Over the past few weeks, I’ve been put in a position completely foreign and unknown to me.
After 10 years working with the same therapist, a person who I came to develop an insanely strong and therapeutic relationship with, I am finding myself in the position of starting over.
And frankly, that every flavor of freaking sucks.
I’ve met with 2 different new therapists so far. One of them twice, and the other one I’ll see for the second time later today (probably).
I think going into therapy brand new and starting over for the first time, unwillingly, might I add, is triggering a sense of disconnect for me.
Like, I’m telling you my story in bullet points, which you probably don’t believe anyway because my life is *actually* that ridiculous, I’m talking about it in a way that distances myself even further from the emotions of it all and numbing myself from it even more.
It’s left me feeling very unsafe and like I have nowhere secure or safe or reliable to go to actually have feelings. I don’t have that place or person or whatever to just be able to have those vulnerable moments or conversations in a way that doesn’t feel like it’s something I won’t be able to recover from.
I can tell that I’m not only pulling back from the idea or the hope that I used to feel from therapy to begin with, but I’m also pulling away from feelings or anything real or raw or vulnerable in general.
With myself, and also with the people in my life that I desperately want to dive deep with when it comes to meaningful relationships, and not this bullshit that I’ve been doing…which is the complete opposite.
Starting over has felt impossible. I absolutely despise this position that I’m in. Where I don’t feel worthy even of having a moment to feel a real feeling.
I haven’t even had a real conversation about my dog, Casey, who I had to put down last week. And how impossible that situation was for me. And I can’t even touch on it because holy shit, that’s emotions and feelings and I just don’t have that in me to be able to work through without feeling just so completely safe.
I’m struggling with words, with creating meaning behind them, and connecting them with how and what I’m feeling.
I went through a similar phase months ago, where I felt so completely disconnected with myself. Everything was hard, I shut down from absolutely everyone, myself included, and it felt disgusting. I don’t know how I pulled myself out of it, but I do know that I forced myself to keep writing through it all. Even if it felt forced and hard and gross.
I didn’t want to start over. I didn’t want to lose the one relationship I had that felt safe, that felt like I had that one thing or place or person where I was specifically allowed to be vulnerable. This wasn’t my choice.
And I guess that’s just life. Sometimes you don’t get to choose your path. You don’t get to pick the things that happen to you. And that sucks. It does.
But you have to show up and keep going anyway.
I just need to figure out how to find myself again. And rediscover who I am in this new phase of life that feels just so extremely unsafe and scary. I don’t feel worth it. And I don’t feel like my words and my feelings are worth the space they take up. Which is hard.
But I know I need to try. And keep going.
It feels gross. But I need to try anyway.
