MaggieinTherapy

Hoping to Unravel the Mess that is My Thoughts

  • THE PERFECT WHIRLWIND

    Mom, can you hear the cry that so often wakes me?

    Dad, do you even care that the world seems to hate me?

    Sister, where were you when i needed a friend

    Brother, I don’t count you as someone on whom I depend

    I know, I KNOW, I sound cruel because we’re family

    I’m sorry, so sorry, the blame belongs to me

    But you don’t see these hands that tremble

    And you didn’t see me slowly disassemble

    It was me

    I did it alone

    And all of you?

    You were at home

    In the house that was outwardly perfect

    But I’ve seen the inside and I’ve watched the whirlwind

    Mom, I wish I could talk to you amidst your fragile state

    Dad, should I tell her? Is that something she can take?

    Sister, I won’t talk to you because I know where you place blame

    Brother, I’m sure you relate..we both dwell in shame

    But you don’t have to worry because I’ll keep this to myself

    And I’ll build my own house and put this on the shelf

  • Unraveling the Story

    Why does it feel so taboo to write about family? I hate that. My story is a complex one but I know it’s made me who I am today. I look forward to the day when i can share more. Here’s something I wrote two years ago. For some context this writing came after dealing with physical abuse in my family.
    I think I’ll continue to share my writings even if they’re not current because these are the words that have gotten me here:

    I don’t know what it is right now but it hurts. It all hurts really bad even though I had a good day. 

    So why? Why does it have to hurt? Why do I have to feel like this? Im exhausted from feeling like this. Completely worn out. 

    My heart is aching. The ache is so deep I can never reach it. Ill never be able to get down to it. That’s what it physically feels like. Like I can pinpoint it in my chest. Like its buried down deep in my soul. My soul is hurt..

    Is it possible to still be sad that someone hurt me like that? Do I really have a right to be hurt? 

    It feels like I’m too damaged to get back to being okay. That’s really scary to me. Like this feeling is forever. I can’t be like this forever. 

    I’m too entangled in my own mind so I know I need help unraveling all of this. 

    Please help.

    I’m so tired of appearing so strong and okay because the truth is I’m so broken. I’m so fragile. I can cry for hours by myself but never in front of anyone. 

    It doesn’t feel okay to be questioning things that are supposed to be true. I know that my parents are human and humans make mistakes so I shouldn’t hold this against them. How would they feel if they ever knew how I really feel about them? That’s why I have to be so careful about what I say about them, how I act around them. Because I can’t allow myself to go down the road of letting out how I really feel about them because it would crush them. I don’t want to do that to them. I don’t want to hurt them.

    They’re hurting too. They have to be. I can see it in their eyes- the hurt. Is that from me?

    Is love supposed to hurt? Nice words only lead to mean actions. Is it supposed to hurt when someone says something nice to me? Is this really what love is? Love is fucking scary. Love fucking sucks. Don’t love me. Don’t hurt me. 

    It doesn’t even feel like enough to say I’m hurt because its more than that but I can’t put it into words.

    What do I do now?

    Now that I’m not in the safe room in counseling. Now that I’m not in front of someone who is helping me. 

    Talk to someone else?

    THERE IS FUCKING NO ONE WHO UNDERSTANDS THIS. NO ONE!!!

    DONT YOU KNOW HOW FUCKING HARD THAT IS. HOW MUCH IT HAS FUCKED ME UP. IT HAS WRECKED ME. IM IN SHREDS.

    How can I be the one who is ruining the family????? I fucking saved this family!!

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    I share all my writings with C.

    I wish you could see it how I see it –  I said those exact words to C in her office. And you know what she said – I wish you could see it how I see it . 

    WOW. That really hit me hard. She said the exact same thing to me that I said to her but she said it in love. She said it from a different perspective. She said it in a way that made me feel heard. What if I believed the truth – got down to the very core of everything and just believed the truth about what happened?

    What would that do for my confidence?

    What would that do for my progress?

    In the midst of all this confusion, I think it would really help me to just dig down to the facts. Forget every opinion, reaction, and response about what happened and focus solely on what happened:

    Every day I have a choice about who I am. I can either believe the truth or I can choose to head into the downward spiral that I’ve let define me for far too long.

    There’s more I want to share but it doesn’t feel safe for me just yet. I already feel so honored and thankful to have this blogging community. I want to share my story but I want to feel ready too. I never want to betray any part of myself. Remember Maggie, it’s okay to go at your own pace.

    xx

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  • Introducing Little Maggie

    The healing process, like most things, takes time. It’s so annoying. One of the first questions I asked C when we started our work together almost four years ago now was how long is this going to take? She laughed a little and then said I don’t know. Its different for everyone but you’re going to be okay.

    IM GOING TO BE OKAY. That really stuck with me. I love my connection with C. It’s the one relationship where I feel the safest. It’s also where I feel everything so my brain wants to think it’s not safe.

    Sometimes my brain will tell me “you’ve got to get away from C. You have to go figure things out on your own. You really need a break.”

    And is it possible that I need a break – yes. 

    Is it also possible my brain is lying to me – hell yes.

    So I do nothing.

    One hour. That’s all I get with her a week and it just doesn’t seem fair. It’s not fair that I bare my soul to her and then she moves on to the next ready to care for them too.I hate that she cares for other people the way that she cares for me.

    I’ve given myself permission to check in daily to see if I really need a break or if that’s my protective part coming out…

    Day 3 and I still think I might actually need a break.

    Day 4 and now I’m beginning to see things a little more clearly. I’m scared so everything in me wants to hide. Lock the doors and stay hidden. Isolation is not what I need. Safety and connection through people IS what I need. 

    But all this stuff… it’s fucking hard and it doesn’t just get better overnight. I don’t just heal in one day. It’s a long road. It’s the most painful road. 

    I’ve been checking in with myself and in my most previous conversation I finally got somewhere: 

    NO WHAT DO YOU NEED!

    I DONT FUCKING KNOW!!!!

    MAGGIE WHAT DO YOU NEED

    HOW MANY GODDAMN TIMES CAN I TELL YOU THAT I DONT KNOW

    No you do know! You do know what you need! THINK. WHAT DO YOU NEED.

    I DONT KNOW!!! I CANT SEE PAST THE FUCKING FOG IN MY MIND.

    YOU CAN DO THIS THIS. BREATHE. THINK.

    I need to feel better. I need it to go away. I just need.. I NEED REST!  Oh my god… she needs rest.

    It’s not me – it’s her.. SHE NEEDS REST!!

    HER soul is crushed. HER soul is weary. HER voice is still silent. 

    I’m talking about my younger, wounded parts. The parts that were hurt in the worst way and are desperate for a safe place. Desperate for a mom. Desperate for C.

    But I.. I AM SO ANGRY. And I’m angry at myself. Angry for how weak I seem to be. Angry at how I puff myself up with words but my actions dont match. Angry that I fail every. single. day. 

    I was weak then and I’m still weak now. 

    But wait a second. I am stronger now. And the little voice that’s talking now isn’t loud but I have gotten stronger. Even in the smallest victories – I’m still growing and changing. 

    I want to be with C so badly because I want to be with someone who makes me feel safe. And that’s why I yearn for her throughout the week because even when I (Maggie) am with her during the week I dont really let her (little Maggie) be with C. 

    I never really get to be in that room. She (protector) won’t let me and it isn’t fair. 

    I’m right here. So close to the surface but, for whatever reason, I can never come out. Literally it feels like I could burst to the front but there’s a thick wall that I can’t break through. 

    She needs C because she doesn’t trust me. She doesn’t trust me because I dont even trust me. She also doesn’t trust me because I let the protective part speak over her. I don’t value her. I dont care about her most of the time. That has to change. She has to have space where she can openly speak.

    I’ve found a safe place in C. I found a surrogate mom. Little Maggie is over the moon about this. Little Maggie holds on to every word she says. She said this to little Maggie:

    You’re safe here.

    You’re okay. 

    I won’t push.

    I don’t care if we take 1000 small steps.. I’ll be here the whole time. 

    She’s (little Maggie) not ready and that’s okay. I’m honored that she showed herself to me even just a little bit.

    I know you’ve been mad at him (abuser) for so long.

    I want to remind you that you can’t heal what you don’t share.

    You don’t have to do this alone.

    I’m right here.

    I’ve got you.

    C is so very kind and loving toward all of me. I miss being free. I miss when my mind was really my own. 

    It’s in chains. Weighed down. 

    I need to give myself some grace, though, because I have come such a long way from where I was. 

    I have goals for myself now. I want more for myself and that is growth. A year ago I couldn’t have said that. I want to learn to reach out to people when I’m not doing okay. Even in the past week, I’ve wanted to just tell someone Hey I’m hurting and I need support.  But I didn’t. I didn’t reach out to anyone and I’m ashamed of that. Really ashamed. Because that should be easy. Because that’s where healing could take place but I choose not to do it. It’s a choice and I keep choosing the wrong thing. I hate myself for that. 

    But it’s not all bad. Even though I chose not to reach out – I chose to write. I chose to read. I chose not to self harm. Those are all good things.  I know I can start to choose to do things that seem impossible now. 

    The good thing is – I’m conscious of this now. I know that I want to start reaching out to people and I actually want to. Without that desire, I can’t start to do it. I have to want to do it. 

    And with that.. I think I’ll go rest.

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  • Where Do I Start Pt. 2

    It feels like all the emotions want to pour out the minute I start writing. Anger. Grief. Sadness. Anticipation. Excitement. Rage. Talk about overwhelming. All of those feelings make it difficult for me to know where to start but I want to honor these thoughts that want to come out. I want these parts of me to have a voice. Now is not the time for silencing. You can do this, Maggie. That’s what I keep telling myself. Just breathe. Sometimes it feels like I can put myself right back into a session and remember what happened. Other times, it’s much more complicated.

    Anyways, back to the follow up on my first post. There’s still so much I want to say about it. Ugh but how do I take it from the melting pot of my thoughts and put it into a coherent blog post? I say this to C all the time. She always says “It’s okay, Maggie. I know you well enough to help you put the pieces together.”

    My sessions are usually once a week, sometimes twice a week and sometimes I get angry and skip altogether. It’s messy for sure. This past Wednesday my session didn’t go how I thought it would. Of course I wanted to feel the connection. It’s been a heavy couple of weeks and I was needing to feel like we were safe and our connection was okay. What I got from the session was entirely different.

    It’s the strangest thing. From the moment I wake up, right up to the doorway to her office, I am totally convinced I’ll let this younger part speak. Let her cry, stomp her feet, throw a tantrum and be “too much”. Today will finally be the day. But AS SOON as I step one foot in her office, I lose sight of that completely. Every. Single. Time.

    Since I started this draft weeks ago now, I’ve been thinking what the hell happened on that Wednesday? Or what the hell happened that dropped me flat on my face during the session. Where did it all go so wrong? I’m so over the attachment ups and downs. The constant wondering. The fear of having it ripped away at any moment. 

    C felt so far away that Wednesday. It’s like I can sense when she’s going through a lot personally and I hate that because what about me? What about every one of my wounded parts? I know it may sound selfish but I fear anything big happening in her life for the sole purpose that she’ll feel far away. If only it was realistic to think that her entire world revolved around me and attending to all my hurting, wounded parts. Sigh.

    It seems like too much to go into all the details but C told me that my feelings toward one of my triggers was disproportionate and WOW did that set me off. I was mad bc, at the time, they didn’t feel disproportionate. It really did feel like everything was crashing down. Why does she get to tell me what feelings I can feel? Now that I’ve thought about it, I know there was so much more going on than just that ONE thing for me. It wasn’t that one trigger. It was all the things that it triggered. And that fact that C felt far away just made it all worse. I took everything she said so personally even if she wasn’t trying to attack me.

    Do other clients get caught up in this same kind of tension / attachment struggle with their therapists? Inner child work is so hard. There’s a ton of work that happens in the room but I’m seeing that the majority of the work happens during the six days in between. 

     I hate how quickly my brain forgets our sessions. Especially the good parts. But sometimes, I get lucky and my brain slips me a nugget of goodness that I can hold onto. And sometimes that goodness nugget attaches to more good and I have a few things to hold on to.

    At one point during my session, C said that she was fighting for me but I couldn’t see it. She said she will keep fighting for me and that she sees me and always sees me. That’s what I’ll hold on to for now. C always sees me. The hurting me. The curious me. The little me. All of me.

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  • Where Do I Start?

    It’s been almost four years since my therapy journey began. FOUR. YEARS. Who knew that 25-year-old me had so much shit to process. I guess that’s what years of abuse, dissociation, self harm and pain will do. I’ve realized that I’m beyond ready to let my pain be seen in hopes of finding others who get it. I’m tired of hiding behind my screen waiting for everyone else to post. I want to join the brave writers right here in my own space with my own voice. Maybe I’ll impact someone just like many of you have greatly impacted me.

    So where do I start? I have 29 years of life under my belt, there’s no way I can get you up to speed in the first post. I guess it will just have to be okay that we’ll learn as we go. There’s no pressure to dump it all out right now. There’s no time limit. The good news is that I’ve always found comfort in writing. I’ve got loads of journals (probably close to 50) full of drawings, poems, writings, and letters from the time I was 6 to now. I have countless emails to my therapist. I know that all of these are important to my healing and I’ll put them here when the time comes.

    The tricky part is knowing where to jump in. Right now, I’m in the trenches of therapy. I had a session on Wednesday that left me with the feeling of “what the hell just happened?” Or what the hell happened that dropped me flat on my face during the session. Where did it all go wrong? I’m so over the attachment ups and downs. The constant wondering. The fear of having it ripped away at any moment.

    My therapist, C, has become a surrogate mom for me. She knows it and I know it too. She truly is wonderful and I’m thankful to have her. It’s hard to write when my thoughts and feelings are split right down the middle. The adult part of me couldn’t be more grateful for C. Couldn’t feel more loved and cared for by someone who goes WAY out of her way for me. I completely acknowledge that what she gives me is what other clients can only dream they would get. C emailed this to me toward the beginning of our work back in 2019:

    “I do hope you can believe me one day and until then I want you to know I am here and you can reach out anytime and say ANYTHING you need to as I won’t get mad, blame you or not be there. Thanks again and I do hope you hear my heart through your pain and I will help you today, and however long it takes.”

    It’s amazing isn’t it? That kind of love and care even outside of the therapy room. BUT UGH it’s like my mind can’t take that in when I feeling like I did when I was 4. If only this healing process wasn’t so messy. But again, abuse and pain are messy.

    So, Wednesday. It was trigger on top of trigger. I had some plans with my twin sister get canceled last minute and it sent me into an epic downward spiral. All because some plans got canceled? I know. But really, I’d been unraveling for a while and I think this was the final straw. I was completely dissociated and all I really wanted was to feel deeply connected to C. She should’ve been able to sense that I needed a hug. I mean how could she NOT have sensed that? It was practically oozing from each pore in my body. She’s not a mind reader, though. (this would be way easier if she was). I left the session feeling completely disconnected from not only her but from myself. I felt like she didn’t even try to dig deeper about what was coming up. Sigh.

    Now my brain is fragmenting again and I can’t think straight. Does anyone else’s vision blur when you start dissociating or is that just me?

    I’ll save the deeper thoughts for the next post. Starting off strong right? LOL!

    xo Maggie

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