Therapy is hard! My husband is often frustrated with me. Although I have been in therapy for several months, he says I am more of an emotional mess now than ever before. That I am not taking full advantage of therapy and I should be nearly “better” by now…if I would just stop holding back. I do hold back. It is not my intention and I get angry at myself – especially when I think about the small financial fortune I’m sinking into therapy! It is just so damn hard to be honest when I have held onto secrets for decades! It’s painful. Like a fist fight with a dragon painful. More than finding my finish line, the challenge now is slowing down enough to find hope in the journey.
A few days before every therapy session I decide it is my last one. Repeatedly! I decide, “This is not working! It is not worth the money. I can handle this all on my own. I will just be nice and go one last time to let my therapist know.”
And then I go…(with much reluctance because it’s not worth it)…and my amazing therapist draws out all sorts of messy issues that I did not know existed inside of me and I realize how hurt I still am and that I have so far to go. But the next session, the cycle repeats. It’s rather entertaining and pathetic.
voicing secrets out loud
My husband and I get into fights about my slow pace sometimes. Defensively, I declare I am doing everything I possibly can at a speed I can handle, but I too am frustrated at my tedious pace. My brain feels broken and in need of fixing.
I don’t want to say these things out loud! The secrets become real and WHY THE HELL DO I WANT REAL!?! Four months into trauma therapy, I still have not admitted all of the secrets of my past. Going into it, I had no clue there were so many.
fear and shame
What am I scared of? If I am honest, my fear is the realization that it will become clear, not only to me but to others, that – I AM AT FAULT. Logically, I know that I have endured sexual assault and a long abusive marriage with my ex-husband. This is the shame talking. I have always felt at fault, felt the immense guilt for the path my life took and the difficulties our daughter endured. But I think a small part of me holds on to the hope that I can explain it away and discover it was not my fault.
It is not logical, but I guess the fear is that if I say all of the secrets out loud I may PROVE my guilt, my shame, and that hope of redemption is gone. Crazy freaking talk, right?!? I know! But the fear is too real. This is what shame does.
hope in the journey comes from experiencing the travels
So yes, I hold back. And I am pretty sure I go backwards in therapy just as much as I go forward. I fixate on memories that I had blocked out for years, unable to let them go. But it is called a journey for a reason and there is hope in the journey.
Journeys are about the travels and what is experienced on the travels, from beginning to end.
I am finding the journey pretty damn painful! Beliefs that I have had for decades are now being challenged. Other people’s motives are changing drastically in my head. It is painful and it is slow!
Sometimes it has to get worse before it can get better, right!? I have so many emotions and memories surfacing that I have never experienced or worked through. My Ex did not allow me to show emotion. It actually threw him into a rage if I had tears on my face or tensed up showing I was angry. In time, I learned not only to hide my emotion but to NOT HAVE emotions. Emotions were dangerous. Who knows how long it will take for my body to now experience the emotions I thought did not exist. Despite feeling like an ugly mess right now and not knowing what to do with all of these emotions, I will remind myself there is hope in the journey.
hope through support
The idea of creating a support circle sounds dreadful. I hide behind the excuse – “I’m an introvert” when in reality I am just freaking scared to be honest! I do not allow any of my family to know my story. My husband knows some. One friend knows some too and another knows just a little, but still I won’t let my guard down to beg for help when I am feeling crushed. Decades of isolation have left me nervous to confide in anyone.
It is hard to feel that I deserve good friends. I am too awkward, different, filled with shame. Isolation is almost always an easier choice.
Even my husband is rarely allowed to know my struggles. He is sometimes intuitive and picks up on it when my days are hard, giving me space or extra hugs, but if he does not push to know anything, I never offer details. As awful as it feels at the moment, part of this journey will need to be establishing a better circle of support…people who know my struggles and who I can ask for help when I need it. And hopefully these people will experience all of the joy in life with me too.
so…when will therapy fix me???
My husband may have this picture in his head of me being “fixed” through therapy. And so did I. Especially with all of my health issues, since that is what made me open to therapy in the first place. My thinking is…I know this therapy is working when…my 14 vitamin and mineral deficiencies start disappearing…when my rheumatoid factor lowers…the chronic pain in my body begins to dissipate…my fatigue disappears. I want concrete signs that all of this pain is worth it.
There must be some sort of markers to have an end in sight, right!?
The reality is there is no therapist or type of therapy that will miraculously “fix me”. What I am learning is that my mind needs to EXPERIENCE the journey. I find myself rushing to reach an end-point that I cannot even visualize. When I do this, I am hindering my journey. I AM CREATING EFFORT where there should not be any.
just feel things
I need to just be. To experience. To feel. When the painful emotions arise during therapy, HOW I work through them will determine the change in me.
The lessons I learn from the pain will create wisdom in me.
When I am agitated and overwhelmed with the memories that arise, I learn how to use self-calming tools. These tools I will not leave behind when therapy is over, but rather use to handle all of the difficult experiences ahead in my life. I will learn how to allow emotions to flow through me like the ocean waves. It make take years, but I am creating habits that will bring me calm and joy for a lifetime. There is hope in this journey.
Thank you for the inspiration! Please keep writing.