Something that was brought up in therapy either last weekend or the one before was that as of late I’ve been spending a lot of time solely focusing focusing on the now, today. I’ve always used to be someone who heavily clung onto past events to the point that it was definitely a detriment to my life and to my following relationships and that’s in part why I’ve been so focused on really improving myself and more importantly improving my coping methods. Dissociating and imagining myself in dream scenarios just isn’t healthy. Neither was acting out and constantly begging people to validate me and calm those CONSTANT panicked thoughts. In the past, it really seemed to me that really looking anywhere that wasn’t that specific moment just caused immense turmoil. So I made it a point to stop looking towards the past. It didn’t happen all at once and honestly I still feel like it’s something I’m working on, but apparently I have done enough work in that regards that I really only tend to bring in comparisons when comparing my own actions but mostly I have been adamantly enjoying each day as it comes. It’s helped to relieve a lot of anxiety when I was just trying to take each day by day. Each week by week. Moments where I would surely catastrophize and panic about what would happen seemed to really just be focused on trying to get as much enjoyment and appreciation out of each moment I can. It felt nice to just go “I’m with this person right now and this makes me happy and that’s okay. That’s all I need to think about, just enjoy this.” That method of looking at new friendships and new relationships this way was helpful during a time where I needed to do anything but look back. To compare. It’s like I was still learning how to survive, to deal with living in the present where things weren’t going to be like my idealistic rose-tinted version of the past was like.

My ex, who I’m not sure if I have a pseudonym made up for them already as you know it’s been a while since I’ve had to use any with the exception of my favorite person’s, and my past relationship I think was from my end sabotaged due to being so stringent on not getting too attached taking things only one day at a time. Don’t get me wrong there were plenty of other things wrong with that relationship on both ends I just know it hurt to be adamantly okay with “just winging it” and to avoid talking about the serious stuff because I refused to think too far ahead. That’s when the catastrophizing would start. Anytime the thought of a future with someone occurred the thought that a future meant pain and abandonment would soon follow. It seemed better to just not think about the future ever. The thing is I was using that so strictly because I needed to I was still in survival mode as I was still gathering the skills I needed to be able to deal with these strong emotions of mine and strong emotional attachments. Since that relationship thankfully ended (I say respectfully because we ended on good terms. We just weren’t right for each other.) I have less had to relying on using these coping methods exactly the way I knew them to work. I’m no longer just surviving at least I no longer have to resort to just surviving. I like to see these stages of my life by how well I am using these coping skills to deal with the overwhelming emotions that I suffer from and how well I am incorporating those skills into my life to help improve it. The phase in my life where I was stuck in the past I was hurting. Deeply hurting every day that it tore me up inside and my emotions controlled me. So I cut myself slowly from the past refusing to look at anything other than the current day, the current moment, and the current “close” relationship. It’s weird because I never felt like I would be at this point of my life before well I didn’t think I’d get here is all but I think I can confidently say I no longer need to solely rely on those survival coping methods.

I can now get to the next stage in my life, and I think I am a little bit into this stage already, where I can start thinking and imagining the future without it being debilitating. Without going into those extreme what-if’s and burning my own friendships/relationships to the ground to prevent having to endure the pain of them doing it to me. That’s what was brought up in my last therapy session is what our future plans are going to be now that this phase of my therapy is reaching a conclusion. I was actually given the option to finish my current therapy sessions as they are moving to a new therapy group/association? I’m not quite sure how it works. All I know is that in a few weeks the group therapy is going to be filled with an entirely different group of people. So it really does feel like a new phase in my life is starting soon. And with this phase I can now start looking at other points and times in my life, mostly at the future but honestly the past too. I know a future goal of mine is to start looking for places to live on my own, to be more independent, and to start cementing those in my pack’s place in my life. And it’s time to think about what a future with Silas might be and honestly the thought of what that might be like is really nice. We talked about our relationship and though we aren’t anything “official” right now I can’t tell you how comforting and relieving it is to know that the other person is on the same page as me and that we both want similar things. I know today I love and care about them and now I think I might be comfortable enough to start thinking about what us tomorrow might be like. I still got work to do on myself, I’m still going through therapy because I want to better myself but I don’t know.. it is really nice to be able to talk about how someone makes me feel and have it not be seen as a danger towards my betterment, but actually they are kind of a part of the help (a small part of many many different skills and reshaping thought patterns). I don’t need their validation to know I have self worth, to know that I’m worthy of love but it surely does help reinforce those smidgens of self confidence and self value that I actually have acquired throughout these therapy sessions. I can only hope I am helping them feel more confident too. They mean the world to me and have already given me so much care and kindness so it is honestly the least I can do.

-T.