:)
Wow I'm on a roll this month, this is the most activity this blog has seen since I started it. I think given with how (slightly) unhinged my last post was - I'm due for a more coherent post. ಠ⌣ಠ I didn't know how to title this blog so it's just a dumb smiley.
I've been thinking a lot about happiness and living a fulfilling life. I feel like my life ebbs and flows when it comes to feeling "fulfilled" and as for happiness.. that's another story lol. ( ͡°- ͡°) I feel fulfilled when I experience new things, when I put myself out of my comfort zone. Therapy is being out of my comfort zone, so reluctantly I looked for a new therapist (again). I decided to restart therapy after what I deemed was a mismatch with my last therapist who I broke up with in October (and felt awful about ´•̥̥̥ω•̥̥̥` ). It's weird re-starting therapy, especially the first session where I'm basically speedrunning my life story and feels somewhat rehearsed at this point. But this time around, I did even more research into what I wanted out of therapy so I'm hopeful this is the one and no more speedrun any %s and this time 100%!!!
I looked into different therapy styles and what I thought would help me the most. I tried CBT in Halifax which I thought was good enough to get me out of a major depressive rut and make me more productive. And then in Toronto, I tried psychodynamic which I really..really did not like lol. I knew it wasn't working out especially during the 4th session where I felt like I had nothing to talk about. Which is weird because I have so much trauma I need to unpack. I've never experienced this in therapy before. With my first therapist they knew how to steer conversations, tie thoughts to feelings and exercises while with the psychodynamic therapist, it kind of felt like I would talk - then she would talk and then I would talk again. It didn't feel like it was going anywhere nor did it feel like a conversation. Just two thoughts existings seperately. Which made me anxious. Anxious that I'm wasting my time, my money (psychologist are so expensive in Toronto), and worse it felt like I was disappointing my therapist which is just silly. But I digress, I need structure and goals which probably feeds into how "type a" I feel. I don't like not feeling in control which is also not a great feeling (and hopefully I can unpack that in therapy too..)
So anyways, this time around I made another list of therapist and their therapy styles. Much like the first time. But I decided to be more assertive and set up intake calls and ask them a slew of questions which I later documented and ranked lol. Very robotic. But at the end of the day, I'd say personality fit trumped all of it. Out of the 8 therapists I set up calls with - I felt like two of them could be a great match. I was torn between therapist 1 - who was a psychologist, with higher fees but practiced DBT and had a ton of experience with grief. She asked lots of questions on the phone and I felt comfortable with her right away. Therapist 2 was a psychotherapist who also had a ton of experience but was practicing a more experimental version of psychodynamic therapy called ISTDP. She sounded very empathetic and kind on the phone and had glowing reviews. They were also the only two who really took the time to read my intake email which made a world of a difference. I ended up with therapist 1! I was a bit scared off of ISTDP especially since I didn't have a good experience with psychodynamic and I also couldn't find much personable accounts about ISTDP. I told myself, if therapist 1 doesn't work out, I can always try therapist 2. Back in Halifax, I was trying to find a therapist who practiced DBT but there was only ONE and they were way out of my price range and seemed focus on borderline personality disorder which I don't think is applicable to me (maybe lol!) So I'm pretty excited to try finally out DBT.
I had my first session with therapist 1 (who will now just be called therapist lol (*´_ゝ｀)) and it was great! I gave her a brief but concise overview of my life. My mom commited suicide, my dad is emotionally unavailable and I may have cut him out in an angry fit, I'm too anxious, too stressed, and most of all - I'm scared. This is the biggest thing that pushes me to therapy. The fear of living an unhappy and unfulfilled life. As I went over my history, my mom's suicide in particular I didn't cry as I usually do. Probably because I've told this story so many times now. But when I told my therapist that I'm scared I'll always feel like this I started to cry. It's not that I'm dissatisfied with my life. I think I've done so much to get myself in a stable place, full of love and support from people who care about me, and the financial security of exploring interests of mine which I feel very blessed for. But ultimately, I feel like it could be sooooo much more! I want to be more sure of myself, kinder towards my mistakes or shortcomings, I want to forgive myself for my past. I tend to ruminate alot. I think about "what ifs". What if I didn't say this or do that? Who would still be in my life and where would I be now? Would I be happier or more sad? Less or more lonely? I think a lot of this stems from lack of confidence. Never being certain if I did the right thing or if the wrong thing was really that bad or really even wrong. I'm not saying I haven't made mistakes - I just think I can't conceptualize the severity of my mistakes and when to just let them go. Everything feels so severe in my head. If I can summarize it into one problem is that "I care too much" - but not in a "wow she's such an empathetic person!" but more so that I care too much of the perception of me. I don't like feeling misunderstood. I don't like when people don't like me and then I end up not liking me. I think a lot of this stems from losing my mom. How can I know I'm a good person if my mom didn't even stick around? Typing this makes my heart ache but deep down I know that isn't true. I feel fairly confident (lol) that if I was more sure of myself I wouldn't ruminate like this.
So in a nutshell, I feel like I cannot live a fulfilling life until I am happy with myself. Which as I type this is like "well duh!" but in practice feels so much harder. I want to come to terms that I will always miss the people in my life who left. I'll always miss my mom, I'll always miss my dad (or the idea of a dad rather), I'll always miss the friendships that were broken whether the hurt was done by me, by them or by both of us. I have a hard time with the idea of resentment which is funny because I feel like deep down I'm a pretty angry person and that should go hand in hand. But it's really hard for me to hate someone or to "disown" them. Even my dad who I think is a pretty fucking terrible dad - I know I would still let him into my life if he wanted to come back. But I wonder if this is doing a disservice to me and my mental health? I don't care about ego but also it seems like I don't care about myself. I've talked about this a lot with my husband and he's so much better at letting go than I am and I'm so envious of that. Maybe therapy will help me figure that out.
I also think I have a weird way of coping with this loss. I would describe it as "forced dissociation" lol??? Ever since my very first breakup, when I experienced my first true heartbreak - I would throw away, delete, and block anything and anyone that would remind me of the person that has hurt me. This obviously included blocking them and any communication even if the breakup was amicable. I knew this worked because after a few months, my heart had healed from my first breakup. So i've done this all my life and I'm sure it's not the most uncommon way to cope with loss. Thankfully, I no longer throw away memories I just keep them out of sight until I have processed and moved on from my painful feelings. The photos of my mom and notes from her are all tucked away in a bin which I sometimes pull out and still cry over lol. Her perfumes I reluctantly spray on myself to remember her scent. Cards and notes from family members still live in boxes. I keep the photos, gifts, drawings, and now vods(lol???) from friends who are no longer in my life. I keep emails from my dad even though the lack of them is painfully obvious and hurts. I am truly and very deeply a sentimental person. I like to to take walks through memory lane even though they still hurt so maybe the forced disassociation isn't working as well as i'd like. But ultimately, the sentiment (heh) I've heard from people who are on the other side of this is that it's very "highschool". Which it is.. because I learned how to do this in highschool LOL(◞‸◟；) I'd like to learn to cope more maturely. But for the time being - I still do this because it's the only way I've learned to get over my feelings. I'm sorry to the family members and friends I've blocked out of my life. I'm just trying to get by. Yet another goal for therapy! v(・∀・*) (why am I using these emojis in this post lmaooooooo.......)
To wrap this up, I'm feeling hopeful (once again) that therapy will steer me in the right direction so that I can live the life I want to live. After the psychodynamic therapist, I started to think that I already knew myself enough so I was scared that therapy wouldn't work and I'm basically fucked lmao. But then I read how even therapists have therapists because our minds our silly things and it doesn't matter how much we think we know - often times we do not know lol. We have our own biases and our little brains try their best protect us in the way it thinks it should. When I told my therapist that I was scared I'd be like this forever she looked genuinely sad but that quickly turned into a warm smile where she confidently told me that won't be the case and I think I believe her. (◔ᴥ◔)
editor's note section LOL???????? idk why I'm calling this an editor's note when I'm the fucking writer but whatever it felt fun to type that sooOOO I'm putting this out here to keep myself accountable - but my favorite posts are ..writing about my favorites lol. They're fun to write and it's nice to go back and read about the things that were making me happy. I feel like I have a lot of fun things to share too~ So my next post (whenever that is - but I'm going to aim for this month!! (ಥ⌣ಥ) will be about my fall favourites and will be a less..introspective word vomitty post ..yay!! here's an unrelated surfing pikachu gif i found to end this post)
