Mixed blessings, mixed bag

Today was a good day, in the beginning. I got up before 10 am. The sun was out. I went to my therapy appointment. I went for a walk after, bought groceries. Then I was done. I'd accomplished things successfully. Didn't want to push my luck.

But in therapy we didn't get around to the trauma work. I dislike pauses and I tend to talk too much in therapy, especially when I feel nervous, which can even happen with an established therapist. I think it's when I know there is a challenging topic on the agenda. We did talk about other things, and I told her some stories about childhood, which filled in more of my history. We talked about how I've missed some developmental steps, which leave me having trust issues, clingy-dependency issues, and having very real difficulties relating to people and establishing relationships. Often times it seems I completely miss social cues, or know they are there but do not understand them. I'm not sure if I will ever really learn them, but it would be nice to get better than I am. Or else I'll be stuck having a peer group that tops out at nine years old.

Then came the less than good part. I ate ice cream. A lot of ice cream. My bed is littered with clothing (mostly pants) that is too small for me, because of the 15+ pounds I've put on. In fact, I am eating some ice cream again, late at night, near to bedtime, which is not a good time to eat.

Karen and I talked about my depression, which is something she has difficulty seeing or imagining, because I've been "up" when I've seen her. I explained to her that I'm still riding high from going birding with a good friend, and that I am feeling a little better. But also because I don't like to show negative feelings, even to therapists. I think I've cried maybe a handful of times in front of therapists, in all these many years (decades). My first therapist commented on how I really didn't fit the profile of a depressed person, because I can still get excited about things and occasionally do things.

I'm just being me, the one who doesn't fit any mold.

I have difficulties with vulnerability. I've been trashed so thoroughly by people I've been vulnerable to, since a very early age. And yet, without vulnerability, there can be no deep connection to others, and that's the kind of connections I want. If I appear to need nothing, then people aren't going to feel that I need their friendship. Or, perhaps, that I will have any to offer them.

I became so good at protecting myself and masking my vulnerability that I built an entire world inside myself, with a many-layered fortified castle. With creatures. I could describe it to you, but I won't. I may need it again.

Because being vulnerable is difficult and frightening. I'll need some place to feel safe, when the vulnerability gets me into painful places. Because it always does.