My Therapy Journey So Far

Trigger Warning: This post discusses trauma

Hello all, I know its been a long time since I last wrote, I would honestly like my posts to be more regular but my brain doesn’t seem to work like that so I’ll just continue to post when I can. A lot has been going on these past few months, I got my first pet which I will hopefully write about soon. I’ve been sorting out some family stuff and continuing therapy every week. April 2022 I officially started therapy, specifically psychodynamic counselling which focuses on early childhood and how that impacts my present circumstances with trauma and mental illness. I think its been going well so far, I get along well with my therapist, she validates my experiences and encourages me without pushing me too much which has been a problem I’ve had with mentors and therapists in the past, because on the NHS you have loooong waiting times and when you are finally able to get therapy its usually limited to about 6-12 weeks. Since the organisation I use isn’t with the NHS I don’t have that time limit, it does mean I have to pay but The foundation tailors the price of therapy based on your income so it works out.

It’s good counselling because instead of focusing on my BPD and “fixing” my symptoms we focus on understanding where my fears, high emotions and difficulties stem from; not in a way that I’m treated as a problem that needs to be solved, as people with BPD are often treated, but a way that I understand myself as a person and what I need to do to help myself feel safer and more confident in myself. Before therapy I used to let comments that people made that would hurt me “slide” as in I wouldn’t let the person know I wasn’t okay with how they were talking to me because I was afraid of their reaction (anger, invalidation, straight up gaslighting or any sort of conflict) but now I can tell people when enough is enough sooner (when I’m calm) instead of suppressing my emotions and letting the other person carry on until I cried or got really angry. I may be sensitive but I’ve been learning how to honour that instead of letting myself feel uncomfortable so others can stay comfortable.

We explore my family dynamics and how that has impacted me. I grew up feeling I had to set my emotions and needs aside because others (mainly my sister with special needs) took priority, this meant from before I was even 10 years old I dealt with my emotions alone. I felt no one else would really understand and when I experienced sexual assault at the hands of a family member I didn’t say anything because I wanted to protect the rest of the family from any pain even though I was experiencing horrific emotional pain as a result of trauma at the age of 9. I tolerated the presence of this family member at events and on holidays for the sake of the family. I didn’t understand what actually happened was sexual assault at the time and carried intense shame with me for years. Dealing with these experiences on my own meant I wasn’t taught to fully process my feelings or express them in a healthy way which lead to a forever lingering shame, resentment, emptiness and rage thus leading to conflict in all my relationships, self harm and self isolation.

My father has come up a lot in therapy, I know BPD with daddy issues cliche but my dad was my first abandonment at the age of 6 when he left the family home to be with another woman. Supposedly my dad and I were super close, proper daddy-daughter bond type of thing but I have no memory of it. It’s like my brain decided to cut those memories off to make the abandonment less painful. Before he left he was having an affair (as you might of guessed) with the woman he left for, so months before he left physically he mentally and emotionally checked out of his relationship with, not just my mum, but me and my sister as well so that was an emotional abandonment before the physical one.

My dad obviously had a lot of guilt about the affair but he’s one of those people that can’t handle guilt so he turned it into anger towards me and my sister whereas before he was more patient with us he’d started losing his temper quickly, I remember him yelling down at me with the finger pointing and all but can’t even remember what I did wrong, if anything, for him to do that. This lead to a lot of walking on eggshells and my theory is I developed a heightened sensitivity to my surroundings and other people’s moods so I could anticipate outbursts from people like my dad. However this emotional sensitivity ironically lead to more reactivity and my own outbursts since I couldn’t process my own emotions let alone anyone else’s. This meant my dynamic with my dad was later remodelled in my friendships as friends have told me I would be moody and they would feel like they were walking on eggshells around me because I was so emotionally reactive. Like father like daughter huh?

Speaking of friendships those were… a lot. In psychology they say you remodel what you learn from your family in romantic relationships but I’ve never experienced a romantic relationship and it has never been a priority of mine to have one but my friends were held in a similarly high regard as one might romantic relationships. This meant that my family dynamic was modelled in my friendships. I would put my needs and emotions aside a lot and prioritize friends’ wellbeing and happiness above my own, wanting to take care of them and their problems like I was used to doing at home with my family. However this would lead to a more codependent dynamic with these friends and a lack of personal boundaries. This meant I would get incredibly frustrated with these friends and often feel betrayed, used or underappreciated/valued when my friends didn’t match my energy and do the same for me as I would for them. This lead to conflict and me cutting these friends out of my life, I believe this was also as a result of my abandonment anxiety, whenever I felt someone was abandoning me by not listening to me or prioritizing someone else I would pull away and withdraw myself, even if I hadn’t officially ended the friendship I would reach out to meet up or just talk a lot less to them. Much like what happened with my dad you know?

With each friendship failure and family rejection I felt worse about myself and yes, when I was first diagnosed with BPD I had the attitude of “I need to fix myself because I’m too sensitive, too unstable, too different etc” but over the past year my therapist has helped me understand I had just adapted myself to an unhealthy environment and traumatic experience, as a result I struggled to understand myself and others or cope with life in general. Fighting to survive but not really living and being a grown-up child turned into being a child-like adult. My therapist has helped me realise it is okay to prioritse myself, I deserve to feel safe and happy, my needs and feelings are as important as everyone else’s and I don’t need to prove myself worthy of anything to anyone. Don’t get me wrong I still struggle, there are a lot of things I need to unlearn and relearn but I think I’m getting there and my relationship with myself has improved compared to how it used to be. All thanks to my therapist for giving me the safe place and person I needed as a child.

Thank you so much for reading,

love Gabby x