Stopping Therapy for Now

After a lot of going back and forth, I decided to take a break from therapy for now. It was a really hard decision to make, but I feel like I have a lot of tools now that I didn't have before, and I was starting to run out of things to talk about. Life is always going to be hard. There are always going to be things to work through and overcome. But right now I want to practice using all of the skills that I've learned. I also had many reassurances that I can come back whenever I need to which is a relief. 

I want to remember that right now I have come so far from where I was back in January. Things were so bleak back then and I was so angry and overwhelmed. Although it's painful to remember, I want to remember that there were so many days I would just cry and cry and so many nights of tears too. And now it's not like that. Life is SO much better. I am feeling more confident. I don't know what life is going to throw at me, but I know I can get through it. It might seem like it's never going to end, but it's like those awful traffic jams I used to sit in on the way from work. There were times where I felt like I was never going to get out of it. I was going to have to figure out how to pee in my car, or walk twenty miles home. But somehow, traffic finally moved. It always finally moved and I was okay. I got out of it. 

That's what those dark moments of life are like. It might seem like it's never going to end, but somehow, it starts moving again, little by little. 

I want to know that I can speak up for myself. I can tell doctors when I don't want to do something, and what my needs are. The next time I have a baby, I have a much better idea of how I want to do things, and what I need to ask for from my doctors. 

I have so many more resources now. I know about pelvic floor therapy, I know where to go for mental health help. 

I want to remember that time really does heal things that seem impossible. I was having panic attacks every time I heard someone else was pregnant, or people talked about birth and so on. That's not the case now. Yes, I start to panic if I really start thinking about it. But that trauma doesn't have so much of a hold on me now. 

I want to remember what I've learned about my shadow. It's the idea that when things others do bother us much more than other interactions, it's because we're secretly worried about that thing. When people make comments about my parenting decisions or other things and it just really upsets me more than usual, it's probably because I'm worried about if I made the right decision, and so on. Remembering this I'm hoping will help me with some of the more difficult encounters in my life. 

I want to remember what I've learned about attachment types. I didn't realize that I'm always scared that people are going to leave, which is why I work SO hard to try and make them like me, to try and entertain them, even bringing up controversial topics just so they'll keep talking to me. It affects how I approach disagreements in my relationships as well. Just learning about this has really changed how I look and think about things. 

I want to remember what I've learned about shame, and the things I feel shame about that I had no idea about until we really dug into things. I'd never realized it, but people have been commenting on whether my body is good or bad my entire life. I've been getting subtle or not so subtle messages about my body and I've been walking around with all this shame about it, to the point that I felt so uncomfortable even just touching my legs while trying to ground myself in a session. It was so weird to realize that my body doesn't feel like a safe place. I want to remember the immense relief I felt about having someone tell me that I was normal and that the things that people had said about me were unfair and wrong. 

I want to remember the ways that we looked at possible scenarios and found the good and bad. I want to remember the idea that the universe isn't always listening every time I have a happy moment, ready to strike me with a tragedy. 

I want to remember the weird conversation that we had about compliments and how I feel so uncomfortable receiving them, or receiving and gifts of any kind because then I worry about reciprocating them.

I want to remember that I am freaking awesome at setting boundaries. I have had to set so many and think about them constantly and I am good at it. 

I want to remember that it's okay to have anxiety! I am okay right now, and I can love myself right now. I am enough right now, I don't need to go change everything. I am not enough later, I'm enough right now. 

I want to remember that it's okay to make mistakes. We have to make mistakes to learn. And it's okay if other people know about my mistakes. That's something I'm still struggling with, but I want to remember talking about it. 

I want to remember that we talked a lot about how life is uncertain. That I can't actually know that nobody is going to die to tomorrow or something catastrophic is coming. But, that doesn't mean I have to do these sort of superstitious things every day. I've been trying to do little changes, and show myself that hey, I didn't do this thing, and guess what. Something bad didn't happen. It's going to take a while, but I'm hoping to change those near pathways to always expect the worst. 

I'm seriously so grateful to my therapist and all the things I learned from her. I'm going to be honest, at this moment I'm wondering if I made a mistake by stopping. What if something crazy happens? Well, if it does, I can go back. And I am strong and can do hard things.