Will Safety Win?

I’m not sure I can do this again.

I’m not sure I want to do this again.

What is this?

Opening up to another human being. Trusting someone else to be my guide, my support.

Finding a new therapist.

I don’t want to rely on a person in this way again. I don’t want to let someone mean so much to me that it has the power to hurt me.

“If you don’t want to open up to another person, then I have failed you,” my therapist said during our final termination session.

But maybe not? Maybe if I don’t rely on another person for my healing again, she has succeeded in teaching me that healing will only come from myself? That all the answers lie within me and I can use myself as a tool to heal?

“You have to do it on your own, but you can’t do it alone,” she continues to whisper in my brain, an echo of what she said one of the many times we discussed the issue that had no resolution.

And I know she hasn’t failed me.

Through this brutal work I received help, I gained healing, I was equipped with hope.

And yet, the price I paid in pain was so high.

So much gain. So, so much pain.

I don’t feel ready to submit to such a process again.

And submitting myself only partially, well, I know that doesn’t work. “We can’t be selective with what we block.” My therapist’s voice again.

And I know that my work of healing is far from over.

But looking at it with the distance this brutal separation has given me, I can’t let it happen again.

Not the visceral needing. Not the yearning that tears at my heart. Not the immense pain brought up with compassion aimed at me.

Not the limits, the confines, the rejection built into such a framework that always frustrates my needs.

And one tiny voice whispers — I’m not sure whose, maybe that obstinate blossom of hope that has not died down in all those wretched years: But maybe there is another way? Maybe there is a way to heal this in a way that doesn’t kill you?

I’m not sure I have the courage to find out.