Woes of having Borderline

It's been a bad few weeks. A very bad few weeks.

Not eating, having health issues. Family member who is very sick. Putting my cat down.

I've tried to cope the best that I can, with the skills that I have. But I falter still.

The four main things that are taught in DBT Skills are:

1. Get proper sleep
2. Eat 
3. Take Medication 
4. Avoid alcohol or drugs

Here's my problem lately to maintain these four basic skills.

1. I have sleep apnea. I require a CPAP machine to get rest. Without it I do not go into REM sleep.
2. I live in poverty. I cannot afford to eat 3 meals a day when my body is normal. My body has not been normal lately. I have stomach pain after I eat, massive diarrhea, and I won't go into the emberassing stuff because it shames me.
3. I try to take my medication every day. I must admit, sometimes I fail at this. 
4. I don't do drugs. But last Saturday, I drank. I drank and took pills. Not enough to do the job properly, but I took them.

I'm trying my best with what I have. And I've had to put my cat down because he was sick. I'm having housing issues, and am in physical pain every day. All while trying to do my best for my community and my city.

Abandonment is a huge issue for people with my diagnosis. So while in the process of making friends, allies, really good people who have helped me in times of crisis, are also the people that I drive away.

For those I've driven away recently, please understand I'm trying my best. I will start to look after me and take care of me, so that I can be healthy for my family, friends, community, and city.

I hope that you can forgive me, and know that my diagnosis, is not who I am, it's the side effects of the diagnosis.

I hope that we can be friends and allies together. Because we ARE in this together.

Enough in motion

One of our assignments yesterday with Erin Dingle was to write about who we want our audience to be on National Day to Eradicate Poverty. These were some of my answers:

The United Nations
The Honorable Premier Justin Trudeau
David Swann
Joe Ceci
Mayor Nenshi
Tim Richter
John Rook
Paul Born
Prince William
Brad Pitt
Christian Slater
President of the United States
Marsha Linehan
CTV, CBC, BBC, Global television
Ellen Degenres
Walmart Canada
Suncor Energy
Imperial Oil
All of yyc council
And the United Way.

People who could hear our stories. Get our message to them. And hopefully, make change happen.
Poverty is a humanitarian issue, and people in Canada deserve better. My son and his family and children, and EVERYONE deserves, better.

They deserve Enough, because they are deserving Enough.

Letter to Poverty

As an exercise yesterday, I was asked to write a letter to poverty, this was my letter as of yesterday:

Dear Poverty,

FUCK YOU! You're such a fucken asshole. How dare you! How dare you make me feel ashamed and worthless and a piece of shit? How dare you make me feel like a burden and make me slash my wrists, or take those pills, or provoke police to shoot me?

How dare you make me not smile at men and make me feel like I'll NEVER be good enough or smart enough to associate with them? WHY is MY son NOT worth food and love and Christmas presents to you?

Why do you kick me the fuck down and bury me deeper in your dark pit of a hole?

Why are you making me KILL my fucken cat? MY CAT!!! The one who loves and comforts me?

The one who's kissed me in all of my scars and suicidal mess?

FUCK YOU!!

Affordable Childcare

Not only is affordable housing a necessity in my city of Calgary, so is the need for affordable child care. Here is the reality I see in my neighbourhood of Lincoln Park, a community mostly of people who live in affordable housing.

This morning I dealt with a 5-year-old boy in my neighbourhood. He had been beating up on other kids. When I went to the home, it was his teenage brother and sister looking after him. Mom was at work.

Earlier another neighbour had told me that the kids were out of school today. She wondered how she would get a job with a one year old baby and her son going to Kindergarten. If she put them in Daycare, the money she brought in would not be enough to pay for the child care, let alone food, rent, etc...

Last week I sat down with another mom in the community. She asked if I could watch her kids every Friday as they have half days that day, she has a full-time job. Plus the kids have many parent teacher days, again, day care is not affordable. I have watched kids in my neighbourhood before, and the need is growing more and more.

Parents with multiple children are leaving it up to the older children to watch the younger ones, as it is just too expensive for day care.

I remember this as a night shift clerk working at a gas station. What day care is open during the night to watch your child?

A 14-year-old boy where I work, comes in every day to get food for his siblings. He is the responsible shopper, the one who looks after his family. He should be doing sports, recreation, enjoying his adolescence. He is such a responsible, polite young man, I wish I could do more for him.

I can't watch every child in my community, so how do we access the assets in every community to fix this issue? Because I know that it's happening all over Calgary. Parents and children are suffering. I see, hear, and feel the anguish parents are going through. And I see the lack of being what you are supposed to be as a youth.

Can't we do better Calgary?

Why I'm leaving my Community Association

After serving two years on the board as Lincoln Park Liaison with the Rutland Park Community Association, many community members have been asking me why I am stepping down.

I want to tell you about my experiences while on the board, why I initially joined, why I am leaving, and why I hope for this work to continue.

To start, why I joined. I saw an interest. The President of the Community Association (CA) saw value in the community, the work we were doing, and took an interest. For me, I wanted to see more engagement from surrounding community, regular events taking place for people who struggled to afford it at the hall, and the stigma of my neighborhood lessen.

My experiences: Almost completely amazing. All board members have treated me with dignity, respect, and take my ideas into serious consideration. They have listened, encouraged, and supported me. There have been a few disheartening moments.

On September 26, 2016, the parents, kids, artist, the Calgary Foundation, Calgary Housing Company, our Calgary Police Community Resource Officer our City Councillor, our MLA and our community gathered for an unveiling celebration of our communities "Painting Hope" project. All board members of the CA were aware of this and not a single board member showed up. That discouraged and angered me.


A few other issues came up, such as communication. But not within the board itself. By the Calgary Housing Company, City of Calgary social worker, Bethany Chapel, and the CA. There were tons of things going on in the community that the board had no idea about, and that even I, had no idea about, because there was no communication.

Also as soon as I started to trust and develop a good working relationship with a City of Calgary worker, they would leave and we'd have to start all over again.

The board and the social event coordinator worked extremely hard on bringing in events to the CA, unfortunately, the CA hall has limited space. So we looked for our community assets outside of the hall.

There has been a lot of success. Of new spaces taking on different projects to create community in our neighbourhood.

Now why I am leaving. During my initial start of joining the board. I had finally started to develop a good working relationship and trust with an organisation I used to hate. We worked on community events together, we solved problems together, and through that organisation there were some digital communication experts to speak with.

Unfortunately, the community worker with the organisation moved, I was left with a new person. The communication with the digital experts I began to depend on, and things spiralled out of control.

I won't, and cannot go into details. Let's just say there was errors on both sides of this. Mine and them. It ended with me being banned from all of their events. So, to work with my community in a healthy way, I have to communicate with this organisation, and now I cannot.

My lawyer has informed me that I cannot go into details, so I apologise for that. It leaves a lot of questions unanswered.

The reasons why I am leaving are many.

1. I want my community to be healthy, productive, thrive, and excel. I do not feel I can help with this anymore.
2. From what I understand, I have been the first Calgary Housing tenant to sit on a community board and be a liaison.
3. Our time in Calgary Housing is limited, it is time for another tenant to take over and become a leader for our community. For me to stay on, is defeating what I want to see done, my neighbours become leaders.
4. Because I have been banned and cannot work with this organisation in a healthy, respectful, positive role; I do my community a disservice, and I am not willing to do that.

What I hope for my community:

1. That they will continue to see the value in having a Lincoln Park liaison on the board.
2. That they will treat them with the same respect, courtesy, and value as they have done with me.
3. That the communication will improve among all members.
4. That the community thrives and we are all more involved in community events as a whole.

I do not regret my time with the board. They have been a fabulous team to work with. It had it's ups and downs. As a CHC tenant, I can say that I had been personally attacked by community members while on the board, but I would do it, all over again.

It's just time to move on.

World Suicide Prevention Day

So, in a little under 2 hours time it is World Suicide Prevention Day, or #SuicideAwarenessDay.

Just a few thoughts, of course I have many more.

I will write to you about how I, as a person with the diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder explained here:  and major depression episodes, as a person who lives in poverty, and as a person who has lost people who I have loved, feel about this day. I can only speak to you about my own experience, because every single person, experiences life, feelings, and everything they encounter differently.

To begin: I was 15 when I first attempted suicide. In Junior High School. I took all of the pills that I could gather up and brought them with me to my school. I took them all, in the bathroom basement of that school. I went to a few classes after that. Don't ask me what I felt or remember, because I do not. I was in a haze, for the rest of that day.

Later that night I went to my best friends house, I remember that she asked me what was wrong and that she took me to the doctor's office. The doctor called my parents who I believe came and took me to the Foothill's hospital. In my fogged memory, I remember sitting in a room for hours until they came in and gave me charcoal, I spent a little over a week there and I don't believe I saw a psychiatrist at that time.

It was a few years later that I experienced my first encounter with someone who took their own life. I remember the heartbreak and the sorrow, seeing the devastation it caused people, but also understanding the idea, and the thought and feeling and desire to not want to live any more.

In people with the diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder, 10% of people with the diagnosis successfully end up taking their lives. So far, I am lucky to be not one of those statistics. I don't know what the stats are of people with depression.

I can tell you, that the loss of a loved one carry through on their suicide plan, never stopped me from trying it again. Because I forget everything when I am in that state of mind. My thoughts are:

"This is the best thing for everyone, everyone is better off without me."
"I am a burden to society and by taking my life I will never be a burden again."
"Everyone hates me and I hate myself too, why go on? This will never get better."

Occasionally, I would cut myself. There is always that scar later on that will remind me every day just how ugly of a person I really am.

When a really good friend of mine took her own life I was actually jealous of her. How she could be brave enough to do that. Honestly, that was my thoughts and my feelings at the time.

I would talk to people, but....why bother? All they will tell me is those lies. "Things will be OK." "Those are lies." "Do you have anything to harm yourself?"

I would just like for people to say: "Yes, life does suck sometimes." "I can't understand what you are going through, but know that I will be here for you through this all."

Don't tell me my thoughts are "crazy", that I'm "attention seeking", that there is something "wrong" with me.

You see, it's a horribly dark, disturbing world there. And I have known a few people who have taken their lives. The family misses them, they love them. They will always love them.

I know that stats show that parent's who have taken their lives, their children have a higher chance of committing suicide in the future. My psychiatrist has told me this, nurses have told me this, police officers have told me this. It was not until I started my own intensive research that I believed their words.

Nevertheless, when you are in that dark horrible world, you honestly believe what your brain is telling you.

It's not that the person that took their life was not brave enough, or strong enough, or courageous enough. It's WHO they are while they were alive that matters.

But today is World Suicide Prevention Day. So all that I ask, from people for me when I feel this way.

1. Just be there to validate and support me. Don't tell me I need help or that I'm crazy or that there is something "wrong" with me.
2. Validate what I am going through. And listen. Don't tell me you "understand" unless you've actually felt it, experienced it, or been through it.

And for those that may be reading this, and are suicidal and/or thinking or planning their own suicide. I can say please don't. But who am I? Just hold on for one more day, reach out for help, and know that you are loved.

Even if you don't feel loved right now, or that supported right now, or you want to reach for help right now; pick up that phone, put down whatever you have that will take you from this world, and carry on, help is there.

I always play the song "Hold On." By Wilson Phillips. It tells you to carry on for one more day, and if that day comes and nothing is better, I play the song again the next day, until it is.