Therapy Shenanigans

Friends, I am the worst therapy client ever.

Like, literally the worst. I even no-showed an appointment once inadvertently. My therapist also once texted me a time that she was available, and I didn't get back to her for seven months. If that were me, I would have dropped that person like a bad effing habit. Not her, though. She's a game-day player, my therapist. Also, shit that makes me frustrated because my clients do it? I have NO problem doing those things whatsoever.

The biggest example of this is catastrophizing. BOY, do I do this.ALL.THE.TIME.

As a result, I don't talk about my feelings to people because I'm afraid that if I do, I'm going to blow up my whole life.

In my head, I KNOW this is crazy-pants.

But I can't help it anyway.

Also, whenever I'm in therapy and I just start out either in the beginning or after a long break, things that were acceptable, possibly forever, suddenly become unbearable. I can't take it. I have to tinker. I have to do something to throw the pattern off kilter, because all of a sudden it's bugging me and I can't tolerate it. The clinician inside of me KNOWS this is normal.

The 14-year-old child inside of me that got chided and shamed for expressing her feelings and other utterly normal teenage behavior does not know this is normal and wants the status quo back even though it means sitting in the corner and shutting the hell up, and starts to all-out panic because suddenly people are getting angry and this kid doesn't know what to do. Like, legit panic. Like, caged animal kind of panic.

The long and short of it is that two relationships in my life have been imploding for a while, and it's coming to a head right about now on both fronts. Intellectually, I know that this is not bad or unnecessary, but it's happening. And, it's stressful on top of the huge professional transition that I am currently making. (Of course that's going swimmingly, because it's rarely, if ever, the other way around.)

I was raised to never express my feelings. I was taught that if I do express my feelings or opinions and it makes someone else not feel so great, even for a hot second, then I did something wrong. I would need to explain myself somehow. Don't be too loud. Don't express your feelings. Don't be too much for other people. Apologize when you make someone else feel bad by expressing your feelings, even if you were right. Your feelings are not valid if they make someone else feel bad or uncomfortable. Your feelings are only valid if they serve to stroke the ego of another person.

Yeah, fuck that noise. Guess what? Other people sometimes feel angry or bad about my feelings or what I say when I set boundaries. This does not create a need for me to explain myself in any way, shape, or form. I create that all on my own when I panic. Then I back-pedal. Then I obsess about how I could have approached it differently. Then I give others room to invalidate my feelings, and then I invalidate my own feelings by saying to myself that the other person must be right. UGH WHAT AN EXHAUSTING CYCLE NOW THAT I RECOGNIZE IT.

THIS is the piece of work that I've needed to do for my whole life. I am a person who feels things. This is both healthy and valid. Intellectually, I know this. Shit, I preach it every day of my life lately. Yet I don't practice it. THIS is what doesn't quite line up for me in terms of my actions and my feelings. I consistently push my feelings into a corner to not piss off too many people, and to not make waves. Being invisible is easier, even if it's at the expense of my feelings.

Or rather, it was. Not anymore.