Category Archive

Yesterday, I started therapy. I probably shouldn’t say “started” because I’ve been in some sort of talk therapy since the dawn of man. It’s important to me, sorting out the mental things. Just as, if not more important than the physical if you ask me (why doesn’t everyone get this?!) but anyway… So yesterday I started a new TYPE of therapy. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to be exact. It’s like therapy on steroids. Therapy with HOMEWORK. It’s super intense, but also short lived. Unlike every other form of therapy I’ve encountered the goal here is to eventually not need it. 8-12 weeks-ish depending on how many cobwebs you have and you (well I) am out of there.

I’m excited. Really, very excited. Aside from truly enjoying this sort of thing (yes, I’m just that strange) I think this is finally the “ah-ha” that I need. The thing that will finally make the difference. Talk therapy is great, I’m all for it, but for me at least it helps for maybe 48 hours and then my brain takes over. The inate things that have been so ingrained in me rear their ugly little head and I (the me I want to be, know I am underneath it all) gets ran over by the past. I need to retrain my brain.

There are things that I mention in passing around here, things that those super close to me may know a bit about, but mostly I just don’t wanna talk about it. I don’t want my past to define me but it’s inevitable that it does. It has. Growing up for years at the hands of a diagnosed sociopath, a step-”father” who was anything but, enduring his abuse, his crafty, crazy, ingenious methods of mind control. The phsyical. Your brain starts to do all sorts of fun stuff. You become animalistic. On gaurd, ready to pounce, to protect. Which is amazing really. It gets you through.

Unfortunately it’s near impossible to just turn off. When removed from such a situation, when learning to live life in it’s true form, healthy, normal-ish life. This amazing set of abilities just get in the way. They ruin. When soft mushy old me turns on the tough it’s not pretty and these days it’s just plain unnecessary. And oh, am I excited to let that go.

But I’m also scared because it does protect. Because an unplanned pseudo-experiment with friends showed that letting my guard down means I can get hurt. I will. Walked all over and thrown under the bus. But that’s ok. That will happen. My current level of defense is way over the top for any level of mean girl action and in the mean time it’s tearing down the one relationship I value most. Turning me slowly into the one person in this world I loathe and in there’s the unfortunate passing on of baggage to a boy so innocent, that is simply not ok.

And so, yep, I’m committed. Committed to getting down and dirty and rewiring what needs to be, to shedding the tough guy, to shelving the anger, calming anxieties, to being real, for real, the me that I know but keep under wraps. I’m prepared for a bumpy road, for a road hiccuped with the grief that’s so fresh and the guilt of old. I’m looking forward to preparing the me that my husband feels but has been patiently, agonizingly standing by to see launch. I’m feeling the need to leave a trail of apologies but I also feel part of this is shedding that shame and stepping forward.

It’s exhilarating, to say the least.