Los Angeles Paz
Los Angeles Paz
2:45 p.m. (Pacific Daylight Time)
I ’ m unfortunately alive enough to tell my therapist how I wish I was as dead on the outside as I feel on the inside.
I usually don’t tell Raquel when I’m having strong suicidal urges, but it’s like my defenses are down after all of this week’s
self-harming and spiraling about my doomed future. At the start of every session, Raquel always asks how the week was, and
I basically give her my “Previously On” recap like my life is some TV show. As we dive deeper into the Golden Heart rejection, I really feel like this past week was the penultimate episode of my life. One more week until the series finale,
where there will be a funeral like most great shows.
Seven more days until I can kill myself on the tenth anniversary of Dad’s death. I need to hold it together for seven more
days, pretend like I’m Survivor Paz or some bullshit, who cares.
Raquel is sitting across from me in her beige leather chair. She’s like thirty-five or something with streaks of pink in her blond hair and a sleeve of bunny silhouette tattoos hopping along her light brown skin. She always has this welcoming smile, which I don’t get because don’t people come into this cozy office all day with their heavy baggage? I used to wonder if she was dead inside like me and smart enough to make money off other people’s pain without being affected, but I’m sure she’s just got her shit together.
“I’m proud of you,” Raquel says.
“Why, I didn’t do anything.”
“Exactly. It would’ve been so easy for your suicidal thoughts to result in destructive behaviors, but you didn’t hurt yourself
at all. Did you feel any temptation to do so?”
I didn’t tell her about all the vicious self-harming. “Yeah,” I say, because even I’m not a good enough actor to sell the
lie that it wouldn’t have come up at all.
“That’s understandable. You should be as proud of yourself as I am for being gentle with yourself. What are some of the ways
you self-cared this week?”
I spent more time hurting than caring, but I did do some. “Little things. Hung out with the fam. Took my meds. Talked about
my feelings. Stuff like that.”
Raquel nods. “All great things.”
“But that’s not enough to save someone in the long run, right? I mean, I did all that stuff before and still tried killing
myself.”
“No, but you chose to show love to yourself anyway.”
That advice pisses me off. Anyone can tell me to love myself, this isn’t something Mom should be wasting her money on. “I hate that I have to work so hard to love myself,” I say through gritted teeth, which is one of the most honest things I’ve told my therapist. “Everyone else has it so easy, they just wake up and live their lives, but not me.”
“You’re not alone in this pain, but I know how it must feel that way,” Raquel says, which she must say hourly to all her other
suicidal clients. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to speak to you about that I hope will provide some clarity. A diagnosis,
if you’re open to it.”
I scoff. “What, like you think I’m crazy or something?”
“I absolutely do not think that, and you shouldn’t either.”
“I don’t think I’m crazy, but everyone else does.”
“This is all connected, Paz. Are you familiar with borderline personality disorder?”
Never heard of it, but it doesn’t sound great. “What is that, like multiple personalities?”
Raquel shakes her head. “People with borderline personality disorder—BPD for short—are known to struggle with impulsive behaviors, severe mood swings, and managing their emotions. It’s often misdiagnosed as bipolar disorder, even by other therapists, but bipolar comes in waves of episodes whereas BPD is always present and even more delicate. Something small can be emotionally devastating, and even if logically you don’t think it warrants that reaction, it can be difficult to settle down. There’s a chance this could’ve been passed down through your family, possibly your father’s side given everything you’ve shared about his upbringing, but I believe your BPD stems from childhood trauma. Not just the incident with your father, but all the abuse you witnessed that led up to you killing him, and everything that has followed you ever since.”
This feels like the moment in a fantasy novel when someone is told they’ve been gifted with magical powers from their ancestors,
except I’m being told that I’ve been cursed with a mental disorder thanks to my dad and trauma.
My breath gets caught. “Is it bad?”
Raquel is smiling for some mysterious reason. “Of course it isn’t bad. Some of my favorite people have BPD. I specialize in
working with clients who have it too.”
“You were recommended because of suicidal stuff. We didn’t know that I— Wait, does my mom know that I got BPD?”
“No, this is as confidential as everything else in our sessions. Regarding our relationship here, as we were working on addressing
your suicidal ideation, I was searching for the root of it all. Everything falls in line with BPD.”
“Then how long have you known this about me?”
“Within our first month working together,” Raquel says casually, like it’s totally okay that she’s been keeping a secret about
me and from me for three months.
I’m about to have one of those severe mood swings. “Why are you just telling me now?”
“A diagnosis like BPD can be a lot for someone to stomach, so I needed to trust that you would be able to take care of yourself outside of this office. The way you’ve been self-regulating despite your many struggles showed me that you were ready to receive this information. What I would really like to address moving forward are your challenges with loving yourself. This disorder is the cause of many sensitivities that interfere with a sense of self. An emptiness and hopelessness brought on by others’ perceptions of you. Fears of abandonment, which might sound strange, but would have been born out of your father’s death. And the suicide attempt, of course. Everything you feel because of BPD is bigger. Your highs are higher and your lows are lower.”
My highs are higher and my lows are lower.
“Is this why I sometimes feel too much... and feel dead inside?”
Raquel nods. “We can work together to better protect you moving forward.”
“Protect me from what?”
“A pull toward other reckless behavior such as self-harm, drugs and drinking, unsafe sex.”
In other words, protect me from myself and some impulses I’ve already given in to.
Maybe I should tell Raquel all about my self-harming and sex with two guys from the Last Friend app and even my second suicide
attempt. But if everything about this diagnosis is true, what’s more important is asking her how she’s gonna save me from
this so I can escape all these spirals that led to those behaviors. “What’s the cure?”
“There is no cure for BPD.”
And it’s cruel fates like this that make me feel dead inside and on the verge of tears. “No cure?”
“There are only treatments. If you’re willing, I’d love to get you involved in DBT—dialectical behavior therapy. It’s a six-month program designed to give you the tools you need to self-regulate during the most extreme of circumstances. The group meets once a week, which could reduce your feelings of loneliness as you navigate this diagnosis. I’m also one of the two counselors leading the program, so we can always discuss how you’re feeling in our individual sessions.” Raquel leans forward with a small smile. “It’s beautiful witnessing how people emerge from DBT feeling so much more in control over their lives, but I can’t force you to do this, Paz. It has to be your choice.”
I’ve already been counting down to my desired End Day, struggling with how far away seven days feels. There’s no way in hell
I’m choosing to live for six more months, all in the hopes that I can live an even longer life with an incurable mental disorder.
The clock strikes three, and I get up from the couch.
“You don’t have to decide today,” Raquel says. “Call me if you have any questions or concerns. I’m here for you.”
“Sure. Thanks,” I say, and I mean it. She really tried.
“I’ll see you next week,” Raquel says.
No, you won’t , I wanna say.
I lie one last time instead. “See you next week.”
4:15 p.m.
The entire walk home, I’m questioning who I am.
I don’t feel real, it’s like I’m some fucking puppet whose strings are being pulled by emotions and there’s nothing I can do except hang there and go where they take me. This diagnosis has got me second-guessing everything. Whenever I got depressed or pissed off and self-harmed, was it even that serious or just my BPD blowing something out of proportion? And yeah, what about Dad? Did I have BPD back when I killed Dad? Was that an impulse beyond my control?
Or was that just me?
I drag my feet up to my front door but don’t go in yet. I don’t know how to bring this up to Mom. She already feels guilty
for not leaving Dad sooner, she’ll just spiral when she discovers that I’m sick in the head because of him. I’ll keep this
to myself like everything else that would break her heart.
I walk inside the house and find Mom and Rolando hugging on the couch. At first I think Mom is laughing, but I realize she’s
crying into his shoulder. She gasps when the door closes behind me and she looks at me like I’m a ghost.
“Pazito.” Mom wipes away her tears. “Hi, my son. How was therapy?”
Something is happening, but watching Mom trying to play it down makes me feel like a kid again during all those times when
she had just been arguing with or hit by Dad. I look at Rolando, trying to read any guilt on his face because if he broke
his promise to never hit my mom I would kill him—
It’s just a thought.
People think it all the time, even if they would never actually kill someone.
But I’ve actually done it, and my out-of-control impulses might make me do it again.
“What’s going on?” I ask, my heart pounding in my ears.
“I still wasn’t feeling well, so I visited my doctor,” Mom says, then she’s quiet.
This is gonna be bad. Death-Cast will be calling Mom soon, but when?
Rolando squeezes Mom’s hand. “Do you want time to think first?”
I snap, “What, no! Are you dying, Mom? You gotta tell me now, you can’t—”
Mom gets up from the couch, shushing Rolando as he urges me to calm down, and she holds on to my arms as I’m shaking. “I’m
not dying, Pazito.” She has a soft smile as she looks at me with her teary red eyes and brushes my cheek. “I’m pregnant.”
There are so many thoughts swirling around in my head plus one emotion that’s growing in my heart, but I don’t know if it
will show its face, if it’s even true, but I feel it. “Are you messing with me...? Is that what the doctor said? Are you
sure because...?”
“Because I’m so ancient?” Mom says with a laugh, like she knows how ludicrous this is. “I’m forty-nine. It’s rare, but it’s
possible for me to carry a child.”
“But it is scary,” Rolando says. “That is what we were discussing just now. The many complications.”
“It’s scary, but life is scary.” Mom squeezes my hand. “I was scared to bring you into this world, and you have been my greatest joy.” She leads me to the couch and sits between me and Rolando. “This was the last thing I thought the doctor was going to tell me, so there’s a lot for us to discuss as a family.”
“It’s whatever you want, Mom,” I say.
“I raised you right.” Mom playfully elbows Rolando. “Didn’t I raise him right?”
There are a lot of people online who won’t agree with Mom, but Rolando does. “Yes, Glo, of course, but we have to be certain
this is what is best for the family. I have loved you for thirty years, and I used to dream about having a baby with you.
It still is a dream, but I am concerned we will lose you to the pregnancy.” He puts his hand on her belly. “Both of you.”
I can’t believe that life is growing inside Mom this very moment.
“We’ll do early screenings. Many of them,” Mom says, wanting this so badly, it’s like when I was a kid who begged for a dog
but Dad said no. “I wish Death-Cast could predict miscarriages, but we’ll have to do this the old-fashioned way. If the doctors
advise that the pregnancy is too risky, then I will get an abortion. It will be difficult, but I would do it. Know that I
love you both too much to leave you.”
“Good because I want to love you for many more years,” Rolando says, resting his hand over her engagement ring.
Mom faces me. “What do you think, Pazito?”
“You love being a mom,” I say.
“I will always be a mom thanks to you. How do you feel about being a big brother?”
I don’t know how to feel about being a big brother because I don’t know which feelings are even mine and which feelings belong to my disease. Maybe this pregnancy is life’s way of asking me to stick around. To go through dialectical behavior therapy to treat my borderline personality disorder. To get better so I can look after my little sibling. This kid is gonna be so lucky to have Mom and Rolando as parents, my life would’ve been so much better if Rolando was my dad.
This pregnancy also feels like another signal, one that’s only making that emotion in my heart grow and grow and grow.
“Everything about this makes me happy,” I say.
Mom tears up with the biggest smile and pulls me into a hug. “We could all use some more happiness, don’t you think?”
I’m happy for Mom.
I’m happy for Rolando.
Most important, I’m happy for me because now that Mom will have a new baby to look after, I can go kill myself in peace.
Tonight.