A Spoonful of Sugar...

Therapy is like medicine. It hurts and tastes awful, but it's good for you. I made a decision over the past few days to cut to the chase with my therapist. I've been seeing her since April and it's done me a world of good but for the most part I'm still able to keep up my wall and protect myself - pick and choose what I allow her to see. It makes it easier to control the situation and my emotions when I'm in there. I don't like to cry in therapy because I think it's a sign of weakness (see why I'm in therapy?) But it's true. I do think that. I want to decide what she thinks of me so I'm careful about what I say. Except that that's completely false because I can't make her think anything. It's not up to me to decide how she sees me or what she thinks. She's going to do whatever she wants and let me kid myself into thinking that I'm calling the shots.  So I'm doing a 180. I've decided to get into the dark and nasty bits of my brain that I am hesitant to forage through because they are just too painful. I can sit and talk about my mother's death and feel sorry for myself endlessly, as it turns out, but the truth is - it's not going to change anything. I can't bring her back, it's over. I can work through what transpired in those days and how isolated I felt and (I now realize) truly alone I was but that isn't going to change my other, perhaps more fundamental emotional goo that lives inside me deep in the black hole that is my denial. I started today. We'll see where it goes from here. I'm sure that some would read what I say about my mother's death and think that was enough material for years of therapy but the truth is, I think I just needed to hear someone say - you survived something very difficult. You were young and made to be responsible for things that were too big for you. You shouldn't have been left alone with all of that weight on your shoulders and to never get any acknowledgement for that is wrong. So there it is. It doesn't change anything but it made me feel better. Because I thought, all along, that I was just feeling sorry for myself. Imagine that.