Every Friday I go into therapy. I go in and see my therapist. I started to see him a few months ago. We talked about how I needed to work through some of my past. Learn some more triggers. I looked at him and knew after 28 years it was time to really work through this. He set up a plan and started at the beginning. He knew before I started the surface of everything. He didn’t know the extent. He learned really quick, I was very “flat” when talking about my past. His word, not mine.
Over the past couple of weeks we have been working on emotions and feelings. I don’t show them much. I have been told I am cold hearted or I just don’t care. I call myself overly guarded and cautious. I mean if you heard my story, you’d understand why.
Today I walked in with some big feels. I mean big feels for me. I told him it’s been a roller coaster of feels. I have been allowing myself to finally feel things and make connections. I told him about my haters last week. How I removed people from my Facebook and my Snapchat. I really didn’t care who they were. I didn’t need that negativity in my life.
I told him about some other things going on as well. I wasn’t sure how to deal with these feels. Let alone, why I was feeling them. I felt they were all wrong and I shouldn’t feel them. He asked me how I was dealing with all of these. I told him I was writing. I was writing more and it’s how I deal. If you haven’t figured out, it’s my self-care.
After talking with him today about these BIG FEELS, he wanted to figure out a connection. We started to talk about 2016. I have never verbalized what happened in 2016. I never talked about some of the feelings I felt. Let alone the red flags I saw later in life. How my husband made me feel during these times..
TRIGGERING THINGS AHEAD…. CAUTION…
I began to share about my journey of wanting to relapse after 12 years clean. I told my husband I wasn’t safe. I explained reading 13 Reasons Why in two days was not a good choice. My life and Hannah’s life has so many similarities it isn’t funny. My husband told me to get my big girl panties on and deal with it. So, I dealt with it the best way I did. I went to a guy I thought was a good Dom.
After many encounters with this guy I learned how much abuse and shit I was out through. The thing is, when I talked about my consent being broken by this guy taking pics and videoing me without my permission did my therapist get mad. Not at me, but for me. He saw on my face that this was nothing. He saw how normalizing I was feeling during all of this.
After seeing him angry, we stopped. He couldn’t take anymore. Nor could I really. By now, I was feeling things. Normally I could shutdown my tears and walk out of his office and be fine. This was the first time he talked to me, and all I could do was nod. I became nonverbal. I didn’t know how to use my words. I didn’t know how to stop crying or vocalize anything in that moment.
I realized at for the first time, someone cared enough to get mad. Remind me it wasn’t my fault. Get mad enough to tell me what he did with the cameras was not ok. I did nothing wrong. For the first time, I knew I was safe and I could cry and it was ok.
When I talked to my husband about this after it all happened he said it was my fault. My husband knew I was seeing this guy. He asked for an open relationship. By the time February came along he said “you’ll do what’s right”. For me, I chose the lesser of the two evils. My husband didn’t let me cry, he didn’t let me feel, or have emotions. It was always my fault.
When my therapist was upset today, I finally could feel something I never felt. I didn’t know how to process this. Once I could vocalize this. I told him, that he was the first to get that angry. The sad thing is, everyone in my life just has a high tolerance for bullshit. That can be a problem. It has now shown to be a problem.
All my big feels this week came crashing in. I have never had to deal with them before. Now, I need to learn.
