talk sesh

[bitchy_merlin]

I saw my therapist again today, and I just have to say thank god for OHIP covering this. Our first few sessions got off to a kind of rocky start, but I think today we found our groove a little bit, in terms of me opening up more and being more engaged in the conversation, and more determined to actually put some effort into the session.

It was helpful because we got around to talking about something I’d always noticed about myself, which is that I feel, in certain areas of my life, emotionally younger than I actually am. I’m 24, but I have very impulsive, almost childlike emotional reactions to things sometimes; it was nice to talk about that with the therapist. She said that it’s a fairly normal thing and gave me some ideas on how to work on not devolving into a yelling wreck when things don’t go my way.

We also talked about my tendency to feel really angry when people I love are hurt or hurting, which is something that’s been on my mind for a while. Logically, the best response to seeing someone you love hurt (physically or emotionally) is to try and comfort them and to ask them how you can be of assistance. My instinctive response, however, at least emotionally, is usually one of explosive rage (not that I start yelling and screaming, but there’s a lot of inner turmoil and inner anger that goes on). My thought process goes something like you are hurting. No. I love you. YOU SHOULD NOT BE HURTING WHY ARE YOU HURTING and then dissolves into ;ALSDFASLDFKJA;SDKJFA;DSF. You can appreciate how that’s not a very constructive response to the situation. So yeah, it’s been like that for as long as I can remember, and in light of recentish events, I’ve come to see exactly how much of a hindrance it can be to respond to these complex emotional situations as though I am essentially five.

So! We talked about that, and the doctor said that one thing I could do is to try and take a step back from the situation and assess whether the ragesplosion is really worth it. Sure, it’s easy and familiar cause I’ve reacted in that way so many times, but do I really want to react like that again? Can I try taking a breath and reacting in a different manner? These are things I’m going to try and work on between now and the next session.

She also reminded me that I’m not here to save anyone. And yes, it hurts when our loved ones suffer and there’s nothing we can do to help; but sometimes we have to turn around no matter how much it hurts and try to focus on ourselves. “You can’t make people feel better,” she said. “You can only give them the tools to help themselves. And in the meantime you have to enjoy yourself.”

And then she said something else which made me stare very determinedly at the floor for a long while. “You’re not here to save anyone. You’re not here to fix anyone, that’s not love. Love doesn’t force.” And she asked me how I would feel if someone I loved were constantly trying to ‘fix’ me and I said I would feel trivialized and objectified. And I felt sad and ashamed as I realized that, because I feel like I did that to you a lot over the course of our relationship. Maybe not in so many words, but I admit, I always did hope... well. It just drove home for me why I had to end things, because in hindsight I can see I was probably trying to ‘fix’ you as if you were some broken thing and not a complex, autonomous human being. I’m sorry. You deserved better. (Who knows if you’ll even see this but I’ll put the words there anyway.)

And that’s where we left things for the session. I see her once a month and I have to say, this session was much needed. In this interim, she said, my job is to focus on talking to the “younger” part of myself whenever it gets upset, to work on kind of untangling the streams of emotion so I don’t end up feeling like I’ve got a time bomb ticking away in my chest. We’ll see how that goes.

(Also it was rly nice bc I mentioned my fave band was coming to town and she was like “Oh, which band?” and I was like M ARIAN AS TRENCH *flailing* and I spent like ten minutes gushing to her about why I LOVE THEM and this is real this is me ;-p)