Healing and Connection

I’m feeling okay today. If I could describe what it feels like, it would be like this really heavy trench coat on my body. Like someone made a weighted trench coat, but it’s too heavy for it to be regulating. How do you stop longing for and missing two people who felt like soul mates? Even if I can’t be partners with my ex, having her in my life means a lot to me. And while it hurts to lose that kind of connection with her, having no connection would have shattered me complet

I finished work yesterday with a meeting, then went to donate plasma. After donating, I went to play cards with some friends, and I stayed until around midnight, having a lot of fun, laughing and joking around with them. Honestly, even with getting home late, I slept better than I have in a while. The night before, I woke up to nightmares throughout the night. Last night, I dreamed I was carrying around a small baby that was mine, letting my grandparents hold them, visiting w

After therapy today, I can really feel my sense of body experience change. I feel like I’m pulled out of myself. And at the same time, I can feel things rising up into my chest, into my throat, expanding. I’ll be honest… starting over with this level of bodily insight, with this capacity, is weird. I feel wobbly. Being able to forgive my parents and have compassion for them as humans has been such a relieving feeling too. Because now I can connect with who they are, and not f

I actually did zero TV watching today. I didn’t have the attention span for it. Instead, I went over to my parents’ house and hung out with them, my brother and his wife, and my godson. I enjoyed the day. It’s funny how I was just beating myself up this morning about never having anything good to write about, and here I am, writing something good. Lol. I’m also over drinking. It felt good the first few days, and then it made my depression worse, which is not something I want

It’s been nice to feel… well, I don’t know that I have a feeling word for it, but I know I don’t feel like the world is collapsing on top of me. I have therapy tomorrow, and I’m hoping this is the start of consistent weekly sessions. I feel like I haven’t had that in a long time. I’m also hoping my attachment system can bear the intimacy and vulnerability of therapy again. I know I’ll be in pain at points. I just hope it isn’t all-consuming. That fear is there, especially bec

I spent the day with my family. I drank beer. I laughed. I had fun. My aunt, the one who always baked for every family gathering, passed away last month. Today, my uncle found a bag of her cookies in the freezer. I don’t have a word for what that felt like. To taste something made by someone who is no longer here is different than tasting it while they’re alive. It holds weight. It asks something of you. I noticed a subtle lemon flavor I had never noticed before. Maybe it was

I still feel out of it. Like I’m suspended in the air, spinning a little, not fully grounded. But for the first time in a while, I don’t feel like I’m up here alone. I won’t have therapy again for two weeks because of the holidays. But I know I have someone I feel comfortable talking to when I meet with them again. I didn’t realize how much weight not being able to talk to someone had been adding to everything until now. It wasn’t that my previous therapist wasn’t present or

I finally found someone my body can be with. I can talk to her without getting stuck in my words or having to constantly clarify what I mean. I don’t feel misunderstood, and I don’t feel like I have to work hard to be understood. She’s actually there with me. She’s structured and she’s kind. And she has a very specific way of putting things into words that works really well for my autistic brain. When she reflects things back, it helps organize what feels messy or hard to hol

Yesterday two things happened that are a pretty big deal for me. I (with the help of medication) decided to meet up with some new friends for the first time. With couples counseling no longer taking place, I asked our couples therapist if she’d be willing to take me on individually. She reflected on it… and then told me she’d be happy to work with me. It’s kind of strange how life lines up sometimes. If I hadn’t met a particular therapist earlier this year, I don’t think I ev

I just finished re-reading my post “I’m Sorry,” and now I’m sitting here crying. A part of me desperately wishes I could rewind time. And another part of me knows I had to learn these lessons the way I did: in some shape, some form, some sequence I never would’ve chosen but somehow still needed. And I got to learn them with the most kind-hearted, tender person I have ever met. I am grateful for that. For growing alongside her. For experiencing a level of care that reshaped me

I think it’s important to talk about my part in the dynamic with my first therapist. I’m not sure I fully have the words to describe everything, but I’m going to try my best. I had never in my life been cared for the way she cared for me. I’d never felt nurtured before. Seen. Heard. Understood in the way she managed to understand me. I had never trusted anyone enough to share my story either. Honestly, I didn’t think my story mattered enough to tell. My body had absolutely no

It’s strange how two experiences can both hurt you and still feel nothing alike in your body. I’ve been thinking about that, the difference between a wound and a trauma. The difference between someone who harms you and owns it, and someone who harms you and then lies about it to protect themselves. My first therapist made mistakes. I’m not going to sugarcoat that. Things happened that left me with pain I still carry, and probably more trauma than either of us knew how to hold

I’m kind of just out of it today. And I’m frustrated. I have therapy, and, as usual, I’m blank. No thoughts. No brain cells. Just this quiet heaviness that makes me want to curl up and cry. I envy the people who can walk into therapy and just… talk. The ones who can lay everything out, or at least recap their week without freezing. And maybe envy isn’t the right word, because there’s no bitterness in it. It’s more of a longing. A small ache. Something in me wishing I could do

You want to know what brought me back into myself today? A poem. A beautifully accurate poem.

I’ve been in my head about the termination I went through this year (the one that happened by email), and every time I try to write about it, I end up drowning in shame and deleting everything. Not just shame, honestly. It’s also this feeling that my thoughts start spilling out in ways that feel unaligned with who I am. Even when everything I type is true, it feels mean, and it feels like I’m shit-talking, and that’s just not something I like to do. I keep telling myself I’ll

I sometimes feel like different people feeling different grief. Idk how to explain it. Like one second I’m saying “my feelings move” and the next I’m drowning in grief again. Sometimes it’s so painful I really can’t take a breath in. When termination first happened, I blocked the practice on Instagram because I knew seeing her would be too difficult. But about five months ago I unblocked them and thought I would probably be okay, and I guess I’m not as okay as I thought I cou

When my grief for L hits, it’s always different. Sometimes it’s fleeting. Sometimes it’s this softness that feels like a pause in my day… a moment where I can acknowledge how much she means to me and still keep moving. And then there are days like today, when I wake up crying for hours because the part of me that misses her is just more active. It hurts, but it’s not the kind of pain that makes me want to hide. It’s the kind of pain that reminds me how much she matters to me.

I was reflecting on how far I’ve come in being able to feel and name sensations in my body. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not something I have access to every day, but from where I started, I’m definitely at a completely different level. Anyway, as I was reflecting, remembering how much shame I had around trying to feel my body made me want to talk about it, to normalize the feelings that can come up when you’re not used to feeling your body. At the beginning, I couldn’t feel anyt

This whole day has been good. I don’t know if you can feel the weight of that sentence but I need you to. I need you to understand that this is rare for me. And I can just hear the therapist question: “What was different about today than the other days?” Ma’am, I don’t know. I woke up like this. I drank a peppermint bark coffee? Are you telling me I can ditch the mental health meds for peppermint bark coffee? That will solve all my problems? This whole time? lol That line, I

Last night my two year old niece slept over. Sometime in the middle of the night, she started crying, so I put her in bed next to me. When I woke up, she was cuddled against me. It was one of those moments that makes you pause. The kind that feels too simple to describe but still manages to fill your chest. This morning all she could talk about was wanting her nails painted. Lucky for her, her uncle also enjoys a good nail color collection. She picked purple, my favorite shad