I write for therapy

My shrink suggested I should begin to write. The truth is that the advice was to write all your crap and then throw it away or burn it. By doing so, you take it out of your system and serves for decompression. It seemed like too much effort to just burn it.  So here I leave it, as proof that I tried.

 I have been in therapy for 14 years. I started with an event I had during my master's degree: I fell completely asleep on an exam. I guess I was overwhelmed because I had a highly demanding job, I had just gotten married, I was having trouble letting go of my parents, I couldn't carry a half-built house, masons and construction yet. My job was very demanding and strenuous and I came from being doped for a year with Lexapro, which is an antidepressant that left me on airplane mode.

I do not recommend antidepressants, they take away the desire of everything, and I mean it.  When you stop taking medication you return to the same spot.  The internist who prescribed them told me that once in a while it was fun to take a vacation from life, and it was. There is no single day I consider going back.  Every day I think of them, as a last resort. They are expensive, my insurance paid for them, but they are not sustainable in the long term, in addition to damaging other organs from my body.

 I started attending therapy once a week, those were hard times. Since I was a kid my parents  told me all my life that the people who go with psychologists are the ones who are crazy, I did not entirely trust a possible solution for me. I had to convince my therapist why I needed therapy to start sessions.  She has been an angel to me in many ways. She knows me well, she helped me with several phobias, the main one being my fear of flying. I had to travel for work and it was torment every time something was assigned to me. I remember a trip to India to a climate change conference, a subject that I am passionate about, and that I prayed all weekend for it not to happen. My pleas were heard, lost my passport, complete auto sabotage, if that word exists.  I was also able to overcome my phobia of being locked up, after hypnosis I discovered that a babysitter had locked me in a closet and that I managed to kick it out. I completely blocked this event and to this day, I enter an elevator and remember it.

 I figured out a few things, thought I could do it alone, and stopped going. I regret not having solved the root problem at that time. We are in 2020, under Covid 19 lockdown and I cannot find the root of my dilemmas. It's part of the process I guess.

I also went to group therapy, the strangest were those of family constellations, which is a methodology worked for years by German Bert Hellinger.  I coud assure you, if you have never tried, that this could confuse you more, or even seem they were some devilish worship sessions, haha. They helped me understand my family system, but I am still struggling.

 I tried a machine that detects trauma, health system is called, also german technology. Don't ask me how but they gave me dates and ages where I had several traumatic events.  I know this because I did self-archeology to return to heal those traumas with the help of my parents. Some of them related to when my mom found out she was pregnant with me, I was not planned, my mom got pregnant and decided to get married. 

 I have tried yoga and that is what has me standing, along with therapy and help from my family. I do yoga because it allows me to be in control of my body and my breathing and I like that.  Is the only thing I can control. 

 Due to a traumatic event, the worst I have had, 20 months ago and at the invitation of a friend I attended a course given by an evangelical church. I am a Catholic, not very practicing, but I was so desperate and wanting to do a lot of stupid things such as take pills and sleep forever or crash my car, that I attended. This course was called Recovery and is based on the methodology used by Alcoholics Anonymous on the 12 steps to recovery. The interesting thing is that they included the religious theme and that was what caught my attention. I was assigned a godmother who I love very much as we shared similar experiences and she helped me understand my process and recovery. I assisted against criticism from my family for being an evangelical church and I can say that I recommend it to anyone even if they have not had any traumatic experience. They taught me to make an inventory of my blunders, take account of them, and also let them go, to stop carrying them in my own life backpack. It was heavy at this point.  They taught me to accept myself, to forgive myself and to open my heart. It was very hard and I think the most important thing was that what happened to me was not what I should focus on but to understand the lesson and that alone I was not going to get out of my swamp.

 I had relapses after that. I relived traumatic experiences again, sabotaged myself, and it was like a cycle I was returning to. This is a cycle, it is called a cycle of mourning.  Each time hits me less and less and each time I can get up faster. I also know that these are episodes are going to happen and what I have to do is endure the storm. My hormonal disorders, the weather, and situations that trigger episodes do not help me. What I am learning is to identify the triggers.

In parallel, I received an invitation from a cousin to a group of ladies who meet on Wednesdays with the guidance of a preacher to analyze texts from the Bible. For anyone who knows me, they will say that I am on drugs, or in the group they give free alcoholic drinks and that is why I am going. Well, no, it turns out there is no alcohol. What I found is sorority between women, which I never had. I never felt it. It allows me to see that they all have problems, crises, anguishes, and the main thing is that they are not perfect. We share all of that in an environment where no one is judged and it's wonderful. We are only women because, as in the Recovery Program, if we have company of the opposite sex and we are vulnerable, it can be dangerous.

 Here we can talk about anything, and it's not just the bible that we talk about, we even talk about vibrators. I like that I am not judged, that I am occupying my time and that we do not need any stimulant other than coffee to be happy. We cry too and it is another aspect that I recommend, especially to mothers, if they feel vulnerable. I don´t cry, is hard for me and maybe for so many years I found in alcohol the way to let go the tears. I have understood that my children do not see me as vulnerable, they believe that their mother is made of steel and invincible, and that is not the case.

In summary, if I had to say what is the method to overcome existential crises, there is none or I don't know. What I do know is what things I would not do again, the most important trick me into wanting to get out of my problems by myself. It is the sum of decisions that are chosen. I could have chosen to find myself, wear heavier armor, become bitter, hate, not forgive, not ask for forgiveness. I don't want to be remembered like this. I want to be remembered as someone who overcame adversity, with a laugh.

 https://medium.com/@buzonale/251e81c578bf?source=friends_link&sk=e4ae1c2760c32463e563c3fb1e2ef480