When the wrong mark is hit

I came into the session feeling pathetic. Feeling awkward. It happens often, especially after the holidays invade the calendar and snatch up several therapy days. All my therapy doubts, all the resistance I ever had, start creeping up on me again. I almost felt like canceling, putting this demeaning part of my life on hold […]

All-you-can-talk Tuesday

Come Tuesday, and it’s time to talk. It’s time to fill myself up by, as ironic as it is, getting some of the stuff choking me out. For the better part of an hour, I can talk all I want. I can dictate the conversation and decide (if I’m verbal, that is) where it should […]

I can’t touch it

If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? If a heart implodes deep within, breaking into smithereens in your chest, does it impact anyone? If you cry an ocean of tears, but no one is there to witness it, is it healing? If […]

When Therapy Doesn’t Feel Therapeutic

Apparently, I’m here for healing — for you to teach me that I have a place in the world. That there are actually people who have my back. But I’m not really learning that in my relationship with you. I see caring. I see you seeing me. I see you trying to understand the depths […]

Unfilled

You open up a well of needA void in which deep yearning breedsSearing pain that makes me chokeAs I inhale burning, acrid smoke A chasm that will not be filledA longing that cannot be stilledJust pain and lack a pointed dartAimed right at my battered heart I tell you what is on my mind“Yes, you’re […]

Story of my life

What if the fact that I need healing is a myth planted in my brain by the therapy community? What if the fact that I’m traumatized is a fable co-created in a well-appointed therapy room? What if my childhood, while not ideal, was just normal? What if I’m whipping up drama where there was none? […]

After a week

Who are you? I wonder. Are you the person I felt so understood by all those months, er, I mean, six days ago? The one I thought was okay to hold in my heart and my mind and derive encouragement from? The one who I thought was perfectly okay serving as my mental guide and […]