I was sitting in a comfortable chair across from a soft-spoken man in a room that was softly lit. The room was comfortable and quiet with healthy plants and some pictures on the wall, books in a book case, and a few diplomas were hung. There were also some awards to match the intentional education of being a therapist. This was a nice place and he was a nice man.
I can say that for sure.
He asked the right questions.
I can say that too.
He was the wrong person for me, however, and while I knew this would not be a good fit, I made an agreement with myself to give myself an honest chance.
I say the word honest with intention to illustrate that while I had been in treatment before, and while I had countless different experiences with different therapists and mental health doctors of all kind, I could not say that I was always honest with them.
At least not entirely.
If I was honest, then I was only honest in pieces of convenient truth. I was honest when honesty was to my benefit. As for my lies, I kept my secrets like a half-measure of control, almost like a reservation to which I needed to keep something in my pocket, just in case I decided to dash or run for the door.
But in fairness, life and change, and especially personal transformations do not work this way.
You cannot hold back.
But I always did.
You have to be willing to go to any measure and by any means, you have to do what it takes to improve, and then some. . .
As I mentioned in earlier entries and in previous journals, if the depth of my commitment equals the results of my success, then I would have to let everything go and do whatever it takes in order to achieve my goals.
Getting back to the therapist, I was asked a very simple question:
What do you want out of this?
I couldn’t even answer.
I had been angry and hurt for so long that I lost sight of what I wanted. Not to mention, I had been living with the depressed notions that someone “like me” would never ne able to achieve success or have a life “like that.”
I never thought that I would find happiness, nor did I think happiness was real, nor was love real, nor were there people in this life, except for my Mother and a small few, who would actually love me more than just casually.
I believed in the tainted and inaccurate thinking which was otherwise diseased by things that happened, such as my trauma with romance or the exposure and humiliation from a broken trust.
I had past regrets, bouts with shame, intrusions, abuse, and in combination with bad experiences, or in combination with my assumptions and my biases ideas, I never believed that someone “like me” could ever surpass the sad predictions or overcome the so-called labels that wore above my shoulders since my early childhood.
I was asked “what do you want out of this,” which is a great question to begin with.
This is a great way to help someone. This is a great question to ask yourself when beginning any sort of change or new adventure. This is a great way to set goals or to create a path for oneself.
What do you want out of this?
I want to be happy.
What keeps you from being happy?
I’m angry . . .
What are you angry about?
I was waiting for this opportunity.
“Do you wanna know?”
I waited a long time for the chance to scream and rage.
I waited for someone to dare and ask me this question.
At the same time, I was angry for so long and about so many things that I didn’t know where to start.
Then I was just angry at the therapist because finally . . . someone asked me the question I had been waiting for, and I didn’t have the words to answer him.
His suggestion was as follows:
Start with one thing and let’s take it from there.
This is what I recall the therapist said.
Again, his questions were great. The sessions did not last long because I had discussed something a bit deeper and darker about who I was and what I had done.
I revealed some of my unfortunate decisions and the ruthlessness which I had became, and yes, I was ruthless. In my efforts to change who I was or to improve, I decided to reveal my past to keep this from becoming my future.
The therapist responded with judgment.
This was a mistake.
He made a face, and he spoke to me, not like a professional, or not like a person who was on my side — but instead, he showed judgment.
I was not there to be judged. I was not there to hold back the truth either. However, when I noticed his response, I decided to pull back and when he showed more of himself and continued with his personal opinion of me, then I decided to show him a different side of me, which he was not expecting.
I can say that the session ended somewhat abruptly, and nearly violently. So, I expressed my displeasure and offered him an option that I am sure he was uncomfortable with.
Needless to say, I did not pay for that session nor did I pay him the money I owed him for the two sessions before.
“Fuck him,” is what I thought.
I am bringing this up because while my story is not the same as yours nor is your story the same as mine or anyone else’s, my point is no one goes for help to be judged or to be put down.
Therapy is a needed support. and no one should ever have their confidence destroyed or their confidentiality broken.
You have to find the right person.
I do not seek legal advice from the butcher in the butcher shop. I do not ask my accountant to help me with my plumbing problems, and when I needed help, I had to learn to find the right people.
I have other nightmare stories with therapists who should have their credentials taken away. However, no educational process nor diploma or credential removes the fact that we are all human.
Not all humans are the right fit.
Not all humans are the wrong fit either.
The trick here is when you find people who fit or compliment you well, hold on, and be true, be honest, and be unwavering because losing someone like this or losing the support of someone who will listen to hear you and not just to respond, or losing the support of people who strengthen you when you are too weak to stand, and losing your team, your person, or yourself is the biggest and most ultimate loss of all.
We have to value our people. We have to value our home team and we have to value our supporters, our loved ones, and we have to remember that we can lose people like this, especially when we lose our own value.
What I mean is:
I am good when I am at my best. I am kind. I am mindful of others. I am loyal and true. However, I am not the same person when I am at my worst.
I am not the same when I am stuck In my head or caught in the wrong math, adding up problems that are more like predictions which only become true because I created them.
I thought my way into failure many times. Since this is absolutely possible, I had to learn to think my way into success.
But this type of thinking takes work.
Better yet, this takes action, which is why I chose to create my first wellness plan.
My first W.R.A.P.
I wrote a mission statement for myself.
I wanted to empower myself above and beyond all else, and to feel better, I realized that I had to do better.
But to do better meant that I would have to put in the effort, and I would have to do this with no excuses, no exceptions, and no — there was no more looking back over my shoulder to see if my past or my ex-life, or if anyone in my previous world was looking to see if I would ever come back.
Sorry to be so crude, but . . .
Life can be full of shit sometimes.
People can be too —
Sometimes, you just have to flush the toilet, wash your hands,
and walk away.
The Written Addiction 