Every one I know has been asking if I’m excited. I nod my head and give a smile and say yes. But to say I’m excited is actually lying because the truth is I haven’t wrapped my head around it yet.  My mind has bursts of fast paced moments (when I am anxious) and then there’s mostly the slow languid thoughts that take me a few hours or days to have the gravity of events sink in.  Up to today, it feels like I am just going for an extended vacation. 

Yet, when I really think hard and something clicks in my head that I am being with  B for good then I start feeling  unexplained glee. Like having a really really good secret and you’re the only one who knows what it is. Everything else feels surreal. 

I have anticipated this day since the day I met him. Every fiber of my being has been screaming to be close to him since the day I realized I love him. And now it is here. I am just minutes away. Yes, you must understand that unexplainable glee I feel and why it feels surreal. Because there is no words to contain the emotions I feel. 

The diagnosis given to me by the doctor at the Mental Health Services clinic last Monday was something  not new to me. All these years I have known that I have been living with Borderline Personality Disorder. I first came upon this disorder when I was dating a guy who had a medical background of some sort (don't ask me what as I have long forgotten already) and he said after a few dates that I was "difficult to handle" and I should consider seeking help for my BPD. I remember though that I felt shock then rage for what he told me not realizing that he was right all along. My friends started noticing my self-inflicted pains, my moods that swung like a pendulum, and then they finally sent me off to a shrink when I failed in an overdose..

Let me tell you, it was an "a-ha!" moment when I finally found out I have BPD. I felt a sense of relief that finally I am able to understand why I do what I do and why I think the way I do. Why it was hard to make friends and keep relationships. Why did I push people but inside I want them to stay. How I can feel such deep love yet be consumed by profound rage simultaneously. And it helped me see why I cut myself. I was able to move past the desire to harm myself in order to feel something. But the depression, anxiety, the  black and white thinking, the emotions the emotions the damn emotions stayed. I was starting to be better in keeping relations but at the same time I know that I was just hiding from them how bad I was because I didn't want them to judge me. If they knew how bad I really am, then I'm certain they will make fun of me and leave.

There's the stigma that come with the knowledge of being afflicted with a mental illness. Mental illness runs in my mother's side and I remember how they mocked my uncle who seemed to have lost his marbles. I didn't want to be defined by what I have so I thought if I worked hard enough and I become nice enough then people will start liking me and I can pass as a "normal" person. Most of all, no one needs to know that I have BPD. No one.

There are no secrets that time does not reveal. No secrets that can be kept from the people we love. After being with  B for more than than three years, the real D started seeping through the façade I have created. We fought more often and my insecurities were getting the best of me. Getting married only made it worse as I realized there is no turning back, I become a sitting duck to pain and rejection in case he cheats on me or realizes I am crazy and leaves for someone better. When I am most rational I see how I was recently irrational and I know that  B is slowly wondering where was the vibrant, confident, laughing woman he fell in love the first time.

And that was why I sought help. Now I am ready to face the skeletons in my closet and exorcise the ghosts of my past. I know it is not easy. I know there is no cure. I know that medication will not work (as I've tried it before). It's not going to be cheap also but I am hopeful that I will be better and I can live a life not burdened by so much emotions. I wish though that  B will not get tired of me and that he will develop the necessary skills to support me. And I hope he won't call me 'crazy'.

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For more reading about BPD:

• Dialetical Behavior Therapy (DBT) for Borderline Personality Disorder
• My Wife is Not Her [Borderline Personality] Disorder
• The Mystery of Borderline Personality Disorder

Courage, they say,  is not the absence of fear , but the triumph over it. 

If you have been following my blog, then I am pretty certain you have a general feeling already that I am not “all right” up there.  I’ve probably been dropped too much when I was a baby that I am easily suspicious and afraid of being hurt. It does not help also that I have always carried in me a feeling of abandonment and neglect from my parents.  I must confess that if I were to judge myself critically, I can say I am pretty mental.  Mental enough to admit even to myself that I want my madness to stop.

This is not an epiphany that came to me in the middle of night. I have known for more than a decade that despite the mental strength I possess, parts of me have been scarred so badly from emotional trauma but were not given time to heal before new wounds were inflicted on it again thus leaving my brain so broken. I  had wished that the trauma and the anxiety that goes with it will diminish over time or I will out grow the fears and the pain but it hasn’t and now it’s something I have to face.

Facing this has not been easy. It has been months now that I have been contemplating of going to a mental health doctor and all because after each fight I had with  Bit made me see how irrational I am with my jealousy, fears, suspicions and doubts. If I was able to cut off my relationship before it gets to the point of no return well now that I am married I am not able to do that anymore. Now, I have to man up to the job and get my act straight because this is what marriage is. I love my  Band I will everything it takes to make him happy. He is one of the reasons why I want to be better.

So come Monday I get to see a mental doctor. Get my diagnosis and hopefully get a treatment. Maybe just maybe if I have a name of what I have I can understand myself better and when I am rational I can train my mind to avoid situations that trigger my defense mechanisms and when I am in the thick of things I can pull my mind out of the rut that makes me cruel and insensitive.

There are so many instances when I want to blog about something that has caught my attention in the news or during the day at work or a conversation I had with some people.

But the rush of emotions I feel blocks out all the words in my head... You know like running away from a tsunami but the wave eventually hits you and you are tossed around... That's how my feelings become that brings me in a bad kind of edge... Faint and breathless.

Instead of blogging I stand up from my Mac and walk away so I can escape these horrible feelings which is what I will be doing now. 

And there goes another moment I missed out in making a post.

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After reading about how sequestration has affected the Army in this news.

Prior to my trip to Montreal for my immigration interview I have been surfing for places to eat in the area near the hotel. When eating out I tend to gravitate towards food that has superb taste, regional authenticity if I am eating country-specific fare, and price that is affordable and reasonable. While I crave my usual fast-food, I enjoy trying out dishes and exploring the diversity of a place.

One of the restaurants that have caught my curiosity is Il Focolaio which is the same block as my hotel. Their name is from the Italian language meaning “hot bed” or “fireplace” which is apt as they use a brick oven and firewood to roast their pizza made from  scratch. This place is reminiscent to a restaurant in Boracay my family and I would order pizza from which made me want to try it all the more. 

The night I arrived in Montreal was cold and when I got to my hotel room I almost didn’t want to to go out and eat dinner as my feet were killing me (the shoes I borrowed from my room mate was an inch shorter than my feet). But then I realized I have to seize the opportunity because I don’t know when will I ever go back to Montreal again or try out a brick oven baked pizza. So I bundled up and winced my feet in the damnable boots and took the elevator downstairs. I brought with me my Google map and I was surprised that the restaurant was less than ten meters from the hotel. 

The restaurant was not busy, to my relief, and the guy who was bussing tables told me to just pick a spot where I want to sit. I sat in the middle of the restaurant near the bar and  oven. The oven was not very distinct as there was a  partition that the staff use to prep the pizza. The lady who gave me the menu was really nice and she was prompt in service (it helped that there weren’t a lot of customers). I ordered  the Al Prosciutto and a blond beer. While waiting for my food I noticed staff who brought pizza bags for delivery and I think it’s wonderful that they have delivery service. 

And then finally my food came…  A pizza perfection just for me! I took a picture which was torture in itself as I just want to grab a wedge and stuff it in my mouth. This is definitely one restaurant I would love to go back over and over again.

Finally, I am cozy in my hotel room in downtown Montreal. It took me 14 hours to get here from British Columbia and my feet are killing me. Yet the next few hours will determine the real outcome of the wait that has lasted eleven months.

A few hours from now I am going to face a US Consul in the Embassy. He or she will be interviewing me and determine if I am fit to be awarded a visa to move to the USA and be with B . 

We did our paperwork, we've submitted all our requirements, I have read online forums to mentally prepare myself, I've checked double checked and triple checked the mandatory requirements. I am ready. But you know me, I am stretched inside and ready to snap from the mental stress and nervousness that I am feeling.

Everyone says I'll pass. But my twisted brain refuses to accept this. Yes I may pass, but there is a possibility I will fail it too. No one really knows the final answer until the Consul says it tomorrow. And so I sit here in the hotel bed waiting for my  B to come home from work so I can pillow talk with him and hopefully sleep soon. I am mentally reviewing the steps I have to do tomorrow and visualize the inside of the embassy so I am able to complete the task as soon as I can. I have a plane to catch back to BC so I am hoping to finish the interview by 9 AM. 

Tomorrow is the big day. I feel the competitive side of me push the pessimism and fear aside and I see the words form in my head now... "Bring it on!”

February is the so-called month of love and in a couple of days it’ll be Valentines day. Whatever. Right now I don’t really care.

Yes, I am blogging again. They say communication is the key to a successful relationship and I know I should be telling all these things to  B but there is no  B to tell it to as he has decided to turn his back on me and sleep rather than stay up a few more minutes and listen and assure me. But because communication is the key to a successful relationship I will still “communicate”, even if I am just communicating in written form filling the blankness of my journal with words he decided not to hear.

Many times I have heard him say how I don’t blog anymore. What he doesn't understand is that in the past instances that I wrote about him in a not so positive way he reacted poorly that I felt I had to defend my writing which in principle I need not do. And so after those instances, I felt the need to censor myself from my own online journal to avoid hurting him. I cannot write about things that matter to me, I cannot vent any form of ill feelings towards him online, I had to keep it all inside again. And without any form of release, my mind is again frayed of unhealthy thoughts. And since I’ve kept them bottled up for so long,my mind is so exhausted I will have to see a shrink again.

What my mind cannot wrap itself around (and why I am upset) is why my own husband puts up with his ex-wife so much. And here are just some of the examples:

1. He takes care of her son (son from the husband who she was cheating with when  Band her was still married) often. Bringing him to the apartment and treating him like his own son.
2. Allowed her to stay in the apartment he lives in to the point that she folded his clothes.
3. Stays on a phone call with her even though she is not talking about their own children anymore.
4. He tells me that I should give her a chance before I judge her (the ex-wife).
5. Let her text him very late at night over trivial things.

He says I get jealous irrationally. He says I don’t trust him. Perhaps. But then he doesn’t really try to prevent me from being jealous because he never put her in place. He says, "I have to put up with her until our son turns 18". And what of me?!? Am I always the one to put up with both of them?!? Am I always the one to understand?!? Is it really gonna hurt his custody with the kids if he tells her to be considerate and text when it’s not late at night? Will her ex prevent him from seeing his children if he tells her he has to go if she is just raving about what his friend’s son said to their son? Will she ask for more financial support if he tells her to not touch his clothes? NO. But he doesn’t say anything. Even though I asked him nicely or I asked him rudely or I asked him brusquely to tell her to be considerate he doesn’t do it. WHY? I FUCKING DO NOT KNOW WHY!!! Maybe he’s afraid he’d rock the boat. Maybe he still got the hots for her. Maybe, despite what he says, he’s just in denial and is still in love with her. And so my mind goes on overdrive and then I imagine myself moving to the States to a man who probably doesn’t really love me but wanted someone to take care of him and then I'll end up the rest of my life second best forever trying to be the only woman to my husband's eyes and heart but it will never happen. 

I know, these are evil thoughts. But lately it's getting harder and harder not to succumb to my fears since my own husband shuts me down and ignores how I feel expecting me to suck it up and deal with it. Soon I will get to the point when I will have to pack and move to the States. But the way things are lately it feels like I am moving to a prison sentence full of misery and regret instead of a life of bliss and happiness.

If he just even tried one time, ONE TIME! to tell her to shut her face when she starts hammering about stuff my husband shouldn’t even have to deal with. If he just even try one time, ONE FUCKING TIME to tell her to lay off on the texting or calling late at night over things that can wait the next day. Then I guarantee you I will not even bitch about this. But him not telling her to shut her face is not the end of it, because he allows her do this and then whines at me at why she does it over and over. SERIOUSLY!!! Duh. She’s your ex then fucking deal with her. If you aren’t going to then suck it up and don’t come to me looking for sympathy because you ain’t going to get any but my anger which he doesn’t deal with as well.

I’m not a saint. I try to understand his relationship with his ex but I can only understand so much. They say communication is key but he refuses to acknowledge what I say and doesn’t care about what I need. He gets mad when I get mad and jealous. Well, if he doesn’t want me to be jealous over things he could prevent and control, I’ll just blog my anger away and maybe one of these days or weeks or months or years I will be callous enough I wouldn’t even give a damn if he slept with her.

 | V is for vent