Change can be uncomfortable, but that doesn’t always mean bad

While a lot of things have changed in the nearly 7 years that I’ve been with my therapist…one thing has remained the same.

The couch.

We’ve moved offices, moved buildings, changed practices…decor changes and new artwork…but it’s always been the same couch.

Until today.

Last week, she told me (and thank you for the heads up, by the way) that next week, today, she’d finally be getting a new couch in her office.

And I’ll be honest, it’s time. The one she has now has seen better days. It’s peeling and worn, and you can tell it’s been…well loved. So the change isn’t surprising or unnecessary. We’ve actually been talking about it for a while now.

But the fact that it’s actually here, the change is actually coming…I don’t know. I guess I am feeling a certain type of way about it.

What if it’s not comfortable? What if it doesn’t hold my secrets as well? And what if I can’t sit on it for 2 straight hours and pretend to be a normal person?

Therapy in general has been…it’s been fucking unpredictable lately. And I hate that.

I hate the unpredictability of it and the anxiety that surrounds it because of that. I wish I was strong enough to actually talk about these things with her, the specifics about what makes me so anxious lately, but I’m so worried about it causing more problems that I’d just rather…not.

Last night, I was writing in my journal, and I was trying to be honest with myself. I wrote about how grateful I am to be on this journey with her, and how I wonder if she knows how much she’s helped me, and how much I really do need her.

And that’s something that has always scared me a lot…the idea of needing someone, of being vulnerable with them in a way that is so unnatural to me. I struggle with the concept of being open to get hurt by someone like my therapist, all while knowing that very vulnerability is likely the only thing that’ll help to heal me in the end.

I’m so fearful of the fragility of the relationship right now, or…what feels on my end like fragility, anyway. Because I do need her. And I’m so scared of a life without her in it, without having her as a light to guide me down this bullshit darkness that has become my life.

I don’t like it when she gets quiet now, because she doesn’t know what else to say, or how to respond. I don’t like it when she tells me that “we’ve already tried something”, because…yeah…maybe we have, but just because it didn’t work super well then, that doesn’t mean it won’t now.

Selfishly, I want her to be the version of her that I know exists that is best for me. I miss that. And I miss that close relationship we had when I felt like no matter what, she had my back. I know she still has my back, and I know she still cares. But I want her to show it again in a way that feels good. Even if, as she’s said, it “isn’t doing me any good”. I disagree. I think it did me the most good.

Should I be “better” at therapy by now? Yes, I suppose I should be. But I’m doing my best. I really, honestly am.

But my best will ALWAYS be better when the therapeutic relationship between her and I is as strong as it can be, as strong as I know it to be.

But tonight, I’ll walk in for the first time in 7 years, and the symbolic staple of therapy – the couch – will be new.

Maybe I can draw from that, and take it as a new start, a small refresh on our journey…and things will feel okay again…safe again.

Maybe change is good…even if at first, it isn’t always comfortable.