This is one of only two times total that I have ever chosen willingly to pursue Therapy. ~4ish years ago now I got very sick. My heart was swelling, my lungs were not working properly, my brain seemed to be swelling and my limbs would go numb and lose feeling. The doctors never were able to pin point an exact diagnosis. I was on 8 Pills, an inhaler, supplements and seeing at least 1 doctor every week for about 5 months.
After getting “over” that – I was so fearful. Afraid to drive because I had to pull over and call an ambulance, afraid to go to stores cause I fainted in one, even afraid of stairs because I was to be maintaining my heart under a certain threshold for months that it gave me almost panic attacks to feel my own heart beating fast.
I chose to go to therapy then. It was impacting my life in a major way – it wouldn’t let me work! That is all I needed! So I stopped. At that time I was still 100% in denial of the other items in my mind/body/soul that were just sitting there, simmering. That was an amazing missed opportunity for myself.
Here we are now Fall 2021. I have had a complete and total mental breakdown that is affecting all aspects of my life. As a recap:
Mentor I lost contact with killed himself, Cancer scare, Working almost 3 months straight, then lost a relationship because of my own inability to regulate.
My mind has been totally blown wide open at this point. I am feeling and dealing with pretty much every negative emotion I have ever felt – fresh as when it had happen. Childhood trauma, past relationships, abandonment, deaths, loss of direction. It is all there.
Why have I been so anti-therapy? Anti-help?
It seems like a serious cliché, or like a famous excuse everyone leans on – but it really all stems from when I was a kid. I honestly feel weird even saying it – I never thought my growing up period was *that* bad.
I remember my grandfather dying when I was five. I did not process it well. I remember acting out a bit but my biggest thing was that I did not want people to leave my side. I remember being hysterical with my Dad going to work and just not wanting him to leave. Just being pushed aside and ignored. Vividly I remember chasing him out the door and then getting dragged back in and hit over and over, cause he “was going to be late” and the “neighbors might hear”.
This was the first building block in very shitty structure of emotional ignorance. As I got older, I got better at eating my emotions, any instance that was considered even remotely out of line though was met with the same disdain. It was the 90s so they brought me to therapy, tried me out on drugs, everything was under the context of “Fix him, he is not conforming”. So bad so that when I was 12 they put me into a daytime inpatient program for kids for 3 months. The psychiatrists and therapists were only taking lead from my parents – he doesn’t listen, he wont obey, he gets irrational with his emotions. I was on 5 different medications before they finally landed on the final one. Lithium.
Regardless of how I end up feeling about my parents I will never forgive them for letting them try that on me. I gained 40 pounds in 8 weeks, I needed to have my blood drawn daily because IF THEY GOT IT WRONG I COULD DIE OR BE BRAIN DEAD.
I WAS FUCKING OBEDIENT THOUGH. WE WON.
To my Mom’s credit even though “it was working” she noticed that I was basically catatonic daily. Emotionless not because I was eating them but because I could not produce emotions. I got taken off them, but I think the damage was done at that point.
As I grew a bit older the hitting stopped because I became bigger than them. By a lot. I am the tallest, widest, just overall biggest person on both sides of my family. But when physical control was not working they doubled down on mental torture. There is a 2 year period that I would never be addressed by my name at all. At that point – staying in my room was the best and only defense I had. Their favorite names for me:
The Jerk and The Caveman (cause my room was my cave).
In my parents slight defense, at this point I was acting out a lot. It seemed so regular mainly because of my hardline tactic of avoidance. So every time I left my room it became a big deal. Even when I tried to stay quiet I was constantly pulled into confrontation. When I tried to have an adult conversation about what was going on in my head I was only shut down and told that it didn’t matter.
“Your opinion and thoughts can matter when you are paying the bills around here”
By now I am 14/15. Things have progressed like the above daily. They pull out their trump card. If they can’t get me to conform the STATE will. So they willingly put a CHINS (CHild In Need of Services) order on me. Like on purpose. What they thought was going to be this fool proof scare tactic had me taken out of the house in under 3 months. When I got to the group home they had no idea what to do with me. No offense to the other kids but – no one else was doing AP physics homework and taking Sociology there as a Sophomore. Their systems were not designed for someone like me. My homework was routinely 2-3 hours a night. I was only allotted 45 minutes. I constantly got flak because I would have to BEG for more time to do my homework. I ended up back home in about 4 months.
I had a parole officer for about a year and a half and was a ward of the state and my parents given back custody legally when I was ~17.
Things did not get better. Eventually I just became immune to their voice. It was like tuning out an annoying fan. This only enforced my bad habits. Ignore, swallow down your emotions, keep working.
After moving out and being separate from them. The rage died down. Thinking that I was getting used to and over with my time as a kid. Really it was just a huge case of “out of sight, out of mind”.
Now in therapy I have this huge amount of grief and anger over that time period that I think is going to end up altering my relationship with them. I feel awful when they talk to me. I get anxiety being around them now. I haven’t felt like that in years.
This is going to be awful.
If you are going to be anxious anyway... 