relying on others makes me itch, but i do it anyway
I rip off a lot of Band-Aids in therapy. Marina has a way of putting me at ease. I had dinner with a friend recently after months of not seeing her one-on-one. I told her about my therapist.
“They said they want to see me more than once a week. They said, ‘I think you need more than monthly.’ It was like they were saying, ‘You need help and I’m going to give it to you.’ It was like a weight lifted off of me.”
Z tells me she’s happy for me. We talk about having to choose between a queer or a Black therapist, and how choosing queer makes the most sense for our lives at the moment. I never go into much detail when I tell my friends about therapy, it’s supposed to be private after all, but I do let out little tidbits. (What even IS a tidbit? It sounds like a Depression-era candy.)
I’ve been texting a friend more often. C holds space for me without judgment and doesn’t make me feel as if I sound like a broken record. I tell him my sadness makes me ashamed. That I’m frustrated with being angry with myself. I want to be softer instead of calling myself foolish, but I can’t. I’m not there yet.
Being sad is exhausting. Sometimes I try to run from it, drown myself in staying busy, only to have it catch up to me again. I always say things like “There’s no timeline,” but I never apply the same to myself.
“We can be sad together,” he tells me.
“I wish I could leave Chicago,” I tell him.
“That’s a normal feeling,” Marina says.
On most days I’m good, and the good days have started to significantly outnumber the bad. On other days, I’m 2 hours into crying before therapy even starts.
“I spent three years in therapy talking about dating, I don’t want to do that again. Why can’t I cry this much about my actual childhood trauma and assault?”
Recently I’ve been accepting (with the help of SO much therapy), that maybe I’m not ready to cry about it all. That the detached way I talk about being assaulted by my sibling and father is how I protect myself.
I’ll cry when I’m ready.
Marina sounds like everyone else I know, in that I’m too hard on myself.
There’s no ‘healed’ version of me to run faster toward by being frustrated about my sadness. But try telling that to someone as stubborn as I am.
It’s simple when I think about it:
I’m sad because it was sad.
My brain’s made peace but hearts are trickier.
The dates for our trips come and go and tell myself to get over it, instead of letting myself feel sad about it.
Pain, unfortunately, demands to be felt.
I think of the hikes I wanted to go on,
and wish that the distance that happens after a relationship ends didn’t exist.
I have a ritual now. Of sorts.
Instead of being mean to myself, expecting some super-human nature to move on in a few months, I let myself wallow.
I put it on my playlist. I read my list. I focus on the good that happened and mourn like it’s a funeral. And once I’ve cried to exhaustion, I sleep and eat and feel better.
Growing up in a home that never validated your emotions or needs fucks with you. Acknowledging the hard things is how I take care of little me.
I don’t shy away from the thoughts that form, and it’s like another layer of acceptance:
“I’ll never feel this way again, I’ll feel something different. That’s what made it special, and that’s OK.”
It’s a gift, I think, to have been able to feel so much at all in the first place.
I want to let each relationship define itself. Let them be special in their own ways.
After my ritual/tantrums, I feel more ready to be present with friends. Last night I drank to excess and felt more energized to engage with people. I feel light.
As time passes, I get better at taking care of myself.
It’s really something to see.
