Scattered Thoughts

I have therapy tomorrow, and I’m anxious about it.

Opening up about the things I don’t have figured out yet is hard.

It’s been sobering watching how many strides my ex has taken since we separated. In a way, continuing to live together and remaining friends has allowed me to see the cost I had on her. It’s imprinted in my mind—the ways I was affecting her quality of life.

I wouldn’t have been able to see that if we had done things in a more traditional way.

It stings.

To realize how messed up I am.

Meaning, how much work I have to do to get to a place where being with me would add to someone’s life, not take away from it.

And it hurts to know that even if I felt a lot of love, I was really bad at showing it.

That’s something I’ve been on the other side of.

And knowing I’ve done that to someone else… it’s hard to sit with.

I feel like I’m having to strip everything about myself down and start over.

Except I don’t have the pieces I need to rebuild yet.

I know I don’t see everything about myself that is toxic or harmful.

First, I have to see it before I can change it.

I think that’s the part that scares me the most.

What if I stay stuck in my own defenses?

What if I can’t handle the pain of healing enough to make lasting change?

I don’t want to hurt people.

I don’t want to keep hurting people.

I think that’s my biggest goal in therapy—

to learn how to be a safe person,

a kind person,

an honest person.

And I am… a lot of the time.

I know I tend to feel like all I am is my mistakes.

I know that view won’t help me move on.

I know I need to let go of the idea that I have to be something 100% of the time to truly be that thing.

But when I fuck up…

I really fuck up.

It’s usually pretty major.

Life-changing.

It feels good to be able to write again.

To get this shit out of my head.

The hard thing about therapy is that the longer I work with someone, the more they matter.

And the more they matter, the more scared I get.

If I’m not extremely aware of myself, my fear can start running things.

My past experiences can distort the person I’m seeing in front of me.

I’m really scared I’ll mess this up.

And it feels like my last chance.

One thing I think I'm starting to realize is that, love may not be the feeling I felt at all within therapy. When you're dying of thirst, a drop of water can feel like an ocean. It can look like an ocean, maybe even sound like an ocean... but its not an ocean.

And I think a lesson I'm carrying with me from the last termination is that I'm not good at being vulnerable when it matters most. Which means, I need to be asking myself often, is this vulnerable or is this protective? Does this invite the person into a conversation? Does it invite connection? Is it kind? Is it rooted in the present?

I have some grief showing up as I type this. It's another thing I'm having to sit with. Knowing I messed it up.