Therapy Helps You Figure Out What You Deserve

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I would like to clarify a few things. Most people who attend counseling do not have a serious mental illness; those who do know that taking medication is only half the treatment; the other part is to be honest... just life. There should be no shame in seeking help to sort through it all. Many people have serious life challenges or are going through difficult life-cycle transitions that may be taxing their current ability to cope. This may adversely affect someones wellness and ability to function. This needs to be talked about.

“While I believe being in therapy is more normalized than ever, the sad fact remains that the reason people cite most for not seeking it is concern about how others will see them.” (Corrigan, 2004)

I heard so many things when I started attending therapy, however, I quickly learned as a Probation Officer I have to do as I preach, not as I feel I want to. Participating in weekly/bi-weekly therapy, and talking about it, allows those dealing with any form of stress, mental illness, or conflict to level with people and allows us to better understand how difficult it can be to share vulnerable parts of life with a stranger. It also allows the people I serve in my career, to see what a person who seeks help looks like.

It’s those of us who have been broken that become experts at mending- One year ago I wouldn’t of been caught dead sharing any of this, let alone posting it on a blog for, so many who know me, who potential could date me some day, who work with me, who are being supervised by me, who are possibly loved ones of my soon to be ex-husband and could use this all against me someday; yet here I am sharing my story because the simple fsct that I have someone new approach me regularly making comment about how helpful my words, my motivation and endurance has been as they are going through something similar and it’s helped them relate.

After finally finding people who accept me. Who make me feel heard. Who I am safe from judgement to speak to about my feelings-it was then when I began changing the negative qualities of myself I realized were self-inflicted from built up trauma throughout the past decade.

Accepting and acknowledging those feelings and thoughts allowed me to be a better person.

Imagine living the last 6-7 years of your life expected to have to have it all together. To be as committed to medicine as the person you wanted to spend the rest of your life with was and the expectations that are made of you had to be made or you’d be divorced. Imagine that pressure and having to to stay on a path of “support only” for this person and you mentioning how you feel, your own wants, dreams, fears, insecurities and happiness is often described as “exhausting” behavior. Now imagine giving 5-6 years of full blown out support and feeling safe within the walls of your marriage to expose parts of yourself you’d never come to terms with or allowed to surface?

I wasn’t safe to be myself and I avoided all conflict to keep the peace for him. In the end though, I was the one who was blamed and criticized because a war developed inside of me subconsciously; I was left to defend and heal on my own. No one forced the walls down around me in my marriage and instead of being loved for all that was, I had to “re love” the parts of myself on my own that were broken, and watch my marriage go up in flames while doing so. He used my weakness as an exit strategy because it was easy to say I pushed him away; yet, I wanted completely opposite. To be given a safe environmen to heal and to be accepted m no matter what struggles I endured though the process of healing after disclosing my unresolved traumas

My therapist hit my biggest flaw on the nail yesterday-what i seek in any anymore in any inner personal relationship is purely acceptance and acknowledgement.

That being the case, she helped me realized the acknowledgement can be both positive or negative. Being acknowledged helps provide a sense of worth in knowing the thoughts being shared mattered. More or less, it’s a focal point in moving towards acceptance in fixing ones good and bad. I begin seeing red and my mind begins a downward spiral the moment I am left without acknowledgement. An over abundance of cortisol is additionally released throughout my body and I become obsessive the moment I am left with feelings of abandonment or rejection. My emotions run similar to a hamster running full force on its little wheel when I am left without a form of validation. I am left to defend and without no response, assume the worst based off of all the negative and bad shit I endured in my past. When I am not acknowledged (good or bad) when I am not being sought to have reason to react the way I do. Those who have seen this in me know, once I get going, It takes a whole lot of strength to get me off that damn wheel.

So why do I say this?

Why do I tell you all my deep dark secrets and expose these parts of me that make me appear vulnerable or can be “too much” Here’s why...because I’m finally not ashamed of it.

It was brought to my attention today by my therapist how many hours I spend out loud going over and over in my head what I did wrong when I’ve wronged some one and at the end of each session, my therapist doesn’t even have to say it out loud. She’s almost disgusted with me and the look on her face says it all. I wrinkle my nose, feel disgusted with myself and agree with what she says normally 9/10 times at the end of the session which is this;

I deserved better; I always have. I take the blame for all conflict and at some point I need to stop blaming myself and holding others accountable for being crappy people in life

My therapist reminded me of this yesterday,

“Melissa you have to start take responsibility; you are somewhat to blame not for what happened to you. But for allowing yourself to accept and be treated less than what you deserve. You know your worth, stop downplaying it. Get exactly what you want from a relationship and don’t settle till you feel like you will be loved no matter the woman you are.”

People tell me daily I am gorgeous both inside and out and they are right; I downplay my strengths majority of the time and settle for what I feel I can get-to avoid failure. I let myself be convinced I’m the one to blame in everything that has ever went wrong in a relationship, so I have the control to fix it. I do this simply to protect myself from rejection, abandonment and judgment.

But damn it, I deserve better.

I deserved to feel safe in a marriage about what had happened to me previously in a prior life. I deserved to feel like I didn’t have to defend myself to family members; whether by marriage or blood. That my feelings around this time last year were incomplete as I was undergoing intense EMDR therapy. My feelings shouldn‘t be shameful and embarrassing to my husband’s reputation of his medicinal career. I deserved so much more protection than what I was given. I deserved the acknowledgement of there being closure when he left our marriage and most importantly I deserved to be acknowledged for the strength it took to tell him and his family about what happened to me.