I recently finished seven, 12-hour days of school in a row. I am in school to get my master's in counseling psychology and hopefully get my MFT license. The school that I chose is not your run of the mill school, but used to be named the Institute for Transformative Learning, or something like that. Long story short, it is a hippy dippy new wave institution in which I have grown and learned a TON and I fucking love it, but it is really hard. Like, really hard. Not like, damn, it's tough to be in school such long hours because listening to a lecture is tough, but more like, damn, I am doing so much work on myself and I am emotionally, physically, and spiritually exhausted and I feel like my eyeballs are going to pop out because I have been crying so much.
It's a lot like therapy, but it's education.
This past week I learned a lot about myself as I was pushed by a difficult person in my cohort. A common theme came up in my life that I guess I had always known was there, but I wasn't working with or processing in any healthy way. That theme is that good things in my life get cut short and then I shut down.
Seriously. Think about that for a hot second.
I am sure it happened before KC died, and it stands to reason that this is just a natural rhythm of life. Good things happen, bad things happen, wash, rinse, repeat. But the shut down part, that is a problem. It's a problem because it keeps me from having experiences and I am afraid I am missing valuable time in my life. Maybe this is why I am not able to successfully date someone. Maybe this is why I have only gone for unavailable men since I tried to start dating. Maybe this is why when things start going well for me, I get ill.
What I know is that I am wasting time and I don't have much of it, so I want to make it worth something. I don't want fear to rule my life. I don't want to be the Debbie Downer-let's-live-like-everything-is-shit-because-eventually-we'll-all-be-dead character who I see myself becoming. I need to be able to trust people. I need to be able to trust the world around me. I need to believe that love is still an available option for me. And the most salient point? I need help. I am not healthy in the mind body soul kind of way that I want to be. So I am looking for a good therapist. Know someone? Let me know. I want to disrupt this theme in my life and be able to be a well-adjusted person who believes in the goodness that I do know is there. I just need to be able to tap into that and find a way to become willing to risk pain for love again.
I just wonder if that is possible.
