I went through a very very difficult time in my 30's. I was on the brink, this was before my drinking got bad. I was beyond lucky that someone at work mentioned a therapist she had been seeing, I called and made an appointment. We met, and the woman agreed to see me but only if I would commit to 2x a week.
I spent almost 10 years sorting things out. My God, the patience, understanding and kindness she showed me I will never be able to repay. It is only in looking back that I can see how she was gently, ever so gently, guiding me to begin to trust myself. It had taken me three decades to wind myself into knots, it took a long time to untangle. She probably could have summed up my issues in one or two sessions, but I needed to figure it out for myself. I hadn't had that type of unconditional kindness in a long time, if ever. What seems to linger in my mind is the process, it was gradual. I would glean a bit of support, go back out in the world and test it out, and look at it again the next week. I had no idea that I was changing.
At first I wanted confirmation that the way I was being treated wasn't normal. Then I went through a process of needing to confirm how bad the person who was hurting me was, she gradually helped me shift the focus back to myself. It was only after a long time that I started to realize that I did have power, and that my focus was on all the wrong things. But, I would not have believed it any earlier, I had to work through that gradually. Now I understand that what I was struggling was codependence.
I needed someplace soft to land, a haven that allowed me the room to sort things out, and a gradual sounding board as I found my own voice. She would catch the slightest inflection in my voice and call me out on contouring my responses to what I thought I should say versus what I felt. Being guarded and trying to anticipate how best to interact with someone who has the capacity to hurt us becomes a habit. In a way, it is a natural and rational response, at the beginning. The problem is we become partners with whoever is hurting us, and when isolation is added that can be a grave combination.
It is hard to remember sometimes what it felt like to feel so victimized, how confusing and alone I felt. I grew up skiing, have taught friends, and there are times when I don't understand why they are struggling so much, I get frustrated because the right way to do it seems SO APPARENT. A few years ago I tried to snowboard. I had forgotten the terror of look down a tiny slope fearing I would kill myself, it was a huge wake up call for me. I think of that often on the newcomer boards. Sometimes when we move ahead it does become really hard to remember that confusion and fear we felt when we first sought our own recovery. What seems apparent later takes conditioning, patience and trust. I believe in SR so much, it has been my lifeline. My wish is that everyone who comes here will be given the time to try out the bunny slope first, and that gradually they will trust enough to know that they too are capable of skiing the moguls.