Pressure

Sometimes there are so many thoughts in my head, I feel overwhelmed, and I get that craving to journal – to take the jumble of thoughts and lay them all out, organize them, make sense of them…but when I start to type, they’re gone.

I quit therapy awhile ago – I got frustrated. Sometimes it just feels like I’ve invested years and thousands of dollars and made zero progress. But then I look at my life, and I’m functioning…and I think, well, I must be doing something right? Except. Haven’t I always been “functioning”- high functioning, even. Isn’t that the very problem I went in with? That I look fine, and I “feel” fine, and I act fine – but then, I get intrusive thoughts that make me want to harm myself, and panic attacks that land me in the hospital, and sometimes I get rage-y and suicidal. And even when I’m fine, I go to sleep every night feeling like a failure – I’m fine, but, also, I’ll never be enough.

And sometimes my therapist seems to think that what I want is for everything to be perfect, a life without struggles – that I am making myself unhappy because what I want is unrealistic. It feels like he thinks the things I want, are just too much. But the things I want, are the whole reason I’m in therapy. I don’t want to have panic attacks anymore. I don’t want the flashbacks. Or the intrusive thoughts. I don’t want the rage. And if these things are all too much to ask for, then what the hell is the point.

So I quit. And then after I ended up in the hospital. I went back. Because, all I’ve ever wanted is for someone to fucking be able to help me.

Because I have read every book and I can’t seem to help myself.

But I’m about to quit again. Last session he suggested that I go get a prescription for something to take when I have a panic attack – and while, I understand that his intent was that it would ultimately make me feel better/safer to have that option…I’m not in therapy so I can have drugs do the work for me. I can do that without therapy. Isn’t taking a script just another coping mechanism? Another way out. Something to get you through the moment, so you don’t have to do it alone.

I don’t want that. I want to be strong enough to do it myself. Is that really too much to ask? Is that unrealistic of me?