Learning the capacity of my own strength

Wednesday morning, I’m sitting at my desk when the co-worker, A, with whom I share an office tells me that our admin had to put out a well-check on a co-worker of mine who workers at the high school because he’s been absent for two days but hasn’t called out in the system.

“But he was okay, right?” I hedged, expecting to hear that there was some misunderstanding, but of course he was okay. What other outcome could there be?

“We don’t know yet,” A says.

I immediately went down the hallway to my secretaries office. They know my co-worker better than me. One of them has worked with him for over 25 years. They have had many phone conversations with him over the years, having worked out of two different places. As our secretaries, so much that goes on goes through them.

They are worried and solemn. We are still waiting to hear news, but it’s after 10:30 and the well-check was called at 8:30. Two hours with nothing? The feeling starts building in my gut that there is not going to be a happy ending in this situation. My co-worker and I talk about it once I return to my office. She’s concerned too.

The rest of the day passes without much word. I take students and am able to focus on that, forgetting almost entirely about my absent colleague. But right at around 2:30, while I’m dealing with a student who has been in crisis most of the day, A meets me at the door to the art room where I am. “We have an emergency meeting in the office,” she tells me seriously.

I look at her, “That’s not good.” She shakes her head.

Down the hall we go towards the office. We’re late, because neither of us saw our email about the last-minute meeting. My boss is standing outside the door to the office, obviously in tears. I look at A and she looks at me. “She’s crying,” I say. “Not good,” A repeats.

When we go in the room, our secretaries are already crying. Other team members are seated around the room waiting for the news that we already know is to come. The outcome of the well-check was exactly as I predicted hours earlier: Our colleague has died.

I am in shock. He’s not someone I knew super well, but we had the same role in different buildings, so we did interact on occasion. I couldn’t tell you a single personal fact about him, and I know he drove our secretaries crazy, but it was in a love-hate kind of way. They’re inconsolable. My boss is at a loss for what to say, but tries carefully to find her words. Everyone else is quiet.

No matter how well I knew him, he was one of our team, and that matters above all. It’s a loss. A huge one.

In the back of my mind, a voice perks up and says. You won’t have anyone to share your summer hours with now. This might help you financially. I shoo it away quickly and am awash with shame. Why is that the first thought in my mind? He is gone and I am thinking about money? I think about how I can’t speak that aloud that thought to anyone ever. What kind of person am I? It’s a piece of my humanity for sure, but it feels so wrong that this was what selfishly came up.

I have to excuse myself quickly because I’m needed at the afterschool program. My mind is absolutely swirling as I head down the hallway, stopping to tell my friend C about the news. She knows of him, but doesn’t know him. Still, I see the shock in her eyes when I say it. She gives me a hug. I go to the afterschool program, thinking about how I only had approximately five minutes to process this before I have to go back to putting on a happy face for kids.

Despite my intrusive thought moments ago, I am sad. It’s a weird grief, because it’s not an intimate one, but on a whole I know what our team has lost. I know that a life is over. That’s enough to mess with me.

I am the kind of person that has to share what’s on my mind. Even though the news isn’t out to the full staff yet, I tell three or four other people about his passing. It’s all I can think about.

Once the kids are safely outside with other adults, I head back to the office for a few minutes to check on my colleagues. I tell my boss I will do whatever she needs in the interim. We are down a team member who had meetings and other responsibilities going into the summer. There will be work that needs to be done. I know that in the immediate aftermath she’s not thinking of exactly what needs to be done, but I imagine pieces of that are starting to pile up in her mind. She thanks me, and I go back to work.

Because there’s no other choice, I make it through the afterschool program. On my way out the door, I stop and am talking to a colleague. The news is out now, so everyone knows. We talk briefly about my lost colleague. Then she says something that surprises me. Something about how it was suicide.

“You told me that, didn’t you?” she asks. But no, I hadn’t said anything of the sort, and I tell her that. I had wondered immediately the cause of his passing, but there were no details shared, and I certainly didn’t ask my boss. She thinks about it, remembers who might have been the one to tell her. We talk about it for another minute, and I leave.

I take Thursday off, not because of the loss or anything. It was just something I planned to do earlier in the week. It’s a calm day and I’m grateful to be away from everything. As the day winds down, A texts and asks if she can call me. Because of what my colleague said to me the day before, I already know what she’s about to tell me. But I let her say how it was very likely suicide without interruption. I relay the story of my interaction with our colleague, how she’d said this too. A tells me there will be an investigation.

We talk a little longer before we hang up and then we end up texting later. The knowledge that this was suicide has stirred a lot up for me. I’m triggered and thinking about my own battle with suicidal thoughts. We text about the process beginning of seeing who will take on what regarding his tasks. I wonder to her whether or not he purposely tried to make sure he’d leave us with as little to do as possible. A tells me all the paperwork was apparently in order on his desk.

In a moment of vulnerability, as I struggle to process his suicide in line with my previous desires to take my life, I tell her that when I was in my darkest space I thought about doing it in July. The reason for this being that it was technically the start of the school year and there’d be the least amount of work for others to be burdened with. A tells me she’s always there for me. We text a little longer. I tell her I’m not trying to make this about me, it’s just bringing up a lot of feelings. She doesn’t judge, just says my thoughts are welcome.

Therapy is cancelled on Thursday, because M’s kid is sick. That figures. Still, I don’t get mad at M. I handle it well.

On Friday, details emerge about a memorial. My brain continues to let words loose to others, including both my other colleague J, the secretaries, and my boss. With J, it’s more of me continuously trying to merge his suicide with my thoughts, to make sense of what he might have felt. I know his experience is not mine, but in the moment I can’t seem to separate the two. J listens patiently, kindly. I say something about how suicide has often felt inevitable to me, but quickly follow up by assuring her I’m not in that place right now. She’s glad to know that. We talk about my student who had been in a similar crisis and try to find the right solution for her.

With my secretaries and my boss, I share my experience with suicidal thoughts as a way to try to communicate to them that there’s nothing they could have done. When my boss seems baffled by how someone who works in the field and knows the supports could have done this, I tell her that sometimes we can know exactly who we have supporting us and it still isn’t enough. I still feel like I’m making it about me, and maybe I am. Maybe this is selfish on my part. When she asks me, on a personal note, about my diagnosis, I don’t lie to her. I know her daughter has been through her own struggles similar to mine. We discuss this. She says some kind things. It’s almost connecting, which has always been difficult with my boss.

I still have a vulnerability hangover afterwards. Was that too much to say? I had always said I’d never share details like that with certain people, my boss among them. I’m still wondering if that was a bad idea and I guess time will tell.

Writing about all this has triggered me again and I find myself texting M to confirm she will be there tomorrow. I’ve been okay among my anxiety, but it’s starting to get to me. I just need a safe space and she’ll have to do.

She responded, as I was typing this, to say yes she’ll be there. And when I apologized for the third time, she told me I’d done nothing wrong and she was glad I reached out for what I needed. That’s a little bit of a relief.

Among all of this, I’ve noticed that despite the little blips here and there, I’m tapping into some serious strength. I know this because despite being triggered, despite the stress of the loss, despite the vulnerability hangover, I’m not beating myself up as much as I would have. I’m not putting the same level of pressure on myself. I’m not in the deep dark place I know so well.

I’m…okay? Yes, I believe I am.

I believe the new medication I’ve been on for about a month now is helping. Because even though the loneliness of wanting a relationship is still there, I’m okay and handling single life okay. Even though I still battle incompetency issues at work, I’m seeing my strengths a little more and accepting them.

Dr. N seemed pleased the other day too when my symptoms were reported low and my overall mood reported as positive. It’s the latest in a trend upwards. She told me to keep a careful watch for the return of anything challenging, but that this may mean we can work towards increasing the Cymbalta and weaning off (or at least lowering) the Abilify. I’m game for whatever if it works.

I’m stronger than I think sometimes.

Therapy These Days

As I sit down to try to put some words on the screen, I think about where I’m at in therapy these days and how it’s come to be this way. I also think a lot about where I’m at in life overall and my general discontent with it.

I really miss the days where therapy felt so often revolutionary. The days where each session brought about new answers to questions I had about myself and how to cope. The days where I’d leave and feel empowered to take on my life with my new perspectives. Is it possible that at this point I really do have all the answers and I just need to lock in to using them? Do I know all the insights about my patterns of thinking and behavior that there are to know?

That seems inaccurate, but I don’t find myself stumbling upon many (or any) new discoveries or realizations lately.

In my last post, I said that I’m not open to doing the real work with M. I said that I’d been trying to keep things surface level. And yes, maybe that’s part of the problem. I’m not available for learning anything new about myself because I’m not willing to show the vulnerability that it would take to learn.

Or maybe M has just offered all she can to me at this point. Even if she felt safe and I could truly connect, maybe it would still be true that she’s not the “right fit” for me.

What’s the truth? Who really knows?

About two weeks ago, she did point out that I’d been more closed off in therapy. So she did notice after all. Should I feel grateful that she cared enough to at least say something about it? Probably. Do I? Not really. That’s like the minimum I would expect from a therapist.

When she asked how I’ve been feeling about coming to therapy and suggested that she felt I was more guarded again, I didn’t outright dispute her. I could have lied, but I had said from the beginning to Dr. N that while I wouldn’t approach the topic, I would be truthful if it was approached by her. So I admitted in some small way that I was holding back. I reminded her how I had said I would no longer talk about the relationship and I confessed to purposefully avoiding more emotion-heavy topics because I did not want to cry in front of her. The TLDR of it was: “You hurt me, and now I’m protecting myself.”

I said something about needing more time, if only just to push off this conversation for as long as I can. She dropped it, although she did bring it back up the following session. She said again that I’m “stunting” my emotions, which isn’t good, and asked if I had anymore to say about it? I told her no and we left it at that.

You might choose to wonder why I’m bothering. Why am I sticking it out at all? I ask myself that question often, and what I come back to is as much as therapy is really just a tedious time-filler, as much I’m still waiting to find someone else, it’s still therapy and that “addiction,” so to speak, is hard to give up.

What do I mean when I say that? Well, it’s been almost eight years now since I started working with J. Eight years of having that backup, the sounding board, the unbiased voice and safe space that I can turn to for support. When nothing else was going right for the longest time, I always had J and then L: my fierce, caring, warrior-therapists who shielded me from my own cruelty.

I used to fear that I was actually “addicted” to therapy. I lived by the therapy clock that was constantly counting down to my next session and I dreaded when my therapists were away. It was significant with J, because of how attached I was to the unconditional positive regard she offered, but due to lacking boundaries with L, it only intensified. Even though I can look back and know I was very capable of surviving their absences and the time in-between sessions, it never felt that way to me.

Despite that I feel indifferent to M and the service she offers, despite that I said myself I’m not getting anything out of it, I like that I can still fall back on M to at least be present for me to vent at or share my anxiety with. It’s hard to shake the fear of what would happen to me if left completely to my own devices (minus 30 minutes a week with Dr. N). It’s hard to make the break from something that’s so engrained in my routine now.

So I haven’t, because I know that a crappy therapist is better than no therapist to me, and if I do walk away without a plan my slots will be filled before I can think better of it. It’s just not worth the risk to me. I know the danger of living alone in my head.

And also, I think there’s a very very small part of me that still has hope for M. It’s almost like a trauma bond in my eyes. After the termination with L, which traumatized me in terms of therapy, M was ultimately the one who was there to help me pick up the pieces. She helped with that, in her own way, for a bit. Even if it’s not a secure attachment, there’s an attachment, because there was no one else once L was gone.

I still think about L, more often lately than before. I think about the letter I sent her. I wonder if she read it. I wonder, if she did read it, if she really took to heart what I said or just dismissed it as the dramatic ramblings of someone that doesn’t matter. I still read that letter back to myself and try to imagine how it might have felt for her to receive those words. Of course, she didn’t respond, and I’m not in her mind, so I’ll never really know.

On the rare occasion where I do bring up L in session, M doesn’t say much. Sometimes I wish we could talk more about her. Sometimes I wish she’d ask me questions to dig deeper into what I’m feeling. But she doesn’t, and I don’t ultimately know where to go with these feelings. I get the sense M thinks I should have left them behind by now, considering it’s been over a year and a half since I last saw L.

I am still on a waitlist for a new therapist at the practice I reached out to. There was potential for me to talk to one of their therapists, but our schedules didn’t mesh. In addition, of all the profiles on their website, I didn’t feel like her experience really fit with what I need help with, so I didn’t fight hard for that one.

I’m not willing to settle for anything less than what I want at this point, because at least I already have a therapist, so it’s not like it’s an immediate need. If I were on my own, I might be a little quicker to jump for anyone. Would I like things to happen sooner than later? Yes. Am I desperate in this moment? No.

I really want someone who has at least some experience with attachment or personality disorders or something related. I want someone with more experience in general, really. Plus, I need in-person. Virtual will not work for me.

So I continue to wait and see what comes of that.

In the meantime, M and I talk mostly about my anxiety. The numbness I was experiencing in my last post has long since worn off and been replacing with significant anxious thoughts and feelings. Depression has probably wormed it’s way in there too, as my apathy has skyrocketed and my self-esteem lower than ever. I struggle with the day-to-day tasks these days. For example, as I’m sitting here typing this I see in my peripheral a basket of laundry I folded yesterday but haven’t put away. The thought of it overwhelms me.

I do manage to do what needs to be done, but at the bare mininum. I went to the grocery store today, but I struggle to actually eat the good food I buy. I go to the gym for personal training appointments, but never besides that. I go to work, and all my energy goes into making sure I do what needs to be done, but then I come home and rot in bed.

Getting out of bed in general is a real struggle. It’s my new safe space, the place I can really block out the world. I do a lot of scrolling on my phone. This week, I was off for spring break and spent most of that time curled up in bed, trying to push away the anxiety about going back to work. Scroll, scroll, scroll. It never works, but I can sometimes escape the pain for a little while.

I haven’t been on a dating website in weeks. Just the thought of it makes me anxious. I want that relationship so badly, but I can’t handle the sting of constant rejection. I can’t handle the fears surrounding going out on dates and trying to figure out how to be normal: what to talk about, how to flirt, how to keep them interested. It’s too much. So while I lament the passing of each day because that’s one more day I’m alone, I struggle to do anything about it.

M offers no real solutions to any of this. I’d be rich if I had a dollar for every time she told me to do affirmations or something basic like that. We talk a lot about my goals and what can I do to reach those goals. I’ll be asked what I’ve done this week or what I’m planning to do. We don’t talk as much about why I keep struggling to do the things I know I need to do. The roadblocks I place in front of myself.

The truth is, therapy with her has always been so surface level. So solution-focused. She blames me for stunting my emotions, but the type of work we do easily allows me to stay in the safe emotions because it’s all problem-solving. There’s nothing deeper. If there are in fact more insights to be had, I need someone who can help me reach those.

Maybe M would be that person if I gave her the chance, but all signs from previous evidence point to “no.” I feel, in some ways, like I have given her a chance in the past by bringing up relationship issues, and we’ve always hit a snag there.

Life really has no meaning for me anymore. I get up, go to work, come home, crawl into bed, and repeat. There are occasional social get-togethers, but nothing of real substance and I struggle to feel comfortable around other people anymore. Even when I have the energy or wherewithal to not be in bed, I just wander around my condo trying to figure out what to do with myself. Little things offer pleasure. Sometimes I can click into a book, but mostly not.

Sometimes I think if I just pushed myself harder, maybe I’d achieve more. Other times I think it wouldn’t matter either way. The minions are hard at work operating that core belief about me being innately wrong and unfixable.

I’m on a new medication. Cymbalta. I don’t know enough to feel it’s been effective yet, and I was started on a very low dose. Maybe that’ll help me feel more capable. All I know is, the week I have coming up I’m very anxious about with work and I don’t feel at all ready to take it on.

I wish therapy could be helpful like it was once and give me the strength I can’t seem to give to myself. Maybe that’s asking too much. Maybe it should just be time for me to help me.

If that’s the case though, I’m not doing the best job these days.

For Sake of Appearances

Already now, weeks have passed since my last post. I hardly read on this website anymore and just as rarely post, but since there were so many kind thoughts on my last post about my derailed relationship with M, I feel like it’s important to find the time to update, if for no other reason then that I can document where I’m at right now.

There’s not a lot new to report on. I’m still in therapy with M, but there hasn’t been a lot of forward progress there. As I stated in my last post, I’ve put a lot of effort into keeping things surface level. I talk and I talk, mostly about anything that won’t trigger negative feelings. A good bit of our discussions focus around work. Sometimes she asks about my mood, but I don’t care to stay in that territory so I mumble something enough to satisfy that we’ve ticked off that box and then I move along back onto safer ground.

For her part, M doesn’t really seem to notice that I’m not approaching heavier topics. Or if she does notice, she doesn’t seem to care. Maybe this suits her just fine because she’s not interested in digging deeper, I don’t know. I don’t ask. I won’t ask, because I’m not interested either.

I’m really just biding my time.

The first week I went back, she wasn’t able to facilitate two sessions a week for whatever reason. I jumped on that eagerly, because I wasn’t exactly sure how I was going to fill two hours in a week with nonsense. The week after, I did have two sessions and it was dreadfully painful trying to come up with things to say. Then last week, we were back to one again. She made some comment about how her schedule may not allow for my Thursday session for a bit. I just shrugged and said okay. Truthfully, I don’t care.

It’s so weird to me. I’ve been in 2x/week therapy for 4 years, minus the few months I was without a provider when L ended things. It’s something I’ve fought for, something I felt I truly needed. And yet now, I couldn’t be bothered to care when it seems like it might be taken away, short or long-term. Who knows?

For someone who never felt they could live without therapy, I’m so blasé about the whole thing these days. I know it’s because being there with M isn’t making a lick of difference. Maybe it would help more if I gave her space to help, but I’m just not open to doing the work with someone who I know truly doesn’t care. I’m just a job to her, a client. I don’t think she sees me as more than that.

Truthfully, I don’t know what I want to be to her. Obviously, she has to keep boundaries, but it’s the lack of genuine empathy from her. She has personality when it comes to joking around, but her ability to relate to/show empathy when I would cry or become upset was astoundingly poor. I know it’s possible to have boundaries and still exude warmth, because J did that. For a while, I’ll even say that L kind of did that. She was warm. Her boundaries sucked, but the she did maintain the boundaries she did have with some level of caring personality.

Can’t it be both? Why can’t she have boundaries and also be a warm, caring provider? I guess that’s just not her. It’s disappointing that I’ve spent so much time and effort trying to build/maintain this relationship only to let it go now.

I won’t touch relationship issues with M. I just won’t. Even in the first session after my last post, she asked if I had any residual feelings about the previous week’s issue. I told her I wasn’t open to discussing it. She asked why. I said that it was done and time to be put to bed. She barely tried to get me to open up to her, but I stuck to my guns and said it was what it was. She said “good” and we moved on.

Maybe she knows that it wasn’t and won’t ever be settled for me, but I think she truly was relieved we didn’t have to talk about it anymore because we were at a stalemate with it. Her opinion wasn’t changing and neither was mine. Where could we go with that?

Anyway, I’m on a waitlist now with another practice. The provider I requested is on maternity leave (surprise, surprise) and they had a waitlist anyway. There’s another provider I’ve been emailing with that I might try if we can find a mutually beneficial timeslot. We’ll just have to see.

The fact that we’re talking about essentially nothing has been fine because I think I’ve been pretending to be fine. With Dr. N, I’ve been more open about my struggles, but they’re the same struggles I’ve had for years now and honestly I think my brain is fried of them. You can only take living in suicide-land for so long from the same issues and thoughts before you just go numb to it.

Ultimately, I think that I am just numb. I’m registering things happening around me that would otherwise put me deep into the pit of suicidality and lately those same things just trigger mild sadness. I’m apathetic to it. I still feel the suicidal thoughts brewing beneath the surface, but I won’t quite let them come to light.

So it’s like I’m kind of doing better, but I know this is just a diversion from the feelings. I’m not really doing better, nothing in my life has changed, I just might appear to be coping better. I don’t even know if that makes sense.

Like for example, yesterday I saw an old friend from college got engaged. I don’t know why I still follow her, as we haven’t spoken in years. Regardless, I saw her fiance post on instagram about the whole thing. This would have upended me a month ago, as I’m struggling so much with being single. And yesterday, it did set off feelings, but they were strangely muted. I acknowledged how I felt about the engagement, that it reignited feelings of loneliness and despair for me, but I didn’t start planning my death. I just went on with my day, occasionally remembering the pit of pain in my stomach.

That’s not overly positive, but it allowed me to work productively on a bunch of tasks for work I’d been putting off. It allowed me to go shopping for Easter baskets for my niece and nephew. That was enough I guess.

And even as I did these things, I felt in ways that weren’t great. I completed work and felt proud to be getting things done while simultaneously feeling worthless because I was working on a Saturday instead of having plans. I bought those baskets and felt sadness that I didn’t have my own kids to spoil. Still, it didn’t overwhelm me. I just couldn’t let it.

So maybe I am doing better? I truly don’t know. It doesn’t feel that way, I feel like I’m just not allowing others to see that I’m still struggling. Again, it’s about appearances. If I appear to others like I have it together, then maybe I’ll feel it myself.

I’ll let you know how that goes.

Time To Move On?

It hurts to feel stuck.

Last I posted, I was sharing about some feelings I was having about my therapist, M, seeming distracted because she checks her watch and phone at times during our sessions. It was really bothering me, and was triggered after she answered a text in the middle of session.

Dr. N had encouraged me to talk to her. She reminded me that M had told me to bring things like this to her. I really didn’t want to bring it up because even though I was hopeful that maybe she might receive it well and work with me to find a solution, history wasn’t really on my side with that.

The truth is, while M says that she encourages this type of communication, I’ve rarely (if ever) found that her responses when the issue involves her are helpful.

In this case, I saw the shitstorm before it arrived.

I admitted pretty quickly upon arriving at my session on Monday that I had something to talk about that I really didn’t actually want to discuss. I squirmed at the thought of it. We agreed we’d start out on safer topics and work up to it. So that’s what we did, we discussed work and goals and other things until finally about halfway through she circled back to the dreaded conversation.

Severely uncomfortable, I said to her the things that I’d practiced over the weekend in preparation. I told her that I was noticing a pattern of behavior related to taking calls, checking her watch, answering texts and that while her answering a text on Thursday wasn’t the main problem, it had triggered this reaction. I told her Dr. N had helped me realize this was the bigger issue. I told her I knew she was a mom and she had a lot on her plate. I told her I didn’t know what I wanted from the conversation.

Her response left a lot to be desired.

Let me start by saying she didn’t yell or really even outwardly appear frustrated. She didn’t call me emotionally entitled or whatever. But she also didn’t validate, or reassure, or dig deeper. She jumped right to problem-solving, as she often does, and I didn’t like the solution she offered.

M’s solution to all this was that if I didn’t like her texting during session or checking her watch, then she could let me know if there was potential for that happening and I could choose whether or not I wanted to cancel session.

As you might imagine, I reacted quite poorly to that. Immediately, I shut down and stopped looking at her. I don’t remember all of session after this, but I do remember that at one point she looked at me and said, “I don’t really know what you want me to do.”

So pretty much, she was letting me know that she doesn’t think she’s doing anything wrong and nothing is going to change.

We talked about my emotional reaction to this. I was able to tell her I was feeling hurt, disappointed, and rejected but could not find words to elaborate any more on that. I think, truly, that I knew anything I said wasn’t going to propel us in the right direction anyway so I figured what would be the point. That’s probably why words wouldn’t come to me, they knew better than to even bother trying.

M didn’t really seem to understand why I was having the reaction I was having. To me, it felt like a giant “fuck you” and I told her as much. She told me that she was really just trying to leave the control in my hands to help me avoid something that bothered me. To her, it was as simple as that. To me, it was like she had looked for the thing that would hurt the most and thrown it in my direction in order to punish me for daring to challenge her or to make me regret my words.

That may not have been her intention, per her words, but that was definitely the effect it had.

As we neared closer to the end of session, I found myself repeating that I wish I hadn’t said anything at all and that in the future, I probably wouldn’t bring anything like this up again. She told me that was my choice.

Her demeanor through all of this was calm, but almost cold. It felt to me like she didn’t really care at all. I made reference to the fact that I might choose not to come to session on Thursday and she just told me to let her know within 48 hours, as is policy at the practice.

We never even got to the topic of making sure I had my full session time. I didn’t bother.

In a way that was so reminiscent of my last session with L, I was on the phone calling Dr. N before I was even out the door. Of course, due to the holiday she was not in the office. The receptionist told me she’d leave the message for her and I drove home.

My next move was to immediately email J. Everything in my life has been shit lately and while I usually like to reserve the positive for her, I knew I needed her support now more than ever. In a lengthy email, I detailed all the ways I feel like I’m failing as well as the issue with M that sent me over the edge.

I felt a little better almost as soon as I pressed send. Then I went about my day, still feeling frustrated and disappointed that M couldn’t be bothered to see my perspective or think through her responses in a way that wouldn’t trigger me. By the time dinner rolled around, I’d moved on enough that I wasn’t seething anymore.

Because she’s wonderful, J emailed me back the very same day with some kind and encouraging words. I was touched that she saw how badly I was struggling and made the time, with two young kids, to get back to me quickly. I found myself in tears at my dining room table, grateful for her and her virtual presence in my life. J comforted me more in that short email than M did in an entire session. How she can still bring me to tears with simple warm words is beyond me.

I did something I almost never do and I sent J a follow-up email asking for more specific advice on how to deal with the M situation. Again, she responded quickly and I had my email from her by the next morning. If I ever question if this woman cares about me, remind me of this.

J tried to help me see the situation a little more from M’s perspective. She talked about how since having kids she feels like it’s impossible for her to be off the grid completely. She suggested that maybe M was feeling the pressure of multiple responsibilities and had a human moment in responding to me. J said she wasn’t excusing the behavior, but instead offering a different perspective. She told me I was brave and had done nothing wrong. She said my relationship didn’t have to end from this and to remember why I’d stuck it out with M, as well as to try to offer both her and myself grace.

Dr. N also called me back the next morning and we processed the issue out together. I shared with her how J had sent me such an encouraging and helpful response. Dr. N thought that maybe M’s response was just a knee-jerk reaction and maybe I’d find upon going back in on Thursday that with the time for her to consider her response she’d be more helpful. She encouraged me to try.

I always listen to Dr. N because I trust her wholly, so I did go back on Thursday.

Again, we spent the beginning of session talking about the same old topics. I pretended everything was fine and she did too. But eventually, she asked me if I’d talked to anyone about my feelings from Monday’s session. I admitted I had, both J, Dr. N as well as one of my co-workers. She asked what they had to say and I told her, with the exception of my co-worker’s comment that maybe this was not the right therapy relationship for me. I even read her portions of J’s email because I didn’t think I could say it better than J.

Dr. N had also suggested to me that maybe one of the reasons I took such issue with M’s response was because she jumped right into problem-solving instead of really listening. I shared this with M too and said that maybe it would have been better if she’d validated, reassured, or dug deeper. I also told her how much her suggestion about cancelling session had hurt me and that it didn’t feel okay.

M remained unhelpful. She said that she tends to jump into problem-solving, that’s how she is, and even if she didn’t do that right away her suggestion still eventually would have been the cancelling session thing. She reiterated that it wasn’t malicious.

So basically, she doubled down on her behavior.

And maybe what she said wasn’t bad or wrong, but it did hurt me and it would have been nice if that was acknowledged. It would have been nice if, after I told her how I wanted to know that she cared and that I wasn’t just a job to her, if maybe she might have validated that or even reassured me that she does in fact care. But I didn’t get that.

What I took away from session was that ultimately, I can’t trust her because I don’t feel like she really even cares about me. Her whole demeanor was cold and uncaring. She did reaffirm that she didn’t think I did anything wrong, but that came up so short in line with everything else.

So now I’m left wondering, is it time to move on?

I’ve messaged quite a few therapists in the time since my Thursday session. I think my heart has already decided that finding someone else would be the best course of action. Even Dr. N said today that moving on might not be a bad idea, which is the first time she’s voiced that for me. She’s always been a prominent advocate for M, pushing me to try to make it work. However, I think even she sees now that it just might not be the right fit. Dr. N talked about how I really need someone who can work on attachment and transference. I think it’s becoming clear to both of us that M is not that person.

Unfortunately, it’s been really difficult to find someone, at least so far. Most therapists these days want to just be virtual, which I don’t like. Plus, I don’t think that I’ll be able to find someone who does 2x week if I move. There are other things too. Starting over feels like hell. I might not find someone who is done having kids and could have to deal with more maternity leaves. So I feel kind of stuck with M for those reasons. It would be a big change to find someone new.

But would it be worth it if I could find a better fit? I’m just not sure. I hope so.

For sure, I’d have to move on from the practice. I couldn’t see someone at the current location where M is and L practices at the other location.

By the way, L’s a clinical supervisor now. Isn’t that super? I learned this in my search for a new therapist. I hope she’s learned how to have better boundaries and not abandon her clients in the last 1.5 years so she doesn’t pass on shitty advice to her supervisees.

Dr. N and I decided that for now, I’ll keep things surface level with M and see if there’s anything I can get out of it. She also said that if I truly feel I can’t make it work with her, then I might be able to get by without therapy for a little while.

I think she’s giving me too much credit, but I guess we’ll see.

So that’s where we are. Feeling stuck and disappointed in the whole outcome of this mess. I’m hopeful that I’ll find someone new, but I guess only time will tell.

Attention, Please!

Therapy is a minefield sometimes. As you wade through your problems, triggers, feelings, you never know when you’re going to step on something that might blow you to pieces.

And, at least for me, it’s usually the littlest things that become the biggest issues.

Things have been going pretty well with M and I for awhile now. I feel as attached as I think I ever will with her, which is a safer amount than I ever did with J or L but enough to make some connection. I trust her as much as I can with the therapy trauma I have. I look forward to sessions again. I am vulnerable, open. I try.

There’s still a lot of fear for me around things going sour. Last week and the week before, I sent her texts. Both of them were straightforward and they were about positive things: a choice I’d made that I was proud of and a thank you for being there.

She responded encouragingly enough, and didn’t seem put off or annoyed in any way. Still, I was brave enough in session to tell her that I’d worried, because two texts in two weeks was way more than I usually did and what if that was too much? M told me she hadn’t even realized it was two texts in two weeks, so we were fine.

Texting is still a tricky issue. The other night all I wanted was to to text her for support and I probably could have, but I’m plagued with anxiety about creating a pattern of behavior that will lead to our downfall. What if she responds warmly to the text and is helpful, so much so that I want to send more? What if I start back down the path of dependence? Or in contrast, what if she sees this as too much, the start of a boundary cross? What if it plants the seeds of frustration in her head?

We’ve talked about this and I’ve been told that she doesn’t view boundary crosses as these catastrophic problems, especially something like this. I know, rationally, that one text isn’t going to be the end all be all. I know that it wasn’t the one text/aftermath with L that ended us, there was so much more that had built up than just that.

But I’m still scared. I still chose to fight the battle privately than loop her into it on that difficult evening. I shared with her later in the week how desperate I’d been to text her and we talked about what I might have been seeking from the text or what I would have said. She never said one way or another if it would have been okay to do.

I’m hyperaware that her time is hers. When she’s not with clients, she’s not on call. And so even if she’s set the boundary that it’s okay to reach out sometimes with the knowledge that she’ll answer when/if she can, I still hesitate because I don’t want to take away from her free, non-therapist time.

It’s another thing I think contributed to L and I ending; she probably never felt like her time away from the office was hers because I texted so frequently. A text could come in at any time. I try not to blame myself for this, because yes I was dependent but she set the boundary and never told me any different. Still, I feel like I should have known better.

Anyway, all of this aside, I stepped on a mine the other day when I walked in the room and M told me that she had a sick kid and may have to answer a text during the session. Which, she did, maybe 15 minutes into session.

It was one text and it took maybe 45 seconds away from my session. But that was enough to set me off. I didn’t allude to this at all during session, but I wanted to say something badly.

Instead, I told Dr. N about it when I met with her yesterday. I explained to her the situation and what she helped me realize is that my feelings were about more than that one session. They were about the numerous times M looks at her watch during session or goes to her phone. Because it wasn’t just Thursday that this has happened. She’s taken a couple calls before during session, answered a text here or there, and she does look at her watch frequently.

It’s not so much that we can’t get anything done, but it’s noticeable. It happens enough that I think the resentment about it has been building for a while and I wasn’t even totally conscious about it. I think in those moments I’ve known that it bothered me, but I pushed them off as isolated events and feelings that might have been out of proportion to the situation. I buried them, thinking I could let them go.

But I haven’t, have I?

I guess what it feels like is that M isn’t always very present for me during session, that she can be distracted, and that I’m not a priority for the 53 minutes that I’m supposed to be.

And I get it, she’s a mom and things come up. She has three kids who rank higher than me. But like Dr. N said, one or two instances where something comes up might bother me less if there wasn’t already a pattern there. I admit that I’d probably still be bothered, but I think I’d feel more understanding if it were a rarer event.

The truth is, sometimes it’s hard to settle during session because I’m wondering if she’s going to look at her watch. I’m wondering if I’m going to be interrupted. That’s hard. That’s supposed to be my time.

J and L never ever did this. I can’t think of one time they picked up a call or even wore a smart watch during session. Granted, J wasn’t a mom when we were working together, but L was. And I don’t take calls during meetings at work and very rarely do I do that when I’m with a student.

But I’m not a mom either. Is that the difference? Does that give the ultimate excuse?

I also struggle because I want my time and feel like I don’t always get all of it. M and I have talked before about how it’s hard for me not to get the full hour. I am always the last one in the waiting room because she sticks to the 53-minutes that I’m allotted. I’ve learned to mostly accept this, but when she’s later than that I start to get frustrated, especially if I’m kicked right out the door at 4:00. For example, if she gets me at 3:10 instead of 3:07 and then I’m leaving at 3:58, that’s five minutes I didn’t have. It’s only five minutes, but it’s five minutes I’m paying for and entitled to.

That’s another thing, J and L always made sure I got my full time. And I got an hour, always.

I know M’s never going to change her boundary around time, it will always be 53 minutes, but I think it might be important for us to talk about making sure I do get my full time. I suspect that part of the reason I don’t always is because when she starts to wrap up, I get quiet. She might just think I have nothing else to say.

The other day, I asked at around 3:57 if I had to leave yet. She said no and we kept talking until about 4:03. That was the full time, so I left feeling okay about it. So I wonder if she’s just not even aware that this bothers me and just tries to read my cues about when I’m out of things to say. I wonder if it’s something that we just need to clarify.

My time is so important to me. I want my therapist to be present and attuned to me. I want her full attention for the full time I’m supposed to have it, and I don’t feel like that’s too much to ask.

Still, I don’t expect much from M in the way of responding to this. I feel she’s probably going to stick to her guns and not change her behavior much. So I don’t know much of what I’m looking for from her or what the point is of sharing these feelings besides the fact that they bother me and M has said she wants me to talk about things that bother me.

I wonder if there’s a solution that would be mutually agreeable. I wonder if she’d even be open to that. What I think will probably happen is she will validate how I feel, but will say that she has to be available for her kids. Part of me understands that, but part of me doesn’t.

I guess I have to prepare for that fact that nothing may change. I have to decide if I can accept that.

Showing up in anticipation of my season

Every day for me is a test in strength.

At the phase of my life I’m in, there is constantly people around me doing all the things described above. My one friend is engaged, another just got married, and a third is in a committed relationship on ring watch. I see pregnancy everywhere I look. Even when I saw my cousin at the end of last year (yes, that one) for a bit with his daughter, and it about broke me a little.

Comparison is my main game. I’ve played it for years. I’ve been told to stop playing it for years too, so there’s that.

It’s funny, because I actually started this post weeks ago but I’ve been having so much difficulty figuring out where to go with it. I say it’s funny because this is probably the biggest issue that’s plagued me in the last few months and yet I can’t figure out what I want to say about it.

But maybe that makes sense. Why would I be easily be able to think of the positive things to say about this topic when it’s been such a challenging area for me?

I’ve really struggled lately with the fact that I’m not where I want to be in life. It’s been the frequent topic of discussion in therapy. It’s the top contributor to my mood dipping lower and lower. It’s causing the reemergence of suicidal thinking. I could be doing something completely unrelated and feeling okay and then I’m suddenly smacked with this realization and reminder that I’m alone.

Everything seems to point back to my aloneness.

I think about it as I’m swiping on Hinge and hoping maybe someone will find me appealing enough to reach out. God, I hate online dating. There’s so much rejection and it reinforces this idea for me that I’m as ugly as I think I am. Ever since I had a potential relationship back in October and then got ghosted, dating has been particularly difficult.

I think about being alone as I go to and from work. Waking up alone and going home alone just gets harder as the days go on and I feel like work is really the only thing I have in my life, which is just so saddening to me.

I think about being alone when I see social media posts of couples day and couples trips and as Valentine’s Day comes up on the horizon again. I think about it when I hear people say the word husband or boyfriend.

It’s constant, really. And while I know this isn’t true, it often feels like the whole world is coupled up besides me. I know my environment at work, where this is mostly true, doesn’t help. Most of my colleagues and married or at least in long-term relationships. Many have kids.

More than anything in the world, I want to be a mom. Of course, I want the marriage too. They go hand-in-hand. But sometimes I think I want to be a mom even more than I want to be a wife. I think it’s because I worry I won’t be a good wife, given my past relationship history. I like to believe that when I find the right person, none of those insecurities will matter.

Either way, the point is I do want both badly .

With all of this unfolding in my mind and around me, it’s been hard to get through day-to-day living. I think if I knew that the things I want were around the corner, I could rest easy knowing if I just did the work to earn them, they’d be there. But there’s no guarantee that I’m going to find someone. None. People like Dr. N and M have told me they believe I will, but obviously that’s nothing but reassurance, not gospel.

So now I guess that’s where the piece of advice listed above needs to come into play. I need to have a little faith.

I went on a date last night. It did not go well, but at least I tried. I’ve been trying, messaging numerous people and swiping whatever way says I’m interested. But I won’t settle, and so that’s a challenge. People on Bumble are “liking” me but then not responding to messages and seriously what’s the point of that?

But yeah, I’m trying. I’m trying right now even though I don’t feel comfortable in my body and know that my self-esteem is still so poor. I try to imagine that there’s someone out there for me and that maybe they’re just not ready yet for that relationship. They’ll come along, if only I keep trying.

I don’t know if I believe in soul mates. It’s a nice thought, because it means that I’m destined to find someone probably. Or does it mean I missed a chance I could have had? Maybe it’s not predetermined at all and it’s only going to happen if I keep working at it.

Everyone says when you least expect it, but I’m not sure how to stop expecting it. I’m 30, on my way to 31, and it feels like my window is closing as each day passes. It’s a lot of pressure.

I sure wish my relationship from October worked out. I sure wish I knew why it didn’t. We had potential, I thought, and then he just disappeared.

So. maybe this isn’t the most positive post, but it is a real one. I keep trying to believe in myself and work on myself. I want someone to find me or I find them who I feel like could really be a good match. Someone who checks a lot of the boxes. Someone who it won’t matter if we aren’t perfectly compatible in every day, but are compatible in enough ways.

I wish I knew more ways to meet people that weren’t just online dating.

Ugh. I’ll keep trying. Nothing happens without the effort, right? My season has to be coming sooner or later. I don’t want to miss it.

The Text I Want To Send

I had almost a full week of no school last week due to the weather, illness, and a holiday. Monday we were closed for MLK Day. I was supposed to go in for professional development but took the day. Tuesday and Friday were snow days. Wednesday we had a delay and Thursday I took a half day because I was sick. So in total last week, I spent 2 half days in the building.

And so, I didn’t see any kids last week. I barely did anything except organize the drawers where my counseling stuff is kept and answered a few emails.

Tomorrow, I have three meetings, two groups, and three kids to see. The week will proceed from there. One of the meetings I’m nervous about because I have to propose something to a parent that I’m not sure they’ll want to hear.

I always feel a little anxiety at the start of a school week, because the clock starts over with seeing individual students and groups. Even though once I’m with the students, it’s usually fine, it’s still something that produces anxiety for me.

Since I didn’t see students (or do much else) last week, I got to live in a place of escape for a bit. I didn’t have to face my continued insecurities surrounding seeing students or approach situations at school that provoke fear, I got to hide in my house under a blanket instead.

Because of that, my anxiety has quadrupled. I find myself dreading tomorrow and the fear is mounting.

I want to text M. If I could, I’d probably say something like: I am having a lot of anxiety about going back to school tomorrow. I feel like I can’t do it. Please tell me what to do.

In the days of L, this is exactly what I would have done. I wouldn’t have fought the impulse. I’d have typed out the text, stared at it for a few minutes as I built my courage, pressed send, and waited for help.

Everything is different now, though.

Not long after I started seeing M, she did open up access to texting if I’m really struggling. I don’t remember if there were exact boundaries around it besides that she’d answer when she could, if she could.

Thinking about this now, I guess her boundaries were similar to the initial boundaries with L. However, I always felt more pressure to keep at a distance because of how things ended with L. I always felt with M that she’d never tolerate the same level of communication I had with L in my therapy with her. I mean, M has said as much that she doesn’t want to foster dependency and there’s no question the texting made me dependent on L.

I’ve been really careful about texting with her. We’ve texted about scheduling and otherwise I can think of maybe five times I’ve texted her otherwise within a year. Maybe twice I’ve asked for assistance and the other times were to make a follow-up comment about something that we touched on in session.

There have been tons of times where I’ve wanted to text her though. Times when I’ve been an anxious mess or struggling with our relationship in some way. Times where I wouldn’t have questioned texting L. Now, I hold myself back, always questioning if it would be a boundary cross. Always wondering if this would be the text that caused a major issue between us.

M has said more than once to me something about how she isn’t bothered if I cross a boundary. We’d talk about it, obviously, but it wouldn’t change her view of me especially if it were a first-time violation. I think that’s what she said anyway; it’s been a little while since that conversation. The gist of what I remember is that she wouldn’t be put off by it, maybe like how L was.

Still, this isn’t territory I want to venture into casually.

I will often bring up in therapy if there was a time where I wanted to text her but didn’t. We don’t discuss at length, but sometimes she’ll prod for more to figure out what stopped me from following through with the urge.

Today, I want to text her badly. I want support. However, the truth is that I have the emotional capacity to handle my problems. I know the answers. I can predict pretty easily what she would tell me to do if I sent her a text, there’s nothing revolutionary she could say.

I think the real reason I want to text so badly is because I don’t want to feel alone in these feelings. I don’t want to carry their load on my own. I’m looking for someone to share them with. The only person from work I could think to text is going through her own shit right now and I don’t feel comfortable sharing my feelings with anyone else.

But like I said, I have all the answers I need without her. Plus, despite that this is hard to accept, therapy is about helping me solve my problems independently. I’m not supposed to rely on someone else.

I know that I will survive through Monday and then every day after that. I know that if I think from wise mind instead of emotion mind, I can remember that I’ve lived through every one of my anxious moments before. I can remember the courage I’ve dug into to face my fears before and replicate that. I can tell myself that while I don’t always feel competent, I do have skills and I know how to talk to kids. I’ve made plans and I’m not going in blind.

I also know that I have affirmations I can fall back on, things I can say to myself to combat the negative thoughts coursing through my head. Even though my first instinct is to say that it won’t help, I know I have to try. I have to believe in myself and take the pressure off for everything to go perfectly.

These days, it’s so hard to get through each day but I can sit with these feelings. And I can choose my hard. It’s hard to go to work and do all the things that scare me but it’s also hard to fall behind at work and feel the guilt because I’m out of compliance with IEP’s due to not seeing kids.

I am not going to fall into the same trap I fell into with L. I don’t need to rely on texting anymore. I’ve grown. I’ve progressed. And I know that if I really truly need her, M is there. But this is not one of those times.

Tomorrow, I’ll tell her all this and maybe she’ll even read this post. It’s another step, if nothing else.

Leaning into Self-Care: Rest Isn’t Optional

For the third time in the last four months, I am sick.

Really, the whole world seems to be sick right now, doesn’t it? Never-mind that it’s that time of the year, but truly ever person I’ve talked to lately has the aches or the tickle in their throat or the cough or the congestion. Granted, I also work in a school with tiny germ gremlins. That might be tainting my sample.

Anyway, I am struggling with a chest cold. Probably bronchitis. Hopefully not Covid. Ever since I did have Covid at the start of 2023, I’ve found that I don’t just get sick in a minor way. No, I seem to attract the germs that sustain themselves for longer and manifest the more severe symptoms. Who knows where I picked up this latest batch of germs? All I know is that the symptoms appeared on New Year’s Eve and I’ve been fighting it off ever since.

So on Friday, after battling my way through a day at work and having a session with Dr. N (also sick) cancelled, I found myself crawling into bed at like 4:45 in the afternoon. I laid there, dipping in and out of consciousness until I needed to feed the cat and then I passed out for the night. Yesterday, I only left my bed to make dinner. Today, I left to dig my car out of the snowbank and also to shower. But even as I’m typing right now, I’m in bed.

My symptoms are (somewhat) improving. My throat hurts, but I think that’s more related to the congestion in my chest. I’m coughing crap up, but my chest isn’t as heavy as it was even yesterday. I’m exhausted, but I was still able to complete those few tasks I listed.

I’ve always been a go-go-go kind of person. My days for the last however-many years have been just filled with various activities that aligned with whatever was present in my life at the time. In grad school, I’d work my assistantship before spending hours in class and not getting out until 10 or 11:00. Then for a couple years, I worked full days at school only to move onto a few more hours of babysitting. Saturdays for many many years were filled with time at my grandfather’s. Therapy has always been mixed into that. Now, I still work full days but with the afterschool program, therapy, and the gym.

So when I lay down at the end of the day in my reading chair with an open book, I know that I’ve earned the chance to rest.

But here’s the thing: Do we really have to earn rest?

I know that I’ve long assumed that, yes, rest is earned. Even this week, as I was starting back on a new school schedule and feeling the symptoms coming on, I told myself I couldn’t afford to take the time off and I’d have to suffer through it. When I didn’t cancel my first personal training session mid-week, my trainer put me through it and when I mentioned that he might be trying to kill me, he told me about how Kobe Bryant played with the flu.

It’s clear that our culture values working through the pain, the illness, or whatever ails you. You’re expected to perform and expected to continue putting your best self out there even when you’re literally struggling to wake up in the morning because you didn’t sleep after a night of coughing fits.

And as a result, I felt guilty Friday night when I was laying in bed at 5:00 in the afternoon, when there was clearly an opportunity to read or write or do something more productive. I felt guilty yesterday as I dozed to the sound of Netflix or scrolled on Tiktok, which was about all I had the physical and mental energy to do. It didn’t feel like enough, even for a weekend.

I’ve already been getting down on myself for not tearing through books like I have last year. As I was laying in bed yesterday, I thought: I could be reading right now. I could be working on this year’s goal. I haven’t finished a single book yet! We’re only 7 days into the New Year and I’m mad at myself for not finishing any books because I’ve been sick and nee to prioritize rest over reading?

Make it make sense.

That’s why this particular piece of advice posted at the top of my post resonated so much with me today. I think it’s important to know when you push yourself and be ambitious towards a goal. I think it’s important to be active, a goal I’m constantly working on trying to do better on.

But I also think it’s important to know when enough’s a enough. I’ve heard people say that if you don’t give your body the rest it needs, it’s going to make sure it gets it. You’ll push yourself to the point of illness or a physical breakdown if you’re not careful. That goes for the mental aspect of things too. Pile too many things in the to-do section and you’re going to feel overwhelmed before you know it.

I was watching Brene Brown’s Atlas of the Heart last week and she talked about being “in the weeds” versus “blown” in relation to the terms stressed and overwhelmed. She talked about how there were ways to manage when you were in the weeds, taking support from others, but that when you were blown the only solution to that problem was doing nothing. Your system just needs time to reboot.

As much as I wanted to come on the scene this weekend with time to read and crochet and maybe finish a few posts, I think I really needed even more to be able to recover from being on the front lines at school all day whilst being sick. While I had the opportunity to snuggle under the blankets with a cat sidekick and watch TV or nap, I needed to take it.

I even cancelled my training session yesterday and am working very hard not to guilt myself over that.

Instead of framing this as something I was forced to do, I can frame it as a choice I made to be the best version of myself. I’m choosing to spend the time in bed. I’m choosing to set aside reading for right now. I’m choosing to focus on healing my body and resting my mind. Recovering now is better than working at half-mast for the upcoming week. Hopefully now I can go back to work tomorrow feeling more capable of taking on the day instead of feeling winded of a weekend I could have used to refresh.

It’s like setting a boundary, one that says I will not push myself to the brink and I will not shame myself for allowing times of non-productivity. Boundaries are super important, even the ones you set for yourself to follow. Especially those boundaries.

I know that I’ll return to times of being productive again. I’ll get back in the groove with reading or finish my current crochet project. I guess this post is even a little bit productive, but I didn’t feel forced to do it. It’s just been on my mind as I’ve been laying in bed. Nothing is constant, and so it’s okay to take time away from being on the go.

Plus, when I allow myself the rest, then I really get the opportunity to appreciate it. Everyone deserve to lean into their rest periods. Self-care isn’t optional, my friends.

If I’d Known Better…

These words above just hit the nail on the head.

In the seven and a half years I’ve been in therapy, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the life I could have had if I didn’t have BPD or OCD and the anxious, depressive, compulsive symptoms that result from these disorders. I used to be super wedded to my BPD diagnosis when I first discovered for myself that I had this personality disorder only to have it confirmed by J days later. I don’t talk about BPD or OCD in relation to my symptoms as much anymore, but I still very much believe I meet these criteria. Whether or not I use the terms (and I do, sometimes, just not like I used to), they are still a very real part of my life. I’m working steadily to recover from the pain they’ve caused me.

I remember not long after I was diagnosed with BPD, talking to J about the resentment I felt for not knowing sooner that I had this diagnosis. I was 24 at the time of my diagnosis and BPD can be diagnosed as early as 18. Because knowing that I had BPD had opened a lot of new insights for me, I had a lot of anger at the fact that I wasn’t aware of this sooner. I had been struggling for so long both in and out of therapy. In my mind, being diagnosed earlier might have saved me from some of that pain and even changed the trajectory of my life.

Moreover, I was mad that I hadn’t participated in therapy in the way I started to in 2016 before that time. Therapy with J was revolutionary in a sense. I’d never had that kind of unconditional positive regard, where I could be the most absolute crazy and she would still speak to me calmly, respectfully, and without any type of name-calling. Plus, I’d never had that unbiased outside perspective that could see me without all the crap that muddied my view of myself. Her voice, the one that told me I was too hard on myself and needed to speak to myself with more kindness, set me on a more positive path to healing. I’d never been able to truly hear or be heard by anyone the way I did with J.

So how was it fair that I’d been denied the calmness, rationality, and layers of hope that therapy offered for so long?

It has taken me such a long time to let go of that resentment and while I certainly don’t carry it around the way I did, I’m still not 100% there.

This is certainly not the first time I’ve addressed the girl who needed more. I’ve spent a long time writing about the reasons that little girl was not to blame for her mental illness, her feelings, her thoughts, and to an extent her behaviors. I’ve talked about the support she needed and how she’d be proud of the progress I’ve made.

And yes, I know I have made a lot of progress since the beginning and maybe I need to think about what life could have looked like if I hadn’t been introduced to J, or L, or Dr. N, or M; any one of them or all of them. It could have been an outright disaster if I’d continued down the same path of all-or-nothing thinking, cruelty to self, lack of assertiveness, and inability to identify or express emotions like anger in myself. So for that, there’s something to be thankful.

Still, sometimes I get stuck on the kind of life I could have had. I have questions and I have images in my head about the beautiful parts of my life I might have had if things were different and I’d have known better.

I think about the relationship I might have been in now. Would I have stopped playing games with so many different guys? Would I have been able to avoid the urge to run when things got intimate or anywhere near serious? When I think about how things might have been, I see myself married at this point in my life, with a kid or two or one on the way at least. I think about how I would be able to communicate my wants and needs in the relationship in the way that balanced my partners. I think about the life we’d be building and I’m overcome with sadness for what I may have missed out on by not being more emotionally available sooner when someone might have been ready for me.

I have to remind myself that just because I don’t have these things yet, they aren’t out of the question for me, the journey is just a little bit different than I envisioned.

I think about the friendships I might still have. There are a handful of people from various times in my life that did not stick around. My best friend and I had a falling out in high school, my close friends from my chosen sport vanished, the friends I had in high school drifted, but there was conflict there too. I can think of at last 5 people right off the bat that I wish were still in my life. People who were good friends to me, and I wish I’d been better to them when I was in the thick of my own emotions and not capable of being accountable for my sometimes unhealthy behavior.

Maybe, I think, I might have been in some of their weddings. That’s long been a bothersome thing for me, that I will never take part in a friend’s wedding, for that seems to be an ultimate right of passage. Maybe I’d have that core group I’ve always lamented that I don’t have, the ones who get together on holidays. I ask myself: Would we have survived conflicts if I’d better communicated? Would that conflicts have even happened to begin with? Would they have fought harder to stick around? Would I?

Here, I have to remind myself that there’s no way to know who was meant to be in my life for a shorter period or for the long run. I have to tell myself that I have learned a thing or two to use in relationships now, and that I’ve built a solid base of 5-6 people that care about me and check in on me.

I think about the career I might have. Would I feel more competent in myself? Would I have had better boundaries sooner to make the job feel more manageable for me? Would it have taken me 9 tries to find a position where I was wanted? I wonder about the district I could have ended up with, or if I would have been in my current field at all. Maybe I might have had the confidence to be a true practicing psychologist, maybe I might have obtained my PhD.

In truth, the fact that I hold down a job successfully should count for something. Yes, it took me a long time to find this job, but I always felt like I was supposed to land in that position, at least in the beginning, because of the opportunity it afforded me to continue babysitting the two little girls that I loved.

I think about the other opportunities I might have had, and the things I may have avoided. More travel. More experiences. Less spending. Less disordered eating. Would I have had friends or a partner to go places with, to experience life? Would I have been able to appropriately cope with emotions instead of turning to food and shopping? I think of this life where I’m pleased with my appearance, where I’m in a good financial position. I think about the places I’ve been able to go because I didn’t overspend and I had those relationships with a partner or friends that I could travel.

I could go on all day with these imaginings.

I’ll never know exactly how things might have turned out if I’d known better. However, I do know that being stuck in the what if has never gotten me anywhere good.

I think it’s important that I go back and read some of those old posts again and give support to the little girl who could have benefitted from a lot of different types of help. This isn’t about blaming anyone. This is just about trying to accept that I am where I am in my life, I had the experiences I had, and that’s never going to change.

I can continue to beat myself up over how I wish my life had turned out, or I can try to take charge of it now, work on continuing to heal, and move forward.

Anxiety and The Twice-Lived Experience

I go back to work tomorrow after being off for 10 days. As I’m sitting here contemplating that, I’m thinking about everything on my plate.

There’s a high-needs student returning to my district sometime soon. She’s very medically fragile and we don’t have the capacity to support her appropriately, yet my boss thinks it’s appropriate for her to stay in-district. Many of my colleagues are wondering how we will handle this on top of everything else.

I am stressed about it. I’ve been trying to distract myself, but the thoughts come to me in the evening, right as I’m trying to lay down and sleep. It’s anxiety at it’s finest.

I’m stressed about other things too. A student whose placement is changing. Students whose behaviors were starting to ramp up before break. New referrals. Eligibility meetings for kids who we’ve been testing. An intense parent. There is so much to be concerned about.

Plus, I think I’m getting sick again.

But that’s all for tomorrow.

Today, I am still home. Today, I slept in and went food shopping and painted my nails and vacuumed. I’m doing laundry as I write this post and later I plan to lay in my reading chair and try to read for a bit, something I’ve been neglecting lately. These are all good, or at least neutral, things with little to no pressure about them.

Still, my mind is on tomorrow. What will it be like? Will I know more about this returning student? Will the kids have difficulty transitioning back after so long away? Will I be able to complete my schedule or will some flexibility be involved to get it all done?

This takes me back to what L used to tell me when I would fret about something future-related, as anticipation has always been a major trigger for me. She would say that I couldn’t predict if it was going to go well or not. I could gear up for something to be awful and it might end up just fine. I could think everything will be smooth sailing only for it all to fall apart. Either way, I just don’t know. She would encourage me to just tell myself that: “I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

I’ve been trying to use that advice more lately. One example is I applied for a new after-school job that could potentially replace my current after-school job if they are looking for new people/want to hire me. I haven’t heard yet because I only applied Friday, but the newness and uncertainty bothered me a lot. I wondered what if they do want me and I can’t make everything fit? Then I started thinking about how I didn’t want to give up twice a week therapy and I could feel myself tense.

But the truth is, no one has contacted me. They might not contact me at all! If they do, there are so many ways this could unfold. It might involve shuffling my schedule. It might involve no changes at all. Or anything in between! I don’t know what will happen.

Another example that happens frequently is I’ll think about what life could be like if I was in a relationship. Often, I think about the things I’m most comfortable with and how they could change. It’s really little things: what if they don’t like my dishware or my sheet sets? What if they don’t like that I sleep with a sound machine? How will I change my sleep schedule one day when I have a child after being so used to sleeping in?

Really, really random things honestly.

So I think a lot about this piece of advice and how I need to start applying it to my own life. Yes, I can sit with the uncomfortable anxious feelings that surface when I think about going back to school tomorrow or being in a relationship or having a different job. They won’t kill me and they’re only temporary. I can definitely acknowledge them and think about how I’m talking to myself through them.

But also, I need to recognize that by staying stuck in these feelings all the time that I’m putting myself through something that I don’t have to live through yet. I am not at school right now. I do not have a new job offer. I am not in a relationship. Granted, all of the things I worry about could come true, but there’s also the very real possibility that they won’t.

I also generally only worry about things in a negative sense. I’m thinking about the potential downsides about having a different position or how being in a relationship could be challenging. Anxiety can be healthy in a way, if it keeps me appropriately alert to potential difficulties, but this worry is excessive and negative-focused. It’s simply not helping me at all.

I wonder how much time I’ve lost living in worry-world over events that I couldn’t possibly predict, can’t change the outcome of and haven’t even happened yet? It prevents me from enjoying the time that’s in front of me now.

It’s impossible for me to stop the initial anxiety; those minions have a mind of their own sometimes and I’m charged with the electric currents of anxious energy flowing through me before I even am aware I’m thinking about or feeling it.

However, then I consider this:

This seems to be more focused on ED thoughts, but it could easily apply for OCD and BPD thoughts too, or just general anxiety.

When the thoughts comes knocking and the anxiety surges, I won’t blame myself for that. I won’t shame myself for having feelings. What I will do it sit with them for a moment, validate their existence, and then find a helpful reframe. I’ll remind myself that I’m essentially putting myself through unnecessary suffering and that I don’t know what the outcome is going to be. Then, I’ll think about how I can turn it all around into a more strength-based thought.

Something like, This anxiety is scary and unpleasant, but it’s normal to feel anxiety about going back to work. You don’t want to submit to pain and suffering before it’s called for though. You have no idea what work will be like tomorrow. Let’s focus on how you can feel prepared while also taking the essential time to relax beforehand.

That took so little time to produce, but I know it will be harder to actually believe. It will take more practice. But I’m willing to try. I don’t want things interfering with me being the best version of myself, and that includes at work too.

Wish me luck!