Saturday 1 August 2009

Therapy thoughts #1


My therapist and I this past Thursday were discuss my youth in California and how during most of these years I was a very sad child/teenager. I have/had an abusive father who I no longer have contact with and am proud to say I am a strong survivor and as I always put it "he didn't win". I spent all of my youth pretending. Always pretending. Pretending I was else where, pretending I was happy, pretending I was confident, pretending I was strong... I started this from a young age, very young, 6 maybe? And it became my defense mechanism for when my father was...well...whatever he did.

It was great, it served me well, it saved me in many ways my pretending. It was like how people tell you "if you tell yourself your beautiful enough you'll start to believe it", I told myself I was strong, I was a good person, I was innocent, I was confident, I was brave and slowly slowly I began to believe them. But because this defense served me so well and was used so often I find it hard to stop now. It's like a bad habit, how do you change your ways after 14 years? This is what I wanted my therapist to explain to me and help me with. Why? When I know I am happy now, and safe now, with my own wonderful family and a good life and good friends, do I still find myself retreating somewhere else entirely at the most inappropriate times? For instance, during sex. Husband and I have great sex, I love it, he's so good and he never fails to please me. But, during I will sometimes be somewhere else mentally, thinking of random things (like; what were the lyrics to that new Brintey song?) and not feeling or enjoying the moment when i so want too. I want to live in the now, the present, in reality, I want to stop pretending I am somewhere else, because THIS is where I've always wanted to be.

So how do you break a life time of this habit? And it's not a bad habit, like I said, It was what got me through those hard times and I'm grateful for it. But now, how do I hug it and kiss it and tell it I'm ok now and I can finally do this on my own? It's actually a bit scary... Like getting rid of your safety blanket.

Of course I don't have the answer of how to stop, because as my therapist says "you can't change a life time in one hour"... But we're on the path now and it's quite exciting.

I know I have not spoken about my therapist much here, I suppose because although this is my blog and my life, I'm conscious of what people might assume of me. But that is just silly and ruins the whole concept of this blog. You see, I love going to my therapist, I really enjoy my time with her. Yes, sure, we speak about tough, hurtful things but I am always sat there feeling positive and happy at the end of it, because I AM strong now, I AM brave, I AM happy, I AM confident, I AM beautiful. And I don't need to repeat these things to myself because I know them to be true so much that I find myself surprised when people do not agree (which, to be honest, is not often, because I am undoubtedly fab) you see I'm a very positive and laid back person, always have been despite. Many people have taken to calling me robot (husband was one of them when we first me) because I am so unflappable, I am so ok with my son tipping his spaghetti over his head and flicking his yogurt at me, I'll just go and flick some right back. And I like the way I am, cool calm and collected as they say (don't get me wrong though, I have my moments but as husband says, I'm not a nagger) and I understand that the idea of this woman who claims she is easy going but is having to see a therapist doesn't always click right. I'm not ashamed that I am seeing a therapist. It was my choice because I am always aware that I have a dark past and although it does not effect me now as my son started to get older I worried that it might come back to haunt me one day and I did not want him to have to suffer or worry because of that. So my plan of action was sort out my skeleton closet before he was old enough to ask "What's wrong with mummy?".

There. I did it. This post was for my own benefit allowing me to shout "I'm seeing a therapist and here's a little bit of why" and just get it over with. Now I may feel more comfortable posting on a Thursday evening about the events that happened there. might also help me sort through everything we discussed.

Oh, also, another reason I need therapy: It's the only guaranteed time once a week where for an hour I am not a mum or wife but I just get to be ME. Brilliant :)


editors note: The picture...is obviously a play on me "needing therapy". The crazy cat lady. you know? .... get it? ah, nevermind.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

You shouldnt feel ashamed. I think its really cool that you talk about it. We all have skeletons in our closet and issues that we have to work on. If therapy helps, thats great.

Eve said...

Thank HH. I really appreciate that :)

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