I’ve just returned from therapy. Not for my precious darling, but for me. As we approach the 10-year anniversary of our PDA discovery and subsequent breakdown with OCD, much is coming up for review.
I don’t like to chunk my life off into chapters. After all, surely life and how we live it is a continuous journey of experiences and discoveries. However, as I myself think about my 52nd birthday just around the corner and take time to check in and see where I’m at on a personal level, it’s occurring to me that indeed, 10 years is somewhat of a milestone and deserves consideration.
It’s been a long road. A dark one, a deep one. A road which only the strongest could endure. Credit where credit is due we’ve done good. My daughter is as beautiful as one could ever dream of. She still suffers on a daily basis. I wish I could give you better news about combating OCD, I cannot. However, the life we have created around her, is a good one.
In the therapy room I sat nervously over talking and avoiding eye contact whilst blurbing through my excruciating self-awareness and over thinking. Writing and solitude have always been my go to tools for self-help. Sharing intimately with another is rare for me. The feeling of exposure, the fear of judgment, not good enough, ridicule, trauma and deep grief which I carry with me like a heavy backpack is toxic, frightening, to be avoided at all costs. Better to keep busy, deflect by being the helper. Giving rather than receiving, all part of staying away from those dreadful feelings. But at what cost?
It dawned on me today, while I gave myself space to scratch the thin surface, the full cup, that I have avoided a lot of growth in my perceived safe space of avoidance.
I have been writing a book over the past year. A 21st gift to my darling, our story, moved from the pages of notebooks and memories, into one consolidated place. So much of what happened to us blocked out, forgotten, muddled. Perhaps it would make more sense if the full story was dissected? Maybe as time moves on, I was scared that what we went through would just become a blurr, so crazy maybe it wasn’t even true? I don’t tell many people about what happened these days. It was so fantastic, so big, so deep, so traumatizing. Yet it made us who we are today. Indeed to tell her, I want to.
The therapist is lovely. I wonder what she is thinking while she holds a place in this wee room for me to let out what comes. Its uncontrolled and I am so aware of how being out of control feels. I’ve been holding control for such a long time. Trying to keep my daughter safe from those who don’t understand her. Controlling our lives to keep her safe. The worst fears a mother can have are not feelings that one wants to feel. I will do anything, anything to keep those at bay. The tears pour out as I lean into the story and go deep about why I have come to a block with the book.
When I was writing it, for months it flowed and flowed, aching to be told and shared. But then, Stop. One day, I just stopped and couldn’t look back. Did the story get too overwhelming to go over again? To perfect, to show imperfections? Is the symbolism of ending a book mixed with ending what we went through? Am I still trying to control, a story that has come to a conclusion? Or is there a new chapter that I’m too scared to start?
Next week, I will uncover more. Perhaps I am already writing the next chapter and the permission to close the previous one is coming closer? We shall see. But what I have learned, in just 2 sessions of being with a stranger and seeing what comes out is this, taking a step to let go of the things we think keep us safe, is a step in the right direction.
lovepda
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