Thursday

I've been fairly open here about my seeing a therapist and the fact that I take medication. And I feel that I should be, that in some way I owe it to someone as thanks for the fact that those things have helped me. But I also sometimes forget that even with therapy and medicines that make me feel normal for the first time in...ever, I don't think I'll ever be "better." And that can be a really hard thing to come to terms with.

The technical thing I'm diagnosed with is PTSD, trust me, I thought it sounded stupid at first too. I mean, I've never been in a war or natural disaster or kidnapped or something but the more I read and learned the more things finally made sense for being the way they were. And the more my doctor and I worked on treating that, the better I felt. And I do feel good most of the time. I used to be so incredibly high strung and have such a need to be in control and make everyone happy that I was dooming us all to be unhappy. I was always anxious and felt such pressure to be exactly what I was supposed to be to everyone because if I didn't then they would leave. I was constantly in a panic over what to do in order to make people happy.

And now that things are better I feel stronger and more capable of being angry with someone if I feel angry or disagreeing and knowing that the whole relationship won't end because of it. But all the therapy and pills in the world won't change the things that have happened to me and that includes a lot of people who have left me. My parents, my closest friends, and the families I've created along the way to make up for the loss of my own. And when I'm doing well I am able to recognize that none of these people's choices had anything to do with me so much as with themselves. But when I'm not doing well, or when another person leaves, I'm blind to that. It leaves me feeling I won't ever have someone stay. It makes me feel like all I want to do is hide and protect myself from ever having a connection with someone again because my heart can't take that hurt anymore. And it again leaves me with the feeling that if I were just more fun or interesting or intelligent or whatever it is someone wants from me that they would stay.

It just keeps getting harder and harder to not feel broken by people.

There's a letter floating around from a girl to a boy, and while this has nothing to do with a boy it resonates with me. In the letter she writes "If ever I get that close to another, I fear they will know me only as I am now, and not as how I got here." I'm afraid of that too. I'm afraid that someday I will wake up and not be able to recognize myself as the girl who at one point could never understand why someone would be scared to love.