Mental Monday!

Great session with Kara today! It was a beautiful day, one of those days you really don’t want to go to any appointment, let alone a therapy session. I’m always half tempted to skip out, but I remember she charges me anyway and she always makes me feel wonderful about myself. So I push myself to go. Summer sessions are going to be rough.

So lately I’ve been having issues feeling locked down, suffocated. I internalized these (wrongfully) that I was pulling away from Stefan. Thankfully that’s hardly the case. Let me through some background at you…

I was a sophomore in college in 2005. I started dating Jack, a friend from the previous year, that summer. Things had been going well. A bad deal with a roommate wound up with Jack and I living together around November, I believe. I dropped out of college in February and I also found myself pregnant that February and almost immediately lost the baby. I wonder if it would’ve gone unnoticed had I not tested, I wonder if it would’ve been better that way. In late March, Jack decided we needed to take a break, I’m still unsure of his reasoning for this. I was scared, confused and terribly alone. I was to move back in with my mom after his birthday in May. We were to take a break and resume things as normal when I went back to Chadron. That entire summer was a huge drama fest. Up and down, just this huge rollercoaster. I’m reminded of Lunatic Calm-Leave you Far behind, at this point in our relationship.

I met Stefan towards the middle of June. It wasn’t an immediate attraction. A lot of things were going wrong for me, I was miserable. He was apparently miserable as well. Our misery brought us together. From this point on we were nearly inseparable. This is when my “hiatus’” began. I refer to them as this because there are not good words for what I did. Three times, not once or twice, but THREE times, I picked up and took off to go back to Jack. Leaving Stefan behind in a cloud of smoke wondering what the hell he did wrong.

January was my last “hiatus” and that is when I finally realized there was absolutely nothing there for Jack and I. I came back to Stefan. I am so very fortunate, to this very day, that this man puts up with me. He wasn’t going to take me back. He had long heartfelt talks with my mother about institutionalizing me (whoa, yeah I was that bad). Thankfully he forgave me.

I think I was pregnant 2 weeks later…perhaps 3. I was terrified. I knew without a doubt that this baby was Stefan’s. I may have gone on “hiatus” but I had slept with nobody but Stefan in those awful months. I had no worries. Stefan, is probably another story. Luckily, she’s the spitting image of her father.

So as you’ve read it was all very quick. I did not allow myself time to rebound from my relationship with Jack. I did not allow myself time to screw my head on and figure out who I was without him. I jumped directly from one relationship to the next. Never a healthy thing to do. Especially after such drastic life altering changes.

I didn’t share even half of this with Kara. In fact, I told her very little. I guess I wasn’t ready to open Pandora’s Box. I told her very simple things. The last time I felt whole, happy and human was my first year in college. After that things went downhill. I met and started dating Jack. He was generally very critical of me, for example, I worked at a bar. He hated me bartending. They had very simple uniforms, a plain yellow t-shirt that I got to fit snug. This shirt did not show off anything. He lost his cool when I attempted to wear that shirt to this bar. He just straight up hating me working there. So I quit and got a much less paying job at a gas station. Which he also hated. I couldn’t do anything right.

This is when I believe I began to lose myself. Anyone in my shoes would! Constant criticism from all angles. I just wasn’t “proper” enough for him or his family. Fine, so be it. I should’ve recognized that as a sign early on and left, but I did not. That’s a part of my Adult Child.

But I digress.

Kara knew very little and was able to tell me that I’m finally healing from this relationship. That I’m finally able to come out and be myself again. That I feel suffocated because these things I want to do aren’t getting done. Rock climbing, hiking, camping, fishing, white water rafting, canoeing, tubing, etc. Stefan isn’t exactly interested in all these things. I immediately became worried that this was some sort of sign that we were incompatible. Which is silly. We can’t possibly be interested in everything all the time.

I’ve also lost a lot of friends. I wasn’t, for a long time, who I was in college. I became inhibited, judgmental, moody and clingy. Who would want to hang out with me?

I’m slowly coming back into myself. Which is wonderful and horribly scary all the same. I’m worried Stefan and I won’t compute anymore. That we’ll grow apart. He never got to know the real me. The “me” that I was for 18+ years. He just knows the miserable old hag that he got stuck with (sorry, baby!).

Among other things I’ve hit a HUGE milestone, I think, in my progress on the path to myself.

All this misplaced emotion and all these feelings that I miss Jack are entirely incorrect! (Whew!) I don’t miss Jack. I don’t miss “My Jack”. He is not the person I feel I lost in this entire ordeal. I AM THE PERSON I MISS. It’s ME! Okay, sounds simple right? TOTALLY WRONG. That is very huge and it changes things drastically for me. Drastically.

So dear readers, if you’re still reading… I FINALLY WROTE ANOTHER POEM. I think I’m no longer suppressed. In the words of my 18 month old daughter… “ROCK ON!!!”

I’m done wasting my life with this
I’m redirecting my futile efforts
It’s me the one I truly miss.

I was so scared to let you go
Because I didn’t really realize,
You’d be the last one with the pleasure to know.

Who I was, who I am struggling to find
It really has nothing to do with you
This is my last poem to you, do you mind?

I’m bursting now there’s just too much
Now that I’ve found me again
It’s just this amazing rush!

I want it all back—patience isn’t my thing
Little by little it needs to come
So I can be a healthy, functioning human being.

But “Thank you,” because without that ticking time bomb
I never would’ve grown into this amazing woman
I never could’ve been for my daughter, this incredible mom.

That’s a rough draft, mind you… But enjoy it anyhow!

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