease that pain and to learn the lessons I missed in my adolescence. I still wish I could have understood everything sooner.

Things slowly began to change when I went to university. There, I met a friend who had gone through struggles very similar to mine. He talked openly about his anxiety and loneliness in a way I had never heard before. Instead of hiding from these feelings, he was studying psychology to understand them. For the first time, I felt truly seen by someone who didn’t judge me, because he recognized the same patterns in himself.

Through our conversations, he started sharing basic psychology concepts with me—how childhood experiences can shape attachment, how constant moving and separation can affect a child’s sense of safety, how gaming and withdrawal can become coping strategies when you don’t know how to ask for help. I began to see that what I went through had names and explanations. I wasn’t just “broken” or “weird”; I was reacting to a lot of instability and unspoken pain.

Eventually, we decided to work together on a project: a psychological companion app called UNIMO, designed for teenagers and students who are trying to understand their minds better. As we built it, I dived deeper into psychology. The more I learned, the more my past made sense. Instead of blaming myself, I started to feel compassion for the younger version of me who was just trying to survive.

I still have difficult days, and I’m not “perfectly healed.” But I can notice my emotions earlier, name what I’m feeling and choose kinder ways to cope. I’ve learned to reach out to people I trust instead of disappearing into games for days. I’ve also realized that my story can be useful—not as something to be ashamed of, but as something that might make someone else feel less alone.

If there is one thing I’d say to my younger self and to anyone who sees themselves in this story, it is this:

Your reactions make sense. You are not beyond help. With understanding, support, and patience, it is possible to build a different relationship with your mind and your pain.

When you hear about a women threatening suicide with a break up you think he left her and she threatened it to scare him from leaving her.

That wasn't the case in my situation, you see, I packed my things up, I called my dad to pick it up, I said I was leaving but I also then threatened suicide.

Confused yet? Yup so was I.

Just short of 13 years and he was not only letting me leave, he was ready to help pack the car. Not only did he not give any sort of care that our whole lives were shattering, but my daughter, his step daughter was choosing to stay.

Nothing felt right, nothing felt like I wanted or could live it anymore. The look in his eyes as he was almost relieved to have me finally gone, and he gets the only thing he loved in the relationship as the cherry on top, my daughter.

I'm not proud of the moment but I grabbed a coat hanger and headed to the backyard, I put it around my neck and twisted. To me this was away from most prying eyes of neighbors and far from my daughter inside the house.

Since he followed me out there he coaxed me to stop and a lot is a blur in the moment, but he went and told my daughter (whom I was trying to shield in my own way from the moment by doing it outside) that I had tried to kill myself and to call my mom and if she didn't answer then to call the police.

I was unaware of this. Myself and him were sitting on the porch talking and he brought me my weed to smoke (looking back I think this was to further discredit me when the police arrived)

The police pulled up and my heart sank, the police officer was condecending and made me feel worse about everything. Apparently his suggestion to him was to change the locks. 13 years and my daughter in those walls and that's what it came down to, locks changed behind my back.

It all stemmed from a really bad year after leaving a job that meant alot and a lawsuit that followed. Depression and anxiety that destroyed me and not ever hearing the words I love you directed at me after 13 years and all we had been through, and I longed for that, I NEEDED to hear those words to feel safe, I craved it deep in my soul and the anniversary of my grandmothers death that I never fully got over him not being at the funeral for. The whirlwind turned me into a mess, that I still am cleaning up.

It was everything all at once and needing to communicate and not being able to be heard when I tried.

Being kept at a distance because I would never be what he wanted me to be.

Years later I'm still not myself, my relationship with my daughter is very strained, and I am so very lonely.#Anxiety #Depression #RejectionSensitiveDysphoria #lost #Drowning #lonely 🩷DN

I'm hoping that the article's, comments and other post will be able to help me better understand more about BPD, how it effects one's life and can help me find out how to be able to find a way to better handle it
So that I can improve myself,my life and my relationships. I'm so lost and confused about everything. I got diagnosed at the age of 36 With BPD and no doctor ever explain
anything about it,how to handle or deal with it. I was told nothing. I'm 45 yrs old almost 46 and my life is still all over the place, my relationships are up, down and bumpy, I'm not sure who I am. I'm lost, confused and I don't even know where to start.
#BorderlinePersonalityDisorder @

People usually say… “So much can change in a year” OK. What about in months.

My grandmother’s cancer journey has changed my relationship with time. Might as well change my relationship status to “It’s complicated.”

Let’s start with what Cancer is to me. Cancer is “getting everything in order - so… that…x,y,z.” Actually, it’s more like you’re reading the alphabet from finish to start. Right? So you can go backwards and maybe sound out letters you missed because you were going too fast, you don’t. That’s the thing… how do you go from September 21st. Walking three miles in forty-five minutes to the next day… “Cancer doesn’t happen to me. It’s not in our DNA. It happens to others, other families. “ to Holy Shit. Holy - something. We need some spiritual interference for this. To “She is so strong. So are you.”

They measure a life and give you a Hail Mary. You start saying Hail Marys.

I’ve had rules… rules if my grandmother ever lost her ability to - and the only thing I can remember from the fuzziness that my brain has become is.. Chapstick. She wants chapstick. It’s important. Chapstick becomes the only thing I can do.

I’ve learned the true meaning of capacity. How you show up, fully will look different every day. I really like the quote that says “On the days you have forty-percent and you gave forty-percent - you gave one-hundred percent.” Someone’s percent will look different than mine, that’s OK. Cancer is showing up as you can. As your body lets you. As your heart wants to.

Cancer is you can do chemo - Sorry, you can’t. Cancer goes from doctor appointments to hospital stays. Cancer is going home, and staying there. Cancer is. It’s watching your loved ones do everything for someone who - was healthy, looked good, looked young. (Wait. . You’re 68?!) It’s watching someone wake up in the middle of the night to give her medication, adjust the pillow, adjust the bed. Walk her to the bathroom, stop her from walking because she thinks she’s walking to an appointment. It’s… going along with what she says. Watching my grandmother fold a blanket over, over and over. In two month’s time. Time is a gift but also a thief. Two months time. I’ve seen how hand holding is the only thing you can hold on to. I’ve seen how couches become beds. You start inflating beds and wish you could inflate birthday balloons one more time. I’ve seen how, you’re suppose to just welcome everyone. Welcome, everyone… she’s asleep.

OK now. What cancer really looks like: Holding grudges becomes holding her hand. Watching my aunt change colonoscopy bags. Weren’t those bags… Nordstrom bags in two months time? Draining bags. They told her to drain her bank accounts in two months time. It’s watching my mom, watching her convince her mom that she’s her daughter. My mom has always been the most resilient person I know. I watch her open up her house to people who, she’s known her whole life, yet, they don’t know “Where she’s been this whole time.” Here. I watch her giving her mom medication, wasn’t I just watching her do a puzzle? A thousand pieces puzzle. Now, I’ll be helping her, she will be helping me, pick up the pieces of our lives for the rest of our lives, we’ll piece together, yet it won’t look right. What do you do when a math problem answer doesn’t seem right, you start over: We won’t be able to start over, we will have to start from where we are. They say start from where you are with what you have. We have each other and that’s where we are but remember when I had my center, and Alicia did too? Me, I’m her center. Does this mean I’ll be looking for my footing for the rest of my life? Probably. I’ll definitely be looking for her (my grandmother) , in water, surrounded by seals, smelling like dirty salt water, with the sun hitting my face.The only thing I’ll have is the smell of seal infested salt waters, when wasn’t I just smelling *daisy sour cream, devils food donuts and hamburgers for breakfast? It’s the only place. I already know that. This must be the place. It is. I said I’d be here. Hypothetically, Now, in the future, literally. She (my grandmother) won’t be.

Now more than ever before, I know why they say “Grief is just Love with nowhere to go.” Wait, she’s still here! Grief doesn’t start until the end, or does it? Grief exists because Love existed. Opposites? No, the same thing. Side by side, just like everyone is at my grandmother’s side. Now, not then. If she’s strong now? What was she then? Let me remind you of what you said.

Cancer is. We have no choice, “Putting a fire under it.” Never thought that would become - “Let me put this pillow under you, are you more comfortable like this? Are you uncomfortable, no she’s in pain. It’s, strangers to, using nicknames we’ve known our entire lives. It’s Oh no, I am going to cry. Can’t cry. Too late, your cousin thought of you and bought you vegan cheese.

A gift, A theif.
Gratitude for this entire experience is a prayer.

Cancer is, saying everything but not saying anything. Literally.

Like Alicia said. This is the easy part, so what’s the hard part? Don’t tell me.

But I’ll tell you what my heaven looks like, she said: it’s pictures of you.

#Cancer #PancreaticCancer #Grief

Benefits Of Seeing A Mental Health Professional?
Seeing a mental health professional offers many benefits for people such as improved self-awareness, better coping skills, and enhanced relationships. Not only that, but these professionals can also help people manage stress, process trauma, treat mental health conditions, and develop strategies for dealing with negative emotions and behaviors. Last but not least, therapy can even help people increase their resilience and foster a more positive outlook on life.