One Step Up and Two Steps Back...as 'The Boss' would say...

The famous words of DT continue to reverberate inside my mind…“In those moments of tempting the face of expected rejection/abandonment...make a different choice…” Prior to her saying these words to me last June, they were not a foreign concept to me. This choice to NOT reach out…knowing that my mother would never be there for me…I chose not to reach out to her for help – EVER.  

I feel that way now. I just don’t think any of it matters anymore. DT may have reminded me of those words, but they were tattooed into my brain long before last June. And now when I become overwhelmed with everything, when I would have reached out for help from the therapist, I don’t know – because her words above are all I hear. I don't think I can ever again reach out for help.

All day long I have wiped tears from my eyes…fearful of moving from this very spot I’ve been sitting in since I woke up this morning…I feel paralyzed with pain now...I need her help now- but I can’t ask for help because of all that happened. I am afraid now. I have friends – great friends, confidants, some which are like sisters to me ~ I love them and they love me, but it isn’t the same.

Apparently somewhere down the road, dear therapist turned into a mother figure for me (weird since she’s not like some little old woman with gray hair and an apron…)…but that’s the way it feels. And logically I know that none if it makes sense but I don’t know what to do with it! What a mess! I want to walk away from all of it and never look back. And I could – I’ve done it.  And I know that isn't 'fair', I know she cares, and I am sure I internalized her words in a crazy way - and not the way she meant them - but I don't know how to undo that now.

And just because no one *on the outside* recognizes my pain doesn’t mean it isn’t there and I’m not angry! It doesn’t! I feel like I’m trying to build a house on a foundation of quick-sand – it just doesn’t work! And I don’t know what to do now – so I’m sinking with it! Because the person I trusted and unfortunately internalized as some sort of mother figure became overwhelmed too – and even though I know she cares – what’s to say it won’t happen again? There are so many snapshots from my childhood where the host body would actually try to act like a ‘mother’ – for a second! And then end up screwing me! And if this is all so called “transference” then so what!  Help me through it because I don’t know how to change that thought process right now because that’s DT’s business, not mine – mine is accounting and finance! But where is she now?

And because I don’t know what to do with it- I pull completely away – and throw her skinny ass in a bucket – which really doesn’t help because then even when I need to understand some ‘maladaptive thought process’ – I’ve no one to ask – because I’ve slapped her in the bucket with the host body – and I’m scared of both of them! And just as I can be ‘cordial’ and ‘nice’ to the host body- not ever expressing how I truly feel – I can do that with the therapist too. I don’t know how to do anything else right now!


And in the words of ‘The Boss’ …”Somewhere along the line I slipped off track…I'm caught movin' one step up and two steps back…”


And the same old ingrained thoughts are now running rampant through my maladaptively formed brain…Grace is nothing. Nothing! I have no right to be cared for, or loved, or even a right to say no. Clearly this is the case- because I find myself in that situation even with the husband this weekend.

I told him 1000x on Friday that I did not want to have sex! But then I get tired of saying no, and obviously, what I say doesn’t matter since he continues to press the issue – I must be wrong – so I give up. I’m really nothing anyway. Just do whatever you want. And at first I cried. But then I decided in my head that I shouldn’t cry because that might make it worse so I just decided to not be there. And then I felt nothing. Nothing.  After I stood up and started to walk away, and he said, “If you’re mad at me it wasn’t worth it.” Still walking away from him, I said, “I’m not mad at you.” Because how could I be mad? I’ve no right to be mad or say no. I don’t matter. I am nothing. That’s how I feel. He is no different than any of the other men before him – do whatever you want – I don’t matter anyway. I have no needs –and clearly if I actually admitted that I did – it would overwhelm you – so why bother.

Do what you want to me. I don’t matter. And please, please, please, do not act like I do matter, or ask me how I am, or for God's sake "what I need" …because I won’t tell you the truth. Not anymore.  I will smile and tell you everything is great.  I am living the dream.  Because nothing else matters...

Make a different choice...a year ago, I would have chosen to ask DT for help with all of this...but now, I can't.  And just like it wasn't the husband's fault Friday - it's not DT's fault either.  It's mine.  I'm not mad at either of them...My brain is wired wrong and I have tried to rewire it - but I don't know if it can be done now. 

Same sad story...that's a fact...one step up and two steps back...