Rocking the boat

A very common theme in my life is that I’m fine as long as everyone loves me. Or at least doesn’t hate me. I know that literally not everyone will love me. But, more or less, it boils down to that. If people don’t like me, that must mean there’s a problem with me. I’ve done something wrong, I’m not good enough, I’m unworthy, etc etc.

This is clearly an impossible situation to be in, because not everyone is going to love you all the time. That’s just not how life works.

I had therapy last night, which I think probably helped with my mental state a good bit. After my trip, I was super dysregulated and feeling very fragile and emotional. Keeping it suppressed and stuffed down for so long just doesn’t work. It has to come out eventually, and for me, it did in the form of a breakdown.

For homework for therapy this week, since I absolutely hate conflict or bad feelings or dealing with anything negative at all…she wants me to do 2 things. First, she wants me to show up 15 minutes late one day within the next two months, and not tell her when. So…ugh. That stresses me out a ton, and I don’t want to do that.

Thanks to anxiety, I chronically get places early. I hate being late. It freaks me out. So…I’ll have to work on that.

The other thing she wants me to do is think about a time (and we have like 8 years of history to pull from) where she did something that upset me. Something that she did or said that didn’t sit well with me, or that I didn’t like, or didn’t agree with. And, again…I just don’t want to do that.

Has she done things in the past that I haven’t loved? Yes, of course. But I always turn that around and take the responsibility for it.

If she’s doing something I don’t like, it must be in response to me and something I’m doing wrong. So then I take a look at myself, and try to see it from her perspective. And I would never actually tell her that something she did or said upset me…I’d just shut down and pull away.

Since I desperately want all of the relationships in my life to be stable and sunshine and rainbows literally all of the time, why would I create my own turmoil by voicing my negative feelings? I just wouldn’t. I’d shoulder it myself and move on.

So she wants to rock the boat a little bit. I guess to show that there can be tension and turmoil in secure relationships, and it doesn’t have to be the end of the world. It doesn’t have to shatter me and destroy me and every other horrible thing that happens when my relationships aren’t going perfectly.

I feel better today than I did yesterday, and I think talking through the weekend helped. I’m definitely still feeling off, and just overall feeling a little more fragile than I was.

But, this time of year, after his birthday in April, after Mother’s Day, after the retreat…it’s kind of the time of year I don’t have to think about my birth son. I can just put him out of my head and he isn’t necessarily forced into perspective.

I don’t know. I’m definitely feeling a little bit shaken still. I’m not feeling strong or positive or capable. There’s a big part of me that, to be honest, is considering just giving up. And I need to figure out what that means exactly.

But for now, I’ll focus on today. I really don’t want to think about the times my therapist has upset me. Because, historically, those were probably matched with some really dark times in my life.

Ah, I think I just thought of one. And it’s really not a place I want to revisit. But I guess I have to.

One day at a time. Today, I just need to focus on getting through today.

The good news is that I think my baby chicks are coming today, so at least I do have that to look forward to.