The awakening

I stopped because I could no longer hold on.

And in that silent fall, I understood that my journey began there.

There was a moment when I stopped running and started facing myself. It wasn't a beautiful epiphany or a divine revelation. It was exhaustion. Exhaustion of body, of mind, of years of sustaining a life that seemed stable on the outside but was crumbling on the inside. That exhaustion only appears when there's nothing left to break.

Until then, I lived at a breakneck pace: work, fulfill obligations, cover up, endure, run away. A constant rollercoaster ride to avoid listening to what I'd been carrying inside since adolescence. I disguised it with impulses, noise, addictions, impossible relationships, and a sense of duty that kept me afloat on the outside while I was dissolving inside.

When I stopped using, it was just me and him: that emotional noise I'd been dragging around my whole life. That's when I understood something that had always been right in front of me, something I'd never wanted to look at… that it had a name. And that it had an explanation.

The BPD diagnosis wasn't a shock. It was a mirror.

A mirror that suddenly puts your whole life in order and tells you: “You weren’t crazy, you were hurting.”

My extreme emotions.

My emptiness.

My fear of abandonment.

My impulsiveness.

My lows.

My senseless highs.

My impossible relationships.

My escapes.

It all fit together, not as a character flaw, but as a real disorder that had shaped my life since adolescence.

And when I finally understood, I felt a strange mix: relief at understanding myself and vertigo at the thought: “Now what? What about Lobo? What if I can’t handle this? What if I’m not able to take care of him the way he needs?”

I told my older sister too.

She was silent for two seconds, and then blurted out:

Well, I knew something was wrong with you…”

And look… it hurt.

Not because I said it maliciously, but because it encapsulated the truth of my entire life:

that I had always been "something."

An emotional mystery no one understood, a silent pain no one knew how to name.

It wasn't that I was "wrong," it was that I was alone with something unseen.

The first place I went was to talk to Lorena, the mental health nurse. I was broken, crying uncontrollably. She told me something I'll never forget:

that I'd been in treatment for two years without knowing it, that my progress was real, that I wasn't a danger to my son, but quite the opposite.

That my dedication, my perseverance, and the way I cared for Lobo were proof that I was fighting inside every single day.

That BPD wasn't a sentence, but an explanation… and an opportunity.

From then on, the real awakening began.

Not the diagnosis, but the reconstruction.

It was weekly therapy without fail.

It was psychiatry again and again, fine-tuning my medication.

There were over a hundred group sessions, talking, holding, letting myself be held.

There were hours spent reading studies and books to understand what was inside me.

It was learning to breathe when anxiety tightened my chest.

It was learning to stop when my mind wanted to push me toward an emotional abyss.

It was learning to love without running away and to look at myself without breaking.

The awakening also meant going back, to my childhood, to my relationships, to my patterns, to that way of loving that I repeated so many times without understanding it.

And yes, it hurt.

Hurt doesn't mean failure: it means you're finally touching what you've always avoided.

And in the midst of all that, there was a beacon that never went out: Lobo.

While I was reborn, he grew.

And I knew I needed a father who was present, firm, stable.

Not perfect, not flawless, not heroic… real.

I needed him to love me unconditionally, without disappearing, without repeating stories I myself had suffered.

I needed a father who falls and gets back up, who fights even when he trembles, who doesn't give up because he knows there are eyes watching him and learning.

The awakening was that:

accepting help even though it hurt,

surrendering my pride,

understanding that I couldn't do it alone,

and discovering that what was happening to me had a name, a treatment, and tools.

That I wasn't a monster.

That I wasn't broken beyond repair.

That I could live.

And that Lobo deserved the example of someone who decides to rebuild himself.

Today I know that awakening isn't a day, it's a journey.

A new and honest way of walking.

A life that isn't perfect, not easy, but mine.

A life I want to live…

and that my son deserves to inherit.

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