My Individual therapy class never fails to bring forth memories and thoughts that consume my brain every Tuesday and Thursday on the walk back to my car and through the drive home. This post of my inner dialogue will help me more than it’ll help anyone else but it is an expression of my feelings and experiences that I’ve had that I need to get out.
Today we talked about different Styles of Life or in other words how you view the world. Therapists with a psychoanalytic style say that the style of life that you have is a reflection of your early experiences with your parents, siblings, events, etc. They also believe that the memories that you recall most clearly from early on in your life are ones that have a significant impact on your style of life. We were asked to remember three of our earliest memories and find a pattern throughout them. My memories all involved a strong emotion such as pain, disappointment and the feeling you get when you know you did something wrong. I don’t think that this exercise is the end all, be all of how I view the world but I do think when these emotions come up in my life in the present and I try to forget about them instead of facing the problem head on or I avoid anything that will bring these emotions on.
This is reflected in my ability to let others into my life and let them be close. Whenever anyone asks me why I’m not in a relationship, my number one answer has been “when I find the right person, I’ll just know”. Of course I have no clue if that’s true or not. If I don’t feel attraction towards someone right when I meet them, I probably won’t even give them a chance. I have tried with a guy who was extremely nice and funny but I just couldn’t see us together no matter how much he liked me. I felt horrible honestly! I was giving up a guy who many girls would love to go out with but he just wasn’t for me. I questioned my standards and thought that maybe I have set the bar too high for the person that I am. I have had plenty of options, but I always take the option that leaves me by myself.
Digging deeper into my past, there is something that happened that could account for all of the problems I have trusting people. My first and only relationship I had in high school lasted for an official two weeks in the 9th grade. Unofficially it lasted until my first year in college. He was always going out with other girls but secretly he would always come back to me. We would spend hours on the phone talking about anything, he would openly flirt with me in classes and everyone (except his girlfriends) knew that there was something else going on. He was a piece of shit but I couldn’t stop going back to him because he had a way of making me feel like I was sexy and loved. I never went out with any other guys because I was always waiting for him to decide that he wanted to be with me, but he never did.
One night, during my first year of college, I was staying at my parent’s house while they were gone and he called me, drunk, to say that he was coming to see me. I was fine with it, he had stayed over before and I trusted him. At this point in my life I think I was confused about what I wanted from him anymore. I wasn’t feeling the same about him as I had in the past and I was confused about what I should do. But, I did know that I still trusted him and that I didn’t feel threatened by him. On that night, those feelings all changed. When he got there he was clearly drunk, which I had experienced before and was more annoyed by it than anything. I let him into my bed because that was normal for us, and it was nothing new. What changed were his actions. He became forceful, trying to get me to do sexual things that all of the sudden felt wrong. We had done it all before but something was telling me to stop. He held me down and touched me when I said I didn’t want to be touched. I felt helpless and weak and there was nothing I could do about it. I was so scared as he forcefully held my face to his and gave into his demands to kiss him just so maybe he would stop. He soon passed out with his hand down the front of my pants and as soon as I could tell he was sleeping, I went into another room and stayed there the rest of the night. I never wanted to see him again after that and I shut that night out of my brain. I never told anyone what he did because I felt like it was my fault because I let him do it before. I don’t think he even realized what he did the next morning as I said goodbye for what was the last time that I ever let him in my life.
So now I’m stuck. How do I get over it? Is this really holding me back from starting a relationship with someone or am I using it as an excuse to distance people? Or maybe I just really haven’t found the right person yet and I shouldn’t be worried. My professor, who is quite possibly the most amazing woman on this earth, says that before we help others, we need to help ourselves. Perhaps some therapy is in my future to sort a few of my rough patches out?
. Then I got some one-on-one time with my mom when we went to see a dance performance. It was a great way to spend my Saturday. Sometimes all I need is so quality time with my family to bring me back down to earth.
