Yesterday, for the first time, I had a therapist tell me something that I didn’t already know…

It is a burden to self diagnose at every turn, knowing from where your inner demons rear their heads doesn’t always make it easier to cope. Instead, you step lightly past the place where they sleep, hoping that they stay quietly at rest.

Too many years I’ve gone to therapy, stopping, starting, getting a new sounding board when I had worn yet another one out. And with each person, I lay it out as I see it, all details that I can remember, leaving nothing to the imagination. They listen and nod, scribble and respond…. I cry, and talk and in the end, I am no further along in my healing, just further away from the incidents in question, I’ve put distance and time between myself and each memory.

But I find myself wanting and needing the same things as I always have. Freedom on my terms, independence and individual financial responsibility. I want the choices I make to be mine alone. (Granted, my son is FIRST among all choices, but he is 11, he will be grown someday.) The space to be alone, only seeking attention when I am ready to… I am pulled to lift my eyes up, chin tilted down a bit, a slight smile playing on my lips, and look for a man to regard. But I am also drawn to sweeping my hair back and up, pinned hap hazardly on my head, a throw around my shoulders, glasses perched on the tip of my nose to better see the book I am enchanted by.

In all these things, there is an animal sense of being free to do as I want, I can feel this wildness tensely coiled in me. Not an uncautious wildness, but the croutched, still, waiting instinct, held in check by shear force of will… very much like a large cat. Sure I can roll around in the dirt and play half the day, but when the mood hits, I am focused, trained to take a “kill”. I ready myself, I can feel that I will be succesful and then… I turn away and pad slowly back to my resting spot in the shade, a soft hruumph sound in my throat.

Enough with the cheesy writing prose…

Yesterday, I told Doc B about how very trapped I feel, that I am angry at myself for staying but that I couldn’t trust that leaving was the right choice either. We did some breathing work, listening to my thoughts and I told her that I always seem to want my “freedom”. We talked about making healthy choices in our lives, boundaries, blah, blah, etc. I told her that the most healthy choice I had made was to leave Dryden’s father. After we split up, I paid off all my debt, got back into school, bought and paid for a new car and started saving to buy a home for Dryden and I. I felt free to make extremely good choices without the burden of a man-child to care for.

Doc B says: “So you learned that by being alone, you actually take care of yourself instead of constantly taking care of others?”

Yes! DUH! Of course… I don’t take care of myself, only an occasional manicure, an often long space of time between a glass of wine. Instead, I rush to meet everyone else’s needs, then the needs of the house, and finally if there is a small breathe left in me… I put a facial mask on and relax with a book.

So I have homework, take care of myself. EVERYDAY, I must do something for myself alone. This is what I am supposed to pay attention to: Does the resentment and straining against my chains seem less tedious, by taking care of myself, will I feel less like breaking free again?

Right now, I almost hope it doesn’t help…