So my therapist forgot about me.

It’s been a long time since I last wrote, even though I have been meaning to and wanting to do it for a long time.

I guess life and depression have gotten on my way. See, I said it, just there.. Depression. This is a new word in my vocabulary in describing myself. It has always been ‘just anxiety’, even though apparently I’ve been in a hazy phase of not realising that what I was experiencing was not ‘normal meh feeling’, but indeed depression. Oh well, what a surprise. I’m just… a bit sad that I was not told any earlier.. I can’t blame this on my therapist, as I’m sure she tried many times, but I was just completely blind to the idea and just went on about how I just was anxious and how life just wasn’t that particularly interesting for me.

Anyway, I guess I’ll try to get to the real point now then?

So I’ve been giving up and then not giving up and then giving up on therapy for a long long time now. Last time I told my therapist that I felt like she didn’t care about me, so I wanted to quit and I was, for the first time (even though I have told her I wanted to quit before) completely prepared and ready to walk away. I felt like all was done and said and over, that our relationship was not worth working for and that she didn’t care enough.

I sent her a brief email stating that I think we need to stop seeing each other. Well, because we meet over Skype, we still met the next time, because she didn’t reply to my email and I was a wuss and sat behind the computer because I wasn’t sure if she was going to call or not. Anyway, when she did, I felt like it was a stretch. And stated it very clearly that I’m not willing to continue, because she won’t tell me if she cares or not – sounds like an idiotic bratty thing to do, but I am deteriorating, I am more depressed than ever and I feel like I need help. And I need people that care about me, because I can’t deal with other extra problems at this moment, so I felt like I was protecting myself from just another heart ache.

Anyway, she replied by
‘of course I care’ and ‘I have told you many times that I do’ – I called her out on that. She has NEVER told me that she cared. not once. All she does is ask why it matters to me so much. It matters because I’m human and I need to know that I’m cared for or at least tolerated to be able to work on my personal issues with somebody week in week out.

Right, so we talked about it and decided to continue, because well, surprise, she did care anyway, or at least that’s what she said.

So to the next time. We were supposed to have a Skype call at 14.00, by 14.20 I emailed her asking if today’s therapy was cancelled. Well, she then called and said she completely forgot. She was very apologetic and seemed genuinely sorry and at that time I felt fine about it. I think it’s humane. It’s normal to forget sometimes and I was her last client of the day and she obviously got things mixed up. I have a few follow up questions for her, though. Anyway, she apologised many times and said that it does not reflect on how she feels about me and that it doesn’t mean that she doesn’t care about me. And I brushed it off like nothing happened…

Guess what?! Maybe I should not have?? Maybe I should have said that it’s a bit of a bad timing to forget, as we just discussed the not caring thing. Or that I felt like I didn’t matter still. I don’t know.. but the thing is that at the time when we were talking on Skype, I did feel fine. Now that a few days have gone by, I’m like… has she only forgotten about me?? has she done it before? Is it like a deliberately done thing and she is trying to tell me to piss off? Is it related to the session we had before and she just is too soft to tell me that she doesn’t care so she tries to do this instead?

Oh man, my head is in a spiral and even though I would like to go on and on and on about it, I’ll publish this instead, because otherwise I will never publish it and it’ll be just another draft in the row 🙂

Cheers and I hope to be posting a bit more regularly now! Thanks for reading my rant, it makes me feel less alone.

Am I a hopeless case?

Today the words are not coming out easy, I am trying to figure out who I am and what my actions are triggered by. I feel so broken. Not incredibly sad, not desperate, not… hurt. Just broken, flawed.

The things with my current therapist have not been easy, I seem to have some sort of anger towards her that she’s hoping to probably address tomorrow and I can’t really do it on the distance. I feel like the work we are doing is too intimate to be doing it over the Skype and therefore I want to cancel. I feel like she’s not supportive and/or caring enough and like I’m never enough for her. I don’t know what it even means but I just want to cry and yell and storm off while letting her know that it actually breaks me down to little peaces knowing that I’ll never be enough of a person for her to actually care about me. And as she has asked before – why does it matter to me if she does – I don’t know. I just … I wish it was over. I want her to care because I feel like she knows me more than anybody really as I have had to be so very honest with her about myself. So if she doesn’t care, then…what’s the possibility that somebody ever does? I don’t know, it really kind of messes me up this thing. I feel like an abandoned kitten, whatever that’s supposed to mean.

I have to be very honest… I have really seriously thought about quitting therapy with her. One thing is that it’s via Skype now but the other thing is that I feel like we are on this very messy road currently where all the boundaries have been messed up big time and there is no consistency in them. Sometimes she loves me, is so supportive, offers me all the hugs and kind words and everything, the other times I feel like she can’t stand me. It kinda hurts.. it’s like.. can you make up your mind and we can then just move on with our lives?

So as I have felt that way for some time already, I figured that I’d give it a go and see another therapist, as I’ve never really tried therapy with somebody else… It would be great to be able to see somebody in real life. Sooooo I made a call to a local therapy centre and they invited me in to do an initial interview, which was with this one therapist and I kinda spent an hour there just going through the basics and now they go back and think who would be the best fit for me from them and then it’ll be up to me to go and see that person and then decide if I want to continue with it or not. A bit complicated maybe, but no biggie!

So in I went, I had my initial interview with a male therapist – something I was very unsure about. But A., an older man that looked freaking exactly like Robin Williams from Good Will Hunting, was a very lovely person and I actually enjoyed my time there. I was so scared that I would not speak at all or that I wouldn’t know what to answer when asked why I was there… But actually it was fine. I surprised myself by being very open and chatty and honest and I told him basically the very short version of my life and he was very kind and we even joked around a little and it was actually very pleasant. He thanked me numerous times for sharing with him, which really gave me a very good feeling and made me more trusting towards him. Anyway I had a good time if so can say.

Now, the plan is to wait until they make a decision and give me a time available. They said they still have a waiting list, so it probably is not a very short process, but I’ll see. Once they give me a new therapist, I’ll give that a try and then I will need to make a decision on how to proceed with my current and possibly a new therapist and see if I would like to continue with my old T or the new T.

I feel like a horrible person for going behind my therapist’s back and I feel like I am cheating on her, but I try to put myself first at the moment and I just… hope that it will work out ok instead of blowing up in my face.

Right, think this rant was long enough?? I’m just.. so scared of tomorrow and I can’t wait for it to be over, but I know once it’s over I’m sad it’s done and wish I could go back in time and still have her attention… oh man, this is messy!!

Cheers for all the lovely people out there handling their life much better than I do!

Sadness is a funny thing.

I feel like I’m a loose puzzle piece that belongs to nowhere. I’m just somehow so sad. It has taken me years of therapy to get to the point where I feel things, but now that I’m here, I feel like this was a work not worth doing..

I feel so alone, even though I have my amazing husband by my side. I feel like my therapist left me, even though I was the one leaving. I feel like I’m not part of anything anymore. I used to be, but now it seems to be over. All of it.

I think what makes me saddest of the point is the change in the relationship between me and therapist.
The last time we met in real life, things were really nice, I had what I can think would be one of the best sessions until the day. The end of the session though was abrupt and rushed and honestly fairly so, because I was the last client of the day and she was in a hurry and stayed a bit later with me anyway, but I somehow felt like I overstepped the boundaries and that I expected more from her (unfairly). What I guess I would have hoped for would have maybe been a bit more compassion? Or.. I don’t really know even, like a good bye kind of thing? Not just ‘see you next week via Skype bye’.. It was silly to hope for that, but I guess it was important to me to have a moment with her.

I think because of not getting what I hoped for, I now feel like I need to push her away and never look back. Like it’s done deal and she’s done with me and our ‘relationship’ is over. For the first 1,5 weeks I never thought about it really. I was just going on with my life and not once thought about how the session went. I was even a little bit proud of myself for not feeling so god damn embarrassed about the few tears I had in my eyes when I left. When we were to start the first Skype call though, I got shy and then was the first moment when I realised that things between us were changed. That I didn’t want to continue, that for me it was like dragging along a dead relationship and that I felt like we had broken up.

I managed to keep a straight face and not say anything about it and it was ok. I do have two more sessions booked and I’m trying to keep myself open to the idea of starting to enjoy the different relationship we have now, but..I’m sad. I’m sad how things ended and I’m sad for not feeling the closeness to her I used to. I miss the feeling. It makes me feel very lonely. And somehow like a fake, as I don’t think I can be honest about this. I wish there was a way to make this better, but knowing how I handle things like these it won’t be the easiest thing to happen. I think I’m defeated.

Therapeutic relationship most certainly is one of the most difficult relationship types I’ve ever experienced. One has to be so close to somebody who doesn’t feel the same. It’s impossible for me to completely yield to the idea of sharing all that goes on in my head with somebody that is there for the job, but I’ve felt a few times like they really are there for the people as well… Still at moments like these, I feel like I’ve done it wrong by trusting her a little more than I planned in the beginning. And that if I was to say that I want out and I want to find somebody who I can see face to face, it would mean that I’d just move on to somebody new and put allll my unrealistic hopes on somebody else so… I don’t think that is of a better outcome really…

So I’ve been in therapy for almost 3 years now. Ambivalent is what I would call my opinion on the accomplishments. I think it’s a win-lose situation and as you rid of old stupid habits, one is in a position to pick up new different unsuitable coping mechanisms. Also to have come out of the ‘nothing phases me, I own up to no emotions’ state and become what is described as ‘human’ doesn’t feel amazing. The emotions I thought I missed a little bit, well… Miss them no more!! Take them back from where they came from and leave me to be my old numb thing.

I guess my phobias all in all are more under control and that was why I went to therapy in the first place – so maybe it’s a good time to surrender and take the final bow? The mix of emotions is leaving me exhausted and like I should be placed into a rehab to deal with the withdrawal symptoms from therapy that I am experiencing. I should do better with the time I’ve invested in therapy, but all in all I feel if one is not ready to be better, get better and do the work, it simply just won’t happen.

So rough feelings, odd life, odd day and a bit of loneliness mixed with homesickness today!

Hope You guys are having a better day!

“Sometimes it takes a meltdown to cool down.”

Oh maaaaan… It’s been confusing. Life is confusing and changes keep happening around me and I feel so out of control and lost and occasionally a little bit happy, but then lost again and then hopeless. So very ambivalent. Very!

Right, so the move to England went OK! I Even got to meet my lovely lovely friend on the way in Germany – that was really amazing, we had a lovely (though sadly very short) time together and it definitely helped me to focus on what’s head instead of what I had to leave behind. On the rest of the journey I had the chance to meet some lovely horses – yep, really! and people and needless to say we were beyond exhausted once we got to our apartment. That was on Friday, so nearly a week ago. For Saturday we planned on staying in bed until noon, watching movies, eating good food, resting. Well.. needless to say we found it impossible! By 9 in the morning we had unpacked, cleaned, cooked, had the breakfast and out the door. Crazy people 🙂 The rest of the days have gone by quickly – trying to figure out where to move the horse, where we should have the permanent living etc.

Today I had my first Skype therapy session… I figured I’d be desperate for a session and that I’d miss my therapist so crazy much and cling to her every word. To my very big surprise after the ‘good bye’ on last Monday.. it has been like.. done. I didn’t miss her, I didn’t think about her as much as I usually do, I didn’t even feel like messaging her or anything… I felt it was very weird considering how on our last session I left with tears falling down my face… She’s seen me cry like two tears once before, but I’m hopeful that she didn’t notice.  Anyway I just… cried a little this time when saying good bye to her and I’m 100% that she did notice, she hugged me twice and wished me good luck and off I went. For whatever reason it felt like a breakup. I guess for me it was just… what my brain figured.

So today, I felt resistant… I felt like we were not close anymore and like why would she ask me anything or expect like I wanted to share anything with her.. I know it’s her still and I know we’ve known each other for a long time and that she’s been there for me for ages and cares about me, but… It feels somehow like I’m finished with it.

Of course she picked up on it, I’m not the best at hiding how I feel about things, so she asked about it, but I denied everything. I do feel a little bit bad about leaving her in the dark, but I am such apparently.  She asked if I wanted to keep on going with therapy and I said I didn’t know… that she could just decide for the both of us. And she didn’t. Well she kind of did, but meanwhile was telling me how it is something that she can’t do. Anyways I’m booked for the next week. I’m so confused about how I just suddenly felt so far from her, so distant, so …different. Like all the past we had was now like finished, closed, put away. I wish I just felt the way I used to about her and that everything would have been the way it was last time I moved.

I will try to keep on going for a few more times to see if we get the ‘magic’ back. I somehow feel beyond the help anyway, so am a bit more sceptical maybe than usual, but maybe that will also change once we have more certainty in our lives and we have settled in already.

This was the most pointless post I’m sure, but I’m so tired all the time and it was kind of the best I could do for now. Otherwise it would have been another week of silence I’m sure..

Thank you for taking the time to read my rant on nothing special, hope you had a lovely day!

 

Photo by James Wheeler on Pexels.com

Things do not change; we change.

We are jumping head on into the new era. It is freaking me out big time, but also making me feel so alive. i don’t really know, if what we are doing is as crazy as people seem to think or if I’m just blinded by the excitement currently and don’t see just yet how what I’m doing is taking a leap into the unknown hastily without considering all the consequences and how it influences others around me.

So in 2 days we start our move to UK, London. It’s not like we have not lived in the other country before… and my husband has an amazing work opportunity there.. So we have a place ready for us and I get to bring my furry pal who I could not go without (but she’s joining us later once we have settled in and have a pet-friendly house ready) and we have organised everything here, horses have a ‘babysitter’ for the time being and all seems …ok.

What I am worried about is that I have not really taken the time to see that I will not be seeing my friends, I will not have my home, I will not have my family and that I will only be able to keep going with therapy through Skype… It scares me. I mean to be that close to the move and only now to start thinking about it is a risky business… I’m unsure if I should just try and ignore everything until I’ve gone through the motion or try to work it out quickly and see what my brain has come up with..

Tomorrow I’ll have a little gathering with my closest friends and Monday I’ll have the last therapy session. We agreed to make it longer, so we could go through the notes I keep on my phone. I started to keep a list of things I didn’t dare to bring up in therapy but really wanted to talk about. I never told her until like half a year back when I blurted out that I have this list and that I sometimes read the list before the therapy and then see if  I can gather the courage to tell her about one of the things. It’s mostly to do with the relationship between me and her, but occasionally has other topics on it as well. I sometimes also have sent all of them (it’s like this ever changing list of about 15 things) to her via email without discussing them – just for her to know where my head is at. Mostly it is to do with me trying to figure out if or when she will want to get rid of me, embarrassing as it is.

Anyways, every time we have tried to work through the list, we have not had enough time to do so. Mostly because I manage to waste a good 15 minutes of the beginning with being quiet and uncomfortable and fidgeting around and not really answering anything. So this time we will try to work through all of them so it would be like a good closure if I could try and delete all of the points I have written down. That has not happened for ages and I just would like the feeling of ‘starting fresh’ for the moving. I’m not sure if we will really manage to do so and if I have the guts to work through the awkwardness and if the amount of time we have on Monday will even still be enough, but… we will see.

What makes me nervous as well is the fact that I really want her to know how sad I am about the change, but without actually showing any emotions. I can see how this might be complicated to understand, to be quite fair, it is complicated even for myself to unpack. But I mean, last time I moved away we had a timeline and we knew when we were to come back and I ended up crying in the car while driving away despite all my attempts to be seen as completely bulletproof and emotionless. Oh well. At least nobody saw it or knows anything about it, so I can still convince myself that I might be able to handle whatever is thrown at me.

I should try to focus on all the awesome things ahead of me, but I feel bad about overlooking the here and now. And how I will surely miss all of it. I will miss my friends so much. They are always here for me, they are always there to pick me up and cheer me on and eat crazy amounts of cake with me. Who will do all the silly stuff with me now? I am lucky though, that my husband is really one of my best friends and I will still have him forever to do all the silly stuff with. But silly horsey stuff is not the most interesting for him always, even though he just nods and plays along – how very sweet he is.

I’m so sorry, I can’t go all deep today, my brain looks like a roadkill at the moment and is very much all over the place, but I promise to pull myself together for the next time. I will be on the journey for some time, but I hope to have time to write how the last session went on Tuesday evening, when we arrive to Poland.

I guess one knows that one loves their life if it’s hard to walk away from it…

And breathing was the reason to live.

Has anybody ever felt like they didn’t really know if they were falling into the deep darkness or recovering instead? I have no idea, what is going on with me and I wish there was a way to know why I feel this way.

Soon it will be the 6 year mark of my little sister’s death. Until today I have not cried about the horrible accident. Today, though, I was reminded by the oh so sweet facebook that 7 years ago today she wrote on my wall asking if she could come stay with me for a weekend. Well I would love her to do that just now, thankssomuch.

So instead of the usual ‘omg just think about something else’ I engaged in this thought and actually went along with it, resulting with me getting all teary. And a little bit angry. It’s funny that I’ve managed to convince myself for 6 years that I have no emotions on this subject, that I completely understand that it was an accident and that I am very capable of rationalising all aspects of it. So there is no need to cry really, when one understands what has happened and one can not change any part of it.. right? Or at least so I thought…

So why now, almost six years later, should I find myself getting teary about it? And also why do I find myself disgusting if I do? what’s that all about?
Is it that I have progressed in therapy and am now more capable of accepting the fact that one sometimes get those ‘ever so odd’ things called feelings? Or is it because I’m just worse and not able to handle anything anymore? I’ve always had to handle, how come I’m not doing it now..

I just wish I would understand why I’m feeling this emotional and down now and why I’m not putting it away.. (And automatically I would like to add to this sentence that I’ve always done it and blah blah blah… but is it necessary? and why have I always done it? And is it really necessary?)

I have found myself recently thinking about the ability to show emotions and have them in front of others.. And that maybe one day I would like to experience something like that. To be a human or something. Like in therapy for example – it seems like a place where one should be able to or could be, if they wanted to, have emotional moments. I think somehow I think that  I might feel somehow that having emotions is wrong and that is why I feel like I have to shove them all down and never experience any.

Does that make any sense? jeez, my brain is a mess today 🙂 Glad I have therapy tomorrow.

Talk soon, thanks for reading whoever You were! And hope you had a lovely day!

Please, let me minimize it.

Sorry, I’ve been real slow to write.

I had therapy on Wednesday, it was rather chilled and easy and my therapist even noted that I looked more relaxed and happier. I don’t know what that even means, but I like it when she points out things she notices about me, it makes me feel like she is paying a lot of attention to me and how I act/react/seem. We also discussed the fact that so much of communication goes on without any words, nonverbal communication (she said) is to be up to like 70% of it. That’s a crazy big amount! I never knew that it would be that much. I always expected the words to play a bigger role but after that I’ve had some time to reflect on that information and the more I think about it the more it makes sense.

Especially in the therapy – I always come away with a good feeling, but then later during the week will start second guessing it. I get stressed and with emails I always seem to get the feeling like she’s very different with me. Like she is not very interested to talk to me or to work with me.. I suppose that’s because I have the power to interpret the words she writes down however I please. And I can also think of the tone and the manner and it is up to me to choose how I feel about it all. Sadly I, too often, choose to feel that she doesn’t care or that she would not be vert interested to have me there. If we address this feeling in the session, it is discussed and I always end up feeling rather cool.. So I guess I’ve figured it’s better for me not to email her and I have stopped for now. I also have managed to say everything I needed to say and I wasn’t brave enough to say in the session. So the emails have played a big role in developing our relationship and for the trust to grow but also, they have proven to be a slippery road for messy feelings on my part. Interesting!

Well, what I actually wanted to write about was minimizing… Why do we do that to ourselves all the time? I mean… It’s so odd how one needs to protect him/herself from the reality and just is like ‘no, what I have is not depression’ or my best example from my own life is the fact that even though I know now that I have been sexually abused, I have always found a way to not say it, not believe it. “Not me, c’mon, it wasn’t abuse”.. Or when I sometimes have these dark thoughts that I wish I didn’t have, it’s so easy to think that ‘it’s nothing, it means nothing and I’m just being silly’ – it still doesn’t make these thoughts nonexistent, does it?! I am sure it is a form of self-protection and is necessary, at least for some time.. BUT when I feel like I’m ready to explore what is actually going on in my head, how do I stop it? How will I be able to see the extent of what has happened to me in the past without minimizing it?

Also, what I have discovered is that if I tell my therapist about my past experiences, there is really no appropriate way for her to react. If she doesn’t react, I feel like she doesn’t care or like what I tell her seems pointless or meaningless to her or that I should have just handled it myself. Or when she is like ‘ah, sorry, that must have been difficult’ I feel like she feels sorry for me and I don’t want her to see me as a victim so I don’t think there’s much winning with me 🙂

I honestly feel like emailing her to say thank you for all the hard work she has to do to work with me and keep me trusting and talking and discussing. I really do think she is a wonderful human-being.

So sorry for the long pause in writing, I’ll try to improve.

The two that keep me sane, going and occasionally even happy.

 

Guess who got a lot done today? Not me, but congratulations to somebody out there!

So, today was therapy day. I looked forward to today’s session a lot. I mean, the last time stirred up a lot of emotions and I was left with quite a few questions in my head. I had taken the time to think through the worries and write some of them down and I felt ready to go in and give it a go, try to see what the answers were..

Sadly, though, I had one of the roughest nights I’ve had in a long time, with maximum of 30 minutes of sleep all together, so I went in and was very tired, and in a lot of pain. I asked if I could sit on the floor, something I had not done before (even though had wanted to, so many times.. but never dared to ask). She had no problem with it. So there I was, sat on the floor, staring at her, trying to get all the things covered in the short hour that flies by in a blink of an eye.

Last time, she got a bit agitated with me and that created many questions for me. I needed to know, why she raised her voice (and this is meant in a completely non-accusative way, just pure curiosity) and if she was angry with me.. And I needed to know if she still cared about me a little bit or  maybe she thought about not wanting to see me anymore because I might be a trouble maker.. I also wanted to know if that happened because she planned it this way or because she felt overwhelmed.

Never before had I ever  felt ready to ask these kind of questions that I had on my mind. I have always been scared to ask, so I usually just tend to agree to everything and not speak my mind.  Never have I ever felt the strength to just sit down and tackle the fears I have about a relationship. I am so grateful for my therapist to have sat there with me and for her honesty and openness. She answered every single one of my questions with what felt like a sincere and honest reply. It made me feel a bit good even, when I asked her if she would have been sad if I would have quit and she replied that of course.. I mean.. It’s so hard for me to believe that she cares, but at moments like these I believe. I honestly believe that she cares about me a little bit.

Last time, she asked me to not read between the lines.

So I try.

I try to be straight forward, I try to communicate very clearly and it seems like we might make some progress like this. I guess that is the best I can do, I just feel a little sad that she felt like raising her voice was her last option to try and reach me. That I was so fixated on the idea I had in my head that she didn’t want me that she felt like no words spoken softly would make me  understand what she wanted to communicate to me. She told me she did it as she felt like it was her last resort. I feel a bit bad about putting her into that position. How rude of me, how did I not notice that I was supposed to understand a bit earlier.. How could I just never see that she, a kind person that I have enormous amount of respect for, was trying very hard to help me.

So as I was sat there, on the floor, trying to make sense of the mess I had created, I felt thankful. SO utterly grateful for the amount of support she can offer. I know, the relationship is so out of balance and she has boundaries she would never overstep and it’s so far from normal “friendship” or whatever..ship, but I felt secure.. Like she had to fight for me and she did. Nobody did it when I was a child, I never felt secure. It leaves me thinking that there must have been something so wrong with me when I was a child so that people never really even noticed me. I was just passed around like a borrowed book that nobody really had the time to read. It was ok, I could handle it. I could handle every single part of it. I still can.

We also talked very briefly about the abuse I’ve gone through as a child. I’ve not disclosed it much, but felt I had the courage to mention what my concern was. She told me about a lady that came to see her some time ago who was forced to work as a prostitute when she was a teen. It stuck with me and I felt very deeply saddened by the story. I thought how lucky I was that I was never forced  to do these kind of things and how different our stories were. Only to realise that the abuse I endured when I was 4 and sexually abused by a relative, is not too far off. I tell myself I was lucky because my abuser was a child himself, so he wasn’t extra forceful. I tell myself I deserved it, because I didn’t stop it. I tell myself that it’s ok because I can handle it. I remind myself that I was stupid to let it escalate. I tell myself that he did it because he endured some sort of abuse himself. I keep reminding myself to be compassionate to him because he was so lost that he felt the needed to use my body without my permission (as if I would have known to give it as a 4yo anyways). I try to forget and not dwell in the past and most of the time I’m doing great. It’s not one of the daily battles I have to go through, but I guess I’ve reached the point where I feel like I wish I could go back in time and talk with my own little self. I would love to tell her that she didn’t do anything wrong to deserve it and it’s not her fault.

Or when I was 14 and an adult decided that he will choose to sleep with me and my ‘no’ was worthless… He probably needed it. He didn’t hear what I said.. He didn’t mean to hurt me..right? I don’t know.. I’m finally starting to see the cracks in the picture. I’m finally starting to see how what I tell myself might not be accurate. I refuse to call myself a victim. I’m not a victim, because I didn’t cry.. or because I didn’t tell anybody. I was just… in the wrong place at the wrong time. I mean… how could one even be a victim if they managed to live with it for many-many years without talking about it? How could it be sexual abuse, if I wasn’t held at the gun point or beaten into the submission? It surely wasn’t abuse, because my pain was not noticed. It could not have been anything serious because I was able to run away from the place in the early hours of the morning. It surely could not have been sexual abuse, because when he decided to have sex with me without my consent I let him. I didn’t scream. I told him no, I told him he hurt me and that I didn’t want it, but I didn’t panic. I didn’t cry, I didn’t yell, I didn’t try to run. I just laid there without making a sound and waited it out. I bled and I hurt and I waited. And I ran and I promised to forget. Only that I didn’t. I think he did, though.

So when I say I’m not a victim of sexual abuse, I feel like I’m doing it to protect myself. But maybe it’s about the right time to try and see what the experiences have left me with.. And how I can display a great amount of empathy towards people that have been through abuse that is similar in the nature and I refuse to give myself any kind of recognition to have endured it and survived…Is there a way I could also try to be a bit kinder towards myself?

Maybe it’s about time that I will try and see that it was not what I wanted, it was not fair and that I don’t need to protect the people that made me feel like this. I mean… I really wish somebody would have told me that it wasn’t my fault and that I deserved better. I realise that nobody could have told me that because I chose to tell nobody… But that’s just the way it was. Maybe now, when I finally have the courage to open my mouth and say it, I will be able to accept a little bit of support?

Right, so next step would be to be able to talk about it, am I right? I mean to try and open these closed boxes in the safe space my therapist and I share once a week.. To see what my dear brain has decided to hide from me until I was ready to try and uncover.. I guess we will see, what will come of it, but I’m just glad I’ve found a place that I can call safe. And that I have a person that I know will be able to hold my secrets and not be influenced by them, not be mortified, not feel sorry for me, not care too much.

Thankful to my therapist, thankful to my partner who has had to deal with the memories coming back to me slowly, thankful to my dogs and horses that never fail to cheer me up and thankful that my lovely friends for not asking questions and standing with me when I need them to.

She raised her voice …

So on Friday was the long waited therapy day. What a session I had, I mean… I saw a totally new side to my therapist, and though a bit scary, it was a humanising experience, I would say.

We had a difficult time getting together as I was worried to go in and nearly bailed on everything and quit. She asked me to go in and discuss it with her and because of the way she has worked with me for a long time and we’ve been through things together and she has always been so kind and sweet, I felt like it was not an option to leave without an explanation. SO in I went, with a lot of hesitation and with a shaking heart.

What I expected was her being her usual kind self, trying to convince me to keep on going, even though it is currently tough. And all that in a calm, centred, non emotional manner. What happened though was that she, instead of what I expected, got a bit upset with me, I think? She apologised for raising her voice, but still continued to speak very loudly and sharply and telling me that I am doing every single thing I can think of to push her away and then I try to show it as if she did not want to have me around. Which, I am sure, is exactly what I’m trying to do. I feel so vulnerable lately and am completely out of my comfort zone with her getting closer to know me and approaching the topics that are more difficult for me to discuss.  And I’ve always had a very good strategy to protect myself from people. The less they know, the easier life is. Just smile and wave and be polite and move on. I’ve loved it and it has been easy, but the downside to that sort of living is that you really get easily overlooked.. People feel like they know you, like you are just a happy-go-lucky type of a person they can always rely on and that can always carry their burden with them, as nothing phases you and you are always so strong and steady. I guess I need to go back to the topic, though, as this is something completely irrelevant.

Well, what happened when she raised her voice, was that I got stuck. I just kept looking out the window and I can barely remember anything she said. I felt scared and I also had no idea how to react. I felt like my body was there, but my brain was just thrown out the same window I was staring out of.  I’m not sure how I feel about what happened, as from one side I feel like she must care about me a great deal to get emotionally involved to the point where she would feel like she had to raise her voice to get to me, but on the other hand I’m now scared. I’m scared she will get mad at me and that I will disappoint her and initially I’m scared that she will get outraged (which she did not at all, she was not even angry or anything, but speaking loudly) or something close to that..

In the past, when people have gotten very angry with me, they have rarely hit me or abused me otherwise physically, but I am so terrified they will, once the situation is getting out of my hands. I’ve always been very scared of people getting angry at me. So her getting agitated has brought on mixed emotions for me. I would rather know how she feels and that she cares than still wonder that she doesn’t give a flying s about me and if or when I leave or continue.
I feel like this unhealthy attachment style I have is making things very complicated currently. We need to work through this, but it’s proving to be more complicated than we anticipated, I think… Both of us.

Anyways, I am looking forward to the next session, as it will probably help us to work through a bit what happened last time and we can just keep on trying to work on things together.

I love that I’ve now seen the more human side to her, even though it might be a bit scary for a moment… My fear of emotions is really silly and I’m glad I have a place to work through them and that we can possibly discuss this in the next session and I don’t have to be scared to ask her about it.

I hope she knows how much she means to me and that I’m sorry that I’m not the easiest and most straight forward patient she has ever had..

 

“Like an old aching sprain, a relational injury becomes entrenched and keeps hurting until it receives the care and attention it needs”

My initial idea was to try and post once a week, the day after a therapy session. Too bad I feel so overwhelmed by everything right now and the plan has already been tossed aside. (Well, obviously I started this blog because I felt the need to express my thoughts and try to analyse my feelings and thought patterns)

So here I am, once again, sat behind the computer, trying to figure out the world, my brain noise and how to manage.

Yesterday I emailed my therapist the thoughts I could not tell her in therapy. We have an agreement that I try to email her once a week, it is encouraged by her for me to develop the needed attachment to her (I think?). I feel like I might have dug too deep and felt very vulnerable after sending it in. She usually replies by saying that she got my email and that we will discuss it when we meet. And this is what we agreed on and it has worked well. This time, though, I felt like… I kind of needed a bit more? Not a long paragraph or anything, but a few words to encourage me, as I felt like I disclosed too much and was of a burden to her. I then automatically reacted to it sending her a message stating that I’m not coming back – WHY would I do that?! yeeez… Talk about reacting instead of thinking and then acting.. Well, I told her that I was unsure if I would be able to go and see her on Friday and that maybe she should give all my already booked times to somebody more worthy and less erratic.

I feel like I try to push her away but secretly hope she won’t give up on me. It seems to be like a stupid test my brain creates for her. Like If I push, will she leave me? Like other people have? or will she come through? So I could settle for this time and test her again when I start feeling insecure? Honestly, I feel like I’m being so very obnoxious and rude and I try to get my way with her, which is NOT right, but I feel like I need the test to feel like she either doesn’t care enough or does. And if she doesn’t I feel like I dodged a bullet there.

Have any of you ever felt sorry for your therapist? I mean… I just wish I could be an easier client for her, but seriously… I am what I am and I tried to hide and be just ever so polite and nice and kind and easy for two years. It worked just fine, but the amount of work we needed to do didn’t get much smaller with that time. I know I was a late bloomer in therapy and that I needed a lot of time to get accustomed to the idea to share.. anything more than ‘what movies did you watch on the weekend’, but… I just wish I could stop this nonsense and get on with it. Stop the games, be very brutally honest with her about what I think and am and that I could turn off the doubt button.

What I am worried about now though is her reply. Will she say that she’s tired of the games and bye and never wanna see you again? Or will she ask what’s the matter with me (because I wouldn’t know how to reply to that?!)? Or will she say that she can’t have this discussion again and that she keeps the time in case I still want to go but I should let her know before the day? Or will she…not? What if she doesn’t reply at all? Or what if the reply will make me feel even more conflicted…

The ambivalent feelings I have towards the whole process and the therapeutic relationship have totally taken over me today and I can’t seem to think straight.

Well, help! I mean… All I really want is to be a clever girl and not to be of a burden… 🙂