Romina's Letter: You Are Not Damaged! (BPD) Usted no se ha dañado!

Romina is a young woman from Mexico who found DBT Path's online classes.  She is healing from Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) and has written this compassionate letter to her former self. Read on in English and español...

Dear 2013 Romina,

I certainly know you have been through a lot in these last couple of years. You now somehow have more balance in your life; the crisis and the suffering is not as bad as it used to be. I’m so proud of how much you have worked to get there.

Of course therapy helped, but you did the hard work girl! I don’t think the 2011 Romina would have ever conceived of all of the balance you have achieved.

Although you have made so much improvement, I know you don’t feel totally free yet, and you’re right, in your path there is still much to discover and learn. All of those feeling with which you still struggle will get better. You have it in you, you just need more skills.

I know how hard it is to still feel like you’re not going to be able to manage things. I know you feel like you are still not enough, like everyone else is so far and you will never catch up. And although I know that feeling, I know how much you had to work to get where you are, and you are doing a great job.

In some months or weeks you will discover some online classes and community that will help you see things in a very different way. You will reinforce the DBT skills you already know and learn new ones, but that’s not really the important thing. The most important thing is that you will discover a place where you belong. At DBT Path, you will discover you are enough, you will discover that being enough doesn’t mean you’re popular or accepted by everyone, you will learn that there are different ways of being enough.

I know how right now you feel like you don’t fit, like you will always be damaged, but you’re not. You are just imperfect, like we all are, but you’re so very valuable. Soon you will discover you still have much more inside you, you still have a lot to achieve, you are much more than you have discovered already. Hang on girl, because the best is still yet to come.

You are enough and you are an amazing person, you just haven’t fully discovered it yet.

Signed,

2014 Romina

Querida Romina 2013,

 

Se por todo lo que has tenido que pasar en estos últimos años. Ahora tienes mucha más balance en tu vida, las crisis y el sufrimiento ya no son tan malos como antes, estoy muy orgullosa de ti y lo mucho que has trabajado para llegar aquí.

 

Claro que la terapia ha ayudado, pero ¡tú hiciste el trabajo pesado chica! No creo que la Romina 2011 habría pensado que podrías alcanzar el balance que has alcanzado.

 

Aunque has logrado muchas mejorar, sé que no te sientes completamente libre y tienes razón, en tu camino aún falta mucho por descubrir y conocer. Todos esos sentimientos con los que estas peleando ahora van a mejorar, lo tienes dentro de ti, sólo necesitas más herramientas.

 

Sé lo difícil que aún es sentir que no eres capaz de manejar muchas cosas. Sé que aun te sientes como que no eres suficiente, como que todos los demás están ya tan avanzados que es imposible que algún día los alcances. Y aunque conozco ese sentimiento, se lo mucho que tuviste que trabajar para llegar a donde estas ahorita y estás haciendo un gran trabajo.

 

En unos meses o semanas vas a descubrir unas clases online y una comunidad que te va a ayudar a ver todo de manera diferente. Vas a poder reforzar las herramientas de DBT que ya conoces y aprender algunas nuevas, pero eso no va a ser lo que es más importante. Lo más importante es que vas a descubrir un lugar a donde pertenecer, vas a descubrir que eres suficiente, vas a descubrir que ser suficiente no significa ser popular o aceptado por todo, vas a aprender que hay muchas maneras de ser suficiente.

 

Sé que ahorita se siente como que no encajas en ningún lado, que siempre vas a esta dañada, pero no es verdad. Eres imperfecta, como todos lo somos, pero eres muy valiosa de todas formas. Pronto descubrirás que tienes mucho más dentro de ti de lo que creías, aun tienes mucho que lograr, eres mucho más de lo que has descubierto hasta ahora. Aguanta chica, porque lo mejor apenas viene.

Eres suficiente y eres una persona increíble, sólo que aún no lo descubres.

 

Romina del 2014

Saludos, buen dia

Romina

Well all that was just a plot twist... (Letter to former self)

A woman erroneously diagnosed with Bipolar 1 and then, much later, accurately diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) writes a compassionate letter to her "former self."

This letter contains content that you may consider triggering.  It therefore comes with a "Trigger Warning (TW)."  If you do not know what a Trigger Warning is or what we mean by triggers, please first take a moment to read the article. "What does Trigger Warning TW Mean?" before proceeding with reading this letter.

Dear Iris,

Okay, take a deep breath. As Bob Dylan said, "The times they are a-changin'." You've got a new diagnosis. BPD, not Bipolar 1. That's huge. I know it's scary. Remember how frustrating it was, when you thought you had Bipolar and you spent so many years suffering, taking all those expensive pills and never seeing any results? Other people you knew who had Bipolar took pills too, but they didn't have the same behavior issues that you did, well, for the most part still do. They took pills and led normal lives. Not you. That was confusing. Those people were confused along with you by the fact that you always took your meds, always ate right and slept regularly. You did everything you were told to do (and didn't do anything you were told not to do) to get relief from your symptoms, but nothing worked. Well, now you know why.

Treating BPD with meds for Bipolar 1 was never going to help you recover from BPD. Those behaviors that your friends and family, and friends who have Bipolar Disorder, all found so confusing turned out to all be BPD symptoms. Isn't it comforting to know that all those behaviors were happening for a reason? Symptoms. Your BPD symptoms weren't being treated with those meds for Bipolar Disorder.

You're going to start DBT classes. Those classes are the treatment for BPD. Just think, education as treatment instead of pills! After you take DBT classes you might not need to take pills at all, eventually. Wouldn't that be grand?

Just last year you and your brother were sitting around one day talking about mental illness. Remember that conversation? He asked you, "Iris, wouldn't you like it if it turned out that there was a way you could get better and not have to take pills for the rest of your life?" He was speaking hypothetically. You still had a diagnosis of Bipolar Disorder then. You both had accepted that. It's happened now though. That diagnosis you lived with since 1998 was wrong. You've got BPD and the really great news about that diagnosis is that you can make a full recovery from BPD.

I'm not saying that recovery from BPD will be easy or quick. It's going to take time, and it's going to be hard. The emotional work involved won't always be pleasant. As a matter of fact a lot of the time it won't be. But what worth doing in life isn't challenging? You like challenges. You don't always like yourself, but when you do like yourself, you like yourself enough to wish that you could like yourself a lot more of the time. With the help of DBT you'll get to a point, in time, where you do like yourself. You'll get to a point where you even love yourself. These are big changes you'll be making.

You're strong. You've lived through a lot of tough stuff. Once you recover from BPD you'll look back on all those years with that Bipolar diagnosis and just say, as the writer and performer you are, "Well all that was just a plot twist!"

Study DBT. Write in the BPD recovery blog you've started, and keep singing for the elderly. That's music therapy, it's not just therapy for them. It's music therapy for you too. When you get around to it, write those plays and novels you want to write. DBT will change you. You'll write very different plays and novels after DBT than you did before. You'll BE different. You'll finally be the Iris you've always wanted to be. You're signing up for DBT classes. This is a new, and exciting chapter in the story of you. Turn the page. Read on. You'll be glad you did.

Love you, Iris. No really. I do,

Iris







We are so proud to have Iris in our worldwide, online DBT classes at DBT Path.  Well done, Iris!