This may be a long post and it may not be the most organized, so this is your warning.
A few months ago I made an appointment with my school’s CAPS (Counseling and Psychological Services) program. My first appointment was the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and when I called I didn’t tell anyone what I was doing, and since then I’ve only told two other people – Theory and Euphonium.
It was family problems that was the push for me to make the phone call and the appointment. Dad was being an ass and I felt like I couldn’t handle the strain of my family. I was so mad at my father and I knew I’d have to see him over Thanksgiving. I felt all this weight on my shoulders. I wanted to tell him to get his act together, but I feared that it would make the situation worse. I felt like my family was going to shit and it was up to me to put it back together. I needed someone to tell me how to handle my family and what I should do.
I still remember making the call. I was so nervous. I had been thinking about it for awhile and at one moment I just decided to do it. Kind of like that feeling of when you look over the edge of the pool and don’t know if you want to jump. You make the decision to go for it and you have to do it as soon as you decide or else you know you’ll back out, and almost without thinking you dive in.
I walked into the office, my stomach knotted up and I was so nervous. My name was called and I walked with this guy to his office and we sat down. He wanted to know why I had made the call and what was wrong.
I am terrible at expressing myself. I have great difficulty discussing certain things, especially things that make me vulnerable. The very act of trying to articulate these thoughts and feelings is almost impossible. So before I could even say anything about my family or why I was there, I felt that tightness in my throat. Tears started streaming down my face. That is the physical reaction that usually happens when I try to discuss personal things about myself.
I soon stopped crying, feeling a little embarrassed, and described my situation with my family. This was the beginning of our sessions, which lasted until the Tuesday before last (April 7). I have been through a lot with my therapist, who we’ll call Earnest.
Since November I have learned a lot about myself. One thing I learned was just how difficult it is for me to verbalize my feelings. I am very slow in articulating myself and sometimes the words just won’t come out. Physically I have trouble forming the words. They’re in my head and they travel up my throat, but my mouth just will not form the words. Earnest was really great about letting me take the time I needed to say what I needed to say and never rushed me. There aren’t a lot of people who will do that – sit with you and let you take all the time you need to say what you have to say.
I realized how little I divulge to people. There’s a certain level where I let people go, but no further. Everything else is for my mind and my journal. Therapy helped me realize where that level was when I was pushed to say things that I had never intended to say to another person; it was just meant for my journal. I learned at how automatic my defenses come up, to the point where I didn’t even think about it. In my mind it was just the way it was.
One of the biggest things I learned about myself was how little I allow myself permission to feel certain emotions. How little I even acknowledge how I’m feeling. A hundred times a day I push aside a hundred different emotions and don’t let myself feel or experience them. They’re feelings I think I’m not supposed to feel – jealousy, crankiness, impatience, annoyance, fear, doubt, anger, and so many more. I’m not supposed to feel any of these because it means I’m not a good person and everyone will think I’m not a good person and get fed up with me and where would I be left after that?
Thinking like that gets so exhausting. It’s exhausting because I do feel mad, frustrated, scared, insecure, and everything else and there’s this struggle because I’m feeling it, but I’m not allowed. So I beat myself up over it and in the end I feel like I’m this despicable person because I can’t control my feelings and I feel like all I feel are bad, negative ones.
A particularly difficult session was when when I discussed how there is a scale in my head that is in flux. This is not something I am proud of, but I feel like I am taking care of everyone and everything and as a consequence I tend to keep tallies or keep score. You know, that laundry list you keep and think to yourself, “I’ve done this, that, the other for you, but what have you done for me lately?” It is most definitely not something I am proud of and something I think I tried to deny about myself until I talked about it in therapy. This is especially related because in my mind everyone is keeping score. So every time I am short tempered, every time I snap, every time I ask for a favor from someone, every time I say the wrong thing, I feel like it’s a mark against me.
Another thing I learned about myself how sick and tired I am of taking care of everyone else and how I really want to be taken care (a few times Earnest tried to talk about how my tallying was a way to prevent others from taking care of me, even when I desperately wanted them to. I never fully understood that though, although it might make some sense).
So ever since therapy I’ve been trying to be more easy on myself. I’ve been working on not pushing away my emotions, although that is REALLY hard during the last weeks of the semester because I’m so busy I don’t have a lot of time to analyze my emotions. Instead of pushing away how I feel, I try to at least acknowledge I am feeling it, and try to tell myself that feeling that way does not make me a completely unlovable person.
Another consequence of therapy is I am distancing myself from my family’s dysfunction. I’ve realized that their problems are not mine to fix. We ALL have our part in this little drama we’ve created and it is not fair to expect me to solve the problems. Mom has the choice to not accept Dad’s phone calls or his harassment. Dad has the choice to not get mad or to not constantly harass the family. That is their part and they are not doing it.
This has lightened a load off of my back. I am still concerned about my family, obviously, but I feel more secure in my position that I am not a shit daughter if I don’t patch everything up or pick up the slack. I deserve to be taken care of as well. (Although I do admit that going back home for the summer terrifies me. What if this resolve doesn’t last? What if it all goes back to how it was before and it doesn’t amount to anything?)
Earnest was an amazing therapist. I cried so often, but he let me. He let me take all the time I needed to articulate myself. He was supportive and he gave me the opportunity to go to a place that was about me. It wasn’t about my sister or my mom or anyone else. I wasn’t told that my feelings were irrational or over emotional. That office became a space where I could feel safe. I have never opened up to another human being that much, even more so than my ex-boyfriend (and Earnest listened so much better than my ex). I learned that it isn’t the end of the world when you tell someone else your feelings and your problems. I felt like there was someone who cared about me and who believed in me. That was one of the biggest things I’ve learned – to let myself open up to someone and trust them.
I am going to miss Earnest a hell of a lot. The reason therapy ended was because his internship thingy at the school ended and he had to leave to finish school, so it’s not like I can go back and talk to him. I already miss him a little bit and I miss having that block of time every week to think through all my emotions and problems. I was having trouble adjusting these past two weeks to not having that. I’ve decided to try and re-dedicate one day a week to that in my own time, because I still need it.
So there’s my big secret. I probably won’t tell my mom about therapy. How do you bring that up in a conversation? I still don’t know. I haven’t told Bear either and again, don’t really plan on it. I would like to continue therapy, but I don’t think I can afford it and I’m not going to ask Mom for money for therapy – she wouldn’t give it anyway. I might look into places back home when school lets out, but I don’t know if it would work. It’s easier to lie to your roommate than your mom. But we’ll see.
