If Tulips Could Talk

I wrestle with a disorder of emotion disregulation

Disregulation as a result of emotional vulnerability

AND a lack of emotion modulation skills

The theory is

That bpd is rooted in a biological

predisposition

and exasperated by environment

Emotion vulnerability has 3 factors

Sensitivity

Reactivity

Return to baseline

Ohh how long it can take to return to baseline

An invalidating environment seems harsh to say

When I know how loved I AM

But it simply refers to an environment

That does not seem to understand your emotions

& mine were so confusing & complex

It isn’t an easy picture to paint

My inside never matched my outsides

And the outsides were always changing

I couldn’t keep up with the constant rearranging

A child who’s emotional needs aren’t met

Learns to escalate behaviour until the environment responds

And It does eventually

Strengthening behaviour through reward

Parenting is SO impossibly hard

I believe we do the absolute best we can

I am here today

Because the roots of my rearing

Stood fast

Margaret Linehan used the ‘Tulip & Rose Garden’

Metaphor to explain

A rose planted in a tulip garden

Will not flourish

A rose needs to be nourished

In a different way

THey have different growing requirements

— and let me add the rose holds no resentments

It just simply cannot bloom

I gave my mother a rose bush

At the beginning of my journey as a mother

She has always loved tulips

They bloomed bright and beautiful

In all the many gardens she’s had in all the many places

We’ve called home

In facing and revealing

There has been SO much healing

Today in her tulip garden our rose bush

T H R I V E S

Dialectical Behaviour Therapy, sobriety, and gratitude

began to groom

The perfect soil

For a rose to bloom.