Going back to therapy.

I started going back to therapy about two weeks ago.

I put it off for over two years because I was scared. I was afraid that I was going to disappoint my family, my friends, even my therapist, because I had convinced myself and them that I was doing so well on my own. In reality, I was living what I like to think of as a "passively-aggressive self destructive" lifestyle. I risked my life on a regular basis. I didn't want to die, necessarily, though maybe I had just convinced myself I didn't. But I had this unbelievably apathy in regards to dying. I lived my life day-to-day telling myself that if something bad happened to me, or I died, then I probably deserved it and wouldn't care. I was drinking daily, solely to get drunk (though I never wanted to admit it to myself). I had started smoking cigarettes. I would walk to friends' houses in my city, 45 minutes at night by myself, when I could have easily taken public transportation. I would go home with strange men I had just met at a bar, because I didn't care what happened to me. I slept with anyone who would sleep with me because after my first real breakup with a man I loved very much and then going into an abusive relationship, I associated sex with worth. I liked living dangerously. It made me feel alive but I came to understand, after too long of living like I was, that I wasn't really living at all.

Very recently, after a year at home post-college living with my parents and being single and abstinent (and off my meds), I realized that I have a lot of shit to get back together. I thought I was doing fine, but I'm terrified of the idea of relationships. I don't know how to date anymore. I can't even maintain healthy friendships because I'm so afraid of being abandoned by everyone I care about. It's happened so often in the past that I just expect it. But I don't want to live like that anymore. I think about how I was at my lowest and I get emotional because I'm really lucky and very blessed to be alive today, with just a few very deep emotional scars.

I want to be someone I can look in the mirror at and say, "Hey, friend, you're not so bad." I want to stop feeling guilty for loving myself or for positively reinforcing myself or for liking how I look one day or for finally thinking I'm beautiful (even typing that was really difficult) or for being excited to see what happens next in my life.

I'm really excited to start seriously working on myself. I'm terrified that I'm going to lose myself or that I'm going to lose control of myself. I'm terrified that, even if I do end up happy, if I get hurt again it will send me off the deep end and I'll never be able to recover. I'm terrified that I'm just going to end up alone in the end anyway.

But negative self-talk comes so naturally, and has been such a habit of mine for so long (almost 11 years) that I don't know how to do anything else. And I'm much more terrified of that.

I was lying to myself for a really long time, and sometimes I still lie to myself, but I'm in a place where I can recognize it and want to change it.

Don't give up the fight, and don't be afraid to be honest with yourself.

 

I'm so happy for you! Fight strong!