The Day Before Therapy

I have therapy tomorrow, and I can already feel my throat closing. There’s this weight covering my head—like fog, like static—and a faint sense of floating somewhere just outside myself.

Naming that is progress, I guess. There was a time I couldn’t have even noticed a body sensation, much less written about it. I don’t always have access to this kind of awareness, and even when I do, it slips away fast.

Still, that’s not really the point. The point is the frustration that comes with showing up empty-handed. No notes from the week. No record of the things that mattered. Just a blank page.

Trying to reach my own memories sometimes feels like looking at a book through a window. The pages are open, the words right there—but I can’t quite touch them. I can catch glimpses, fragments of the story, but never enough to tell it to someone else.

I could always share a blog post if all else fails, but that feels too intimate somehow. Funny how I can write all of this for strangers to read without hesitation, yet the thought of sitting across from someone who’s actually trying to know me—to see what’s underneath—feels unbearable.

I imagine she must wonder why I keep showing up if all I do is sweat and shrug.

I wonder that too.

How long before she thinks this isn’t working?

How long before I decide to run?

Lately I’ve been feeling like the little kid laying on the floor, curled in the fetal position—scared, alone, just hoping it stops soon.

Hoping that someone reaches their hand toward me and says, “It’s okay. I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere.”

I know that hand has to be mine now.

I just don’t know how to stop the longing my heart still has—for a parent who could have given me that.

Protection instead of pain. Love instead of fear.

And maybe, in some distant life, what it would be like to not need therapy at all.

To not be so shattered that I could be a person people don’t walk away from.

I don’t know how to show up anymore. I’m too scared.

And I think the hardest part is the shame of what happened. Speaking about it publicly makes it hard for me to be vulnerable about it in therapy. I’ve tried, but I end up feeling so ashamed after I open up that I think that’s part of the reason I leave therapists. Because who would want to work with a client who speaks up? Who would believe my perspective? I think we can all agree that the people who are believed tend to be the ones who hold the power — not the ones who were harmed. Especially when the person who holds that power belongs to the same profession as the one you’re trying to get help from.