Thank you, tt (((((((((((((tt)))))))))))))))))
Thanks, Phoenix. I think it's just hit me that I've just swapped all my 'must get it right' vibes from my mum to my therapist. I am so desperate for her to think well of me, to be 'getting it right', pleasing her, doing well, being, of course, perfect. You know when it hits you like a train? I've picked someone much healthier to aspire to be like (and be liked by) but the same lack of self, the same lack of comfort with being okay, imperfect, 'a bit screwed up but it's okay because I didn't kill anyone' is still missing and I didn't even realise. I just feel so exhausted now. I'm still crying, although I did get to spend the day in bed as my son's at holiday club so I didn't have to get up and do anything. I suddenly feel like I can see all my different personalities/egos/characters whatever you want to call them laid out through my life, like those little russian dolls that fit inside each other? A quiet, shy, bookish child, a not taking life too seriously teenager (the fog starts in my teens), the heavy drinking, drug taking party girl who didn't give a s**t about anything other than having a good time, the born again student at university, the soon to be married lady, the career girl, the new mum, the mum with mental health problems, the carer of a disabled child, and then the therapy ego, striving to be perfect, get rid of all my nonsense and become some sort of sterile, impossibly perfect robotic woman that never gets it wrong and looks down on people who don't drink carrot juice at breakfast. And suddenly inside all of that there's this sort of mass, this collection of molecules and atoms that used to be a little girl but is just mush and has no form or substance, there are no edges or boundaries, it's all just fluid and so broken I don't know if I can reconnect the pieces. And at the minute I don't even know if I want to. My mum's been batty her whole life and it hasn't done her any harm - she doesn't know she's batty and she doesn't care that people don't like her because she thinks they're all scum anyway! She exists in her litte fantasy world where there are no problems, everything works, everything fits and at the minute I can see the appeal of that!!
You are so, so right about needing to make mistakes - needing to take a chance, get it wrong, apologise if necessary, pick it up and move on. I've never done this, never been able to do this - I've never let myself do this. Am too tired to do it today! But tomorrow.........I expect I'll feel better tomorrow.
I hope you are feeling less overwhelmed today, or that you start to very soon. Thank you ((((((((Phoenix))))))))))))))))