About My Real Banis Life
This blog was created to help parents who are struggling to find balance in their busy lives.
Here you will find resources that will help you in multiple areas of your life including:​
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Informative blog posts on mental health, self-care, and gratitude.
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DBT (Dialectical Behaviour Therapy) skills and resources.
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Printables to help organize your time, finances, and health.
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​Printables for fun including journaling prompts, gratitude exercises, activity books, and colouring pages.
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Easy, low to no prep activities you can do with your kids that are simple to print and go without spending hours on Pinterest.
​This is just a short list of the types of things you will find on this site that you can use for your own specific personal needs.
About Me, Raquel Banis
Fun fact, I used to be a robot.
Ok, not an actual robot but pretty damn close.
I've always felt a little "off". The older I got, the more I noticed the differences between myself and my peers. I grew increasingly frustrated with the world around me because a lot of things people did and said just didn't make any logical sense.
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I studied people like it was my full-time job trying to blend in, worried people would not only think I was weird but seriously messed up. If people found out my real thoughts, well, that just couldn't happen.
Robo-Raquel
I spent my whole life blending in, doing what my family, teachers, boyfriends, and bosses expected of me. I thought it was normal and didn't give it any thought.
About My Total Breakdown
Turns out if you spend you whole life people pleasing and never considering your own wants or needs your brain eventually shuts off.
Just Try Harder...
I was definitely pushing myself way too hard at the time but I chalked it up to poor time management (sidebar, that was NOT the case).
Then Came Darkness...
Long story short I ended up hospitalized for three weeks and I was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder. I actually thought it meant I had multiple personalities, which is wild since I considered myself to be relatively educated about mental health.
Then Acceptance...
I got lucky with this one. My almost purely logical brain had no problems wrapping my head around my diagnosis. Reading through the criteria it was like someone had written a book about all the dirty dark secrets in my life that I had been trying my best to hide from the world.
After My Diagnosis
Dialectical Behaviour Therapy.
I Started Therapy...
I did a 5-week distress tolerance group DBT to start. Followed that by two 17-week rounds of group DBT. The first round was brutal, and the second was more brutal but for different reasons. I also started meeting with a therapist bi-weekly during the second round (she's not the reason it was worse, although she does live in my head rent-free now I might add, which I do not remember agreeing to).
More Therapy...
I started a full 6-month group DBT therapy which was two hours a week. I also met with my therapist once a week for an hour to discuss diary cards I had to fill out to make sure I wasn't going off the deep end. I was terrified of this group because I knew it was more in depth than the 17 week groups were. I'm not going to lie and say it was completely awful, but it sure as hell wasn't easy. I worked incredibly hard, did ALL of the homework, did extra readings, and I STILL struggled.
All fixed...
HA. Kidding obviously. The one thing that really surprised me that I did not expect was that everyone in my life seemed to think that since I had "finished" therapy I should be all normal and such. I still continue to attend drop in groups and I work on my skills and workbooks to this day. It's not something that can just be checked off a list and you move on.
Unexpected...
My therapist lost her peer facilitator and I knew how much of a difference having that peer in the groups I attended made to my understanding and processing. At the time I was still in my full DBT and my group had an awesome peer facilitator. When my therapist asked me if I might be interested in peer facilitating with her in the future I legit almost died of shock. Even with all my changed ways of thinking I still thought "there's no way she's serious, there has to be someone more qualified, she must be desperate". It's actually hard to write that out now and admit that even after all that "fixing" I was still defaulting to such a negative mentality.
Peer Facilitating...
I have peer facilitated multiple Emotion Regulation groups and a handful of Interpersonal Effectiveness groups. Turns out I'm actually pretty damn awesome at helping out with the groups. I ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT! I am so incredibly thankful that I was able to receive the help that I needed from these groups and it feels unbelievably amazing to be able to give back and help others.
What's Next?
Keep going. All I know for sure is that I continue to learn new things every week and make more positive changes in my life. This site has always been so important to me and I feel as though I am finally in a season of my life where I am ready to dedicate more time for content. I am genuinely excited for what is to come!