Tough therapy session
Today was one of the hardest therapy sessions I'd ever had.
For my homework, I'd had to write a letter to myself when I was 11 years old. By the end of it, I was trapped in a silent scream, crying my eyes out and I couldn't write any more.
In the session, I had to read out my letter, and we talked about it a bit. Then she asked me to come and sit in her chair, and she went and sat on the floor out of the way. She asked me if I could respond to the letter as my 11 year old self.
I cried a lot. I said it wasn't my fault, and I didn't know, I wish she wouldn't put so much blame on me, and I wish other people wouldn't either. I know that whenever I say something isn't my fault in life, I've grown up to the response "yeah, well it's never your fault is it." but this time I needed 21 year old me to know that it really wasn't and I didn't know then. I wish I had but I didn't.
I then had to sit back in my chair and respond to that and I cried some more. I told her that I felt like a lot of the blame I put on her for not understanding I've mistaken for feeling like I should have known better, when really I just wish I had. I wish I'd been taught better by my school, and I wish the boys around me had been taught better too. I said I was sorry.
I had to respond again as young me... I cried a hell of a lot. I don't even remember everything I said. It was so damn intense...
For my next homework I need to write another letter to young me, I don't even know what I'm going to say. I also have to draw what the statue inside me looks like. I mentioned it as a passing description of what it felt like, sort of as a metaphor for how I feel inside and now I need to draw it.
I feel so terrible and alone right now.
Some other stuff is going on for me and in my mind I just keep coming back to how I'm going to kill myself... I keep getting nearer to buying everything I need "just to have it in" and then I tell myself that it only makes it more likely I'll do it without having thought everything out, without having written letters to everyone - More likely that I won't do it properly. For now, that seems to quell it a little, but the urge is still there, and I'm coming around to the fact that it might be okay for me to cut again. I think I'm allowed. My life is really fucking hard and I've never given myself any slack for it, young me is really showing me that. So maybe I should be allowed to feel awful for a bit, particularly with all the side-effects my new antidepressants are giving me. I should be allowed to fall apart.
*** For those who are interested, here is the letter that I wrote to my 11 year old self ***
"I wasn't sure what to write. I kept thinking of all the advice I wish I'd had or things I wish I'd known when I was 11, and I was going to write about that but it didn't seem right knowing that it won't make a difference now. So I've been thinking about the person I was then and the person I am now and then this letter became a little easier to write.
I'm glad that you are starting to notice the users more now then you did when you were 11, but you need to try harder to act on it faster and find a way to be yourself, be kind and be supportive without always being the one that loses out all the time. You need to learn the difference between your self doubt and your gut instinct.
Your views of the world and relationships are changing at a rapid pace now and you need to not let yourself get swept up in it. At 11 you were not a cynic, you were an idealist, and now you're leaning more the other way. Find a healthy, realistic balance if you can, because you are starting to think that you might have to live without love and 11 year old you knows that you can't.
You need to find a way to let out and understand the screaming inside you. Now I'm older I can look back and feel it grow to where we are now and it's been getting worse for years. You're in a tough spot with it now. It's too much to deal with on your own but it's also probably too much to put on someone else. It makes me really sad to think that perhaps if you had understood back then, we'd be somewhere else, maybe somewhere better, healthier, because now you're trapped in a body that keeps going and ageing but your brain is stuck. Like you froze - which you did.
With all the denial and hiding and not understanding any of it you're now a kid in her 20's. I feel like I locked you away, young you. I feel like I couldn't deal with what was happening to me so I hid you in a closet in my head and let an adult simulator take the wheel, but it's no substitute. I've made so many mistakes and lot letting you be a kid for long enough is a pretty big one. I really hope I can make it right somehow and I'm really sorry.
A part of me is glad that you didn't fully understand at the time, because if it was going to happen anyway at least the full reality didn't hit you until you were a little older. It's still slowly creeping in now. New thoughts, feelings, realisations, images. I'm kind of glad in a way that you didn't have to do this back then, but I still wish I could somehow save you from it altogether. I'm so sorry."
****BACK TO JOURNAL*****
One good thing that came out of today's session is that she's given me advice on how to manage my jaw tremor. She says if when it happens and I start to lose control of my lower jaw, I should open my mouth as wide as I possibly can and stretch it out and it should help. Before that I've been clenching a lot and it hasn't worked so hopefully she's right. It's hard to quit the clenching habit though.
I also got to talk to my sister today. I really miss her and I wish I could hug her. I got to speak to the guy I'm ridiculously in love with as well, but as comforting as his smile was, and to hear his voice and see his face on the screen, I feel really scared I'm going to lose him more than ever now. It's going to break my heart if I do... I can only hope that the fact that we love each other will be enough to convince him that we should be together. I can't shake the feeling that my love has never been enough for anyone, and I seriously hope and pray that this time, I'm more than enough and exactly what he needs just by being me. I can't wait for him to come back from his trip. I need to hold him again.
I spent a few days down in the midlands with an old friend this week. I've known her for 10 years and I love her to bits. I really got on with all her friends, more than most people I met here and got to let my hair down a little and relax. It meant the world to me. I wish I could tell her how much it meant to me. I have a little, but I don't want to weird her out.
The girl I've fallen out with recently is still being a huge thorn in my heart. I've cried over it so much. She is still messaging my mum and complaining, and I've been really hurt by the things she's said and done these past few weeks. Utterly mortified and feel ridiculously used and under appreciated and distraught. We'll never be friends again after this. I just know it. And on one hand that's good because who needs bad friends? But the fact that this has happened just plays off all my existing hurts and insecurities and a lot of what's been said and the manipulation has been extremely hurtful. She still thinks I'm the bad guy... I've honestly considered the possibility. I've re-read everything over and over and thought about everything she's done and when she sent security round to my flat and how mad she got when I wasn't trying to kill myself... how she's been messaging everyone about me... why this whole thing even started.
And around all of this, all the stuff that's actually happening right now in real time, I'm still aching and having problems from what they did. The boys and girl that abused and raped me, and how they are still messing with my life and how what they have done will affect me forever, and how it's going to have affected my university grade, and how I have to write a letter explaining myself for someone to look over and judge if I should be given benefit of the doubt when it comes to my marks. It makes me sick. My whole life just... I can't.
I've really been trying so very hard. I know I have.
For my homework, I'd had to write a letter to myself when I was 11 years old. By the end of it, I was trapped in a silent scream, crying my eyes out and I couldn't write any more.
In the session, I had to read out my letter, and we talked about it a bit. Then she asked me to come and sit in her chair, and she went and sat on the floor out of the way. She asked me if I could respond to the letter as my 11 year old self.
I cried a lot. I said it wasn't my fault, and I didn't know, I wish she wouldn't put so much blame on me, and I wish other people wouldn't either. I know that whenever I say something isn't my fault in life, I've grown up to the response "yeah, well it's never your fault is it." but this time I needed 21 year old me to know that it really wasn't and I didn't know then. I wish I had but I didn't.
I then had to sit back in my chair and respond to that and I cried some more. I told her that I felt like a lot of the blame I put on her for not understanding I've mistaken for feeling like I should have known better, when really I just wish I had. I wish I'd been taught better by my school, and I wish the boys around me had been taught better too. I said I was sorry.
I had to respond again as young me... I cried a hell of a lot. I don't even remember everything I said. It was so damn intense...
For my next homework I need to write another letter to young me, I don't even know what I'm going to say. I also have to draw what the statue inside me looks like. I mentioned it as a passing description of what it felt like, sort of as a metaphor for how I feel inside and now I need to draw it.
I feel so terrible and alone right now.
Some other stuff is going on for me and in my mind I just keep coming back to how I'm going to kill myself... I keep getting nearer to buying everything I need "just to have it in" and then I tell myself that it only makes it more likely I'll do it without having thought everything out, without having written letters to everyone - More likely that I won't do it properly. For now, that seems to quell it a little, but the urge is still there, and I'm coming around to the fact that it might be okay for me to cut again. I think I'm allowed. My life is really fucking hard and I've never given myself any slack for it, young me is really showing me that. So maybe I should be allowed to feel awful for a bit, particularly with all the side-effects my new antidepressants are giving me. I should be allowed to fall apart.
*** For those who are interested, here is the letter that I wrote to my 11 year old self ***
"I wasn't sure what to write. I kept thinking of all the advice I wish I'd had or things I wish I'd known when I was 11, and I was going to write about that but it didn't seem right knowing that it won't make a difference now. So I've been thinking about the person I was then and the person I am now and then this letter became a little easier to write.
I'm glad that you are starting to notice the users more now then you did when you were 11, but you need to try harder to act on it faster and find a way to be yourself, be kind and be supportive without always being the one that loses out all the time. You need to learn the difference between your self doubt and your gut instinct.
Your views of the world and relationships are changing at a rapid pace now and you need to not let yourself get swept up in it. At 11 you were not a cynic, you were an idealist, and now you're leaning more the other way. Find a healthy, realistic balance if you can, because you are starting to think that you might have to live without love and 11 year old you knows that you can't.
You need to find a way to let out and understand the screaming inside you. Now I'm older I can look back and feel it grow to where we are now and it's been getting worse for years. You're in a tough spot with it now. It's too much to deal with on your own but it's also probably too much to put on someone else. It makes me really sad to think that perhaps if you had understood back then, we'd be somewhere else, maybe somewhere better, healthier, because now you're trapped in a body that keeps going and ageing but your brain is stuck. Like you froze - which you did.
With all the denial and hiding and not understanding any of it you're now a kid in her 20's. I feel like I locked you away, young you. I feel like I couldn't deal with what was happening to me so I hid you in a closet in my head and let an adult simulator take the wheel, but it's no substitute. I've made so many mistakes and lot letting you be a kid for long enough is a pretty big one. I really hope I can make it right somehow and I'm really sorry.
A part of me is glad that you didn't fully understand at the time, because if it was going to happen anyway at least the full reality didn't hit you until you were a little older. It's still slowly creeping in now. New thoughts, feelings, realisations, images. I'm kind of glad in a way that you didn't have to do this back then, but I still wish I could somehow save you from it altogether. I'm so sorry."
****BACK TO JOURNAL*****
One good thing that came out of today's session is that she's given me advice on how to manage my jaw tremor. She says if when it happens and I start to lose control of my lower jaw, I should open my mouth as wide as I possibly can and stretch it out and it should help. Before that I've been clenching a lot and it hasn't worked so hopefully she's right. It's hard to quit the clenching habit though.
I also got to talk to my sister today. I really miss her and I wish I could hug her. I got to speak to the guy I'm ridiculously in love with as well, but as comforting as his smile was, and to hear his voice and see his face on the screen, I feel really scared I'm going to lose him more than ever now. It's going to break my heart if I do... I can only hope that the fact that we love each other will be enough to convince him that we should be together. I can't shake the feeling that my love has never been enough for anyone, and I seriously hope and pray that this time, I'm more than enough and exactly what he needs just by being me. I can't wait for him to come back from his trip. I need to hold him again.
I spent a few days down in the midlands with an old friend this week. I've known her for 10 years and I love her to bits. I really got on with all her friends, more than most people I met here and got to let my hair down a little and relax. It meant the world to me. I wish I could tell her how much it meant to me. I have a little, but I don't want to weird her out.
The girl I've fallen out with recently is still being a huge thorn in my heart. I've cried over it so much. She is still messaging my mum and complaining, and I've been really hurt by the things she's said and done these past few weeks. Utterly mortified and feel ridiculously used and under appreciated and distraught. We'll never be friends again after this. I just know it. And on one hand that's good because who needs bad friends? But the fact that this has happened just plays off all my existing hurts and insecurities and a lot of what's been said and the manipulation has been extremely hurtful. She still thinks I'm the bad guy... I've honestly considered the possibility. I've re-read everything over and over and thought about everything she's done and when she sent security round to my flat and how mad she got when I wasn't trying to kill myself... how she's been messaging everyone about me... why this whole thing even started.
And around all of this, all the stuff that's actually happening right now in real time, I'm still aching and having problems from what they did. The boys and girl that abused and raped me, and how they are still messing with my life and how what they have done will affect me forever, and how it's going to have affected my university grade, and how I have to write a letter explaining myself for someone to look over and judge if I should be given benefit of the doubt when it comes to my marks. It makes me sick. My whole life just... I can't.
I've really been trying so very hard. I know I have.
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