My experience with therapy

I started therapy on 5th April 2021 - exactly one week after my last relationship ended.

I think if I’m being honest, I probably should have started therapy a long time ago. I’ve lived with a lot of trauma for a lot of my life and I’ve always felt like I just wanted someone to speak to; someone to offer advice, someone to listen, someone to understand. I’ve always been quite a relationship type of person and so I think subconsciously I’ve always relied on my partner to be that supportive system for me, which I guess when I start to think about it properly is wrong of me. I can’t rely on someone else to sort out the stuff going on in my head. That’s unfair. 

I’ve tried lots of different types of medication in the past to help ease some of the pain from the situations I’ve dealt with, but none of them have ever really worked. They’ve just either made me feel like a zombie or completely changed me as a person (and not in a good way). Therapy was kind of a last resort - in the past I’ve found that I’ve just wanted a quick fix and something to help me then and there. Whereas I’ve always known that therapy was going to be a process - it won’t happen overnight, I won’t suddenly be cured. That has always scared me because although with medication it doesn’t happen instantly either, you feel the effects of it a lot sooner, but this time around I think I’ve wanted to invest in my mental health so that I can be a better person for myself and for others. I feel proud about that.

If I’m honest, therapy at first for me was a last ditch attempt at trying to win back my ex boyfriend. I think I somehow thought if I could show him that I’m working on myself, things might be different for us. He might see how much I’m trying to work on this and myself and give us another chance. Now, however, therapy is all about my self growth. I’m so glad to now be doing it for no other reason than to better myself. 

I often find it sad that I feel like I have needed therapy to make myself better. I’ve never seen myself as being a bad person, but recently it’s something I’ve really struggled with. A lot of people have left my life for reasons beyond my control, and I’ve recently found some way of feeling like that was because of me. I battle constantly between ‘if I was as good a person as I thought I was, then these people would not have left me’ and ‘their actions are not a reflection of me as a person, if they could leave then they don’t deserve to be in my life’. It’s a difficult one to balance and I float between the two daily. 

The main reason I wanted to start therapy this time around was to try and battle with the trust issues that I live with. I think what can often be hard to get my head around is that these trust issues are only there as a result of the actions of those who have betrayed me in one way or another, be it where I’ve been cheated on or when my father left me. I try to tell myself that they are just an extension of me but they do not define me. I understand how that is a lot for another person to deal with though, I never realised how bad they were until my last relationship. I guess my first boyfriend got the best of me because until that point I had never known betrayal or heartache and so when he cheated on me, that’s when the trust issues started. I eventually picked myself up from that and tried to open my heart up again - this boyfriend got a Chloe who was a little wounded but hopeful, and having opened up to him about my trust issues from that relationship - I didn’t think my heart could be hurt that much ever again. Then he cheated on me with my best friend. So it’s safe to say that after that, I pretty much vowed never to open my heart up to anyone again. I didn’t want to make myself vulnerable, I didn’t want to let in love, I didn’t want to put myself in a position where I could feel that pain again. I knew that if I found anyone ever again, they would get a version of me that I didn’t exactly want to be like. I’ve always been such a sucker for a love like in the movies - and as cliche as it sounds, maybe that’s why I have high expectations for people to meet. I want a love like how I love. I want to give into love and be fully present, no worries or quarms. So to know that I might not be able to offer someone that kind of love because I have my own issues holding me back really hurts me and goes against everything I’ve always dreamed of. 

And then I met Jack. I hope he won’t mind me talking about him, but writing about how I feel is just so therapeutic for me. It’s my own way of therapizing and assessing myself I guess. I remember there were some pictures of Jack that I’d seen online that I never really thought much of - probably because I was in a relationship at the time and when I’m in a relationship, I am all eyes on my person. So he never really stood out to me. But I knew as soon as I met Jack in person for the first time that I was going to fall in love with him and I was desperately trying not to. The first night we met, I was probably at my prime. I was really happy with my life - I had my flat, I had great friends, I was drinking wine by myself and he probably met me when I was most authentically Chloe. I’m glad he saw me like that and fell in love with me too because that’s who I am before my trust issues come into play and start making me doubt everything. It makes me feel better knowing he fell in love with who I really am. I was terrified of falling in love with Jack, and I tried several times to stop myself. Inevitably though, I couldn’t help but fall and once I fell, I mean… yeah, I really fell. As I do with most people when I get into a relationship with them. But I knew then and I still know now that Jack was different and he made me experience a love I never ever thought I would be lucky enough to experience and for that I am so grateful.

Our relationship was (in my eyes anyway) perfect. I’m not just saying that because I’m hurt and doing that thing where you miss all the red flags because you’re so oblivious to them. I’ve done that many times before, but no, I’ve tried picking apart this relationship since we split, I’ve even tried to hate him - but I can’t seem to. He was honestly everything I could have hoped for and so much more. He was my best friend and I will forever miss dancing with him in the kitchen, walking the ferrets in the park, eating his homemade katsu curry whilst snuggling up to either The Walking Dead or Parks and Rec and generally sharing my world with his. I will always look back on this relationship fondly and I will always feel grateful to have experienced a love like it. We decided to move in together just before the pandemic hit and we even moved in with my Mum for a bit during that time too whilst we were moving into our first home together. Covid hit like a tonne of bricks and affected most relationships in one way or another I think. Each lockdown got harder and eventually it broke us. I remember I used to say to Jack that if we could get through this together, we could get through anything. I thought we had made it because we got so far, but not far enough. It hurts my heart to know that ultimately that relationship ended because of me and my trust issues and I think I’ll never properly forgive myself for that. But that’s something I have to live with and now I’m addressing it to avoid it happening again in the future. I know Jack will make some girl so happy one day, just as he made me. I genuinely believed that Jack was my soulmate (or my twin flame if you’re into spirituality) and in many ways I hope it was just a case of the right person at the wrong time. I won’t hold out on hope but maybe our paths will cross again in some way. Either way, hopefully I’ll find that same happiness again.

I’ve always known that I come with a bit of baggage. I’ve tried to laugh it off at times and say it’s a 2 for 1 deal, but I think that’s just how I deal with having to live with trauma - I just laugh it off until it gets really bad. I opened up to Jack a lot about how badly my past relationships have affected me and I felt like that was the first time someone really understood the pain I live with and finally saw me. I knew he understood, I felt like he was angry on my behalf and I never for a second thought he saw that as a reflection of me but rather a reflection of those who have made me feel this way. I guess that’s probably why it stings all the more that he felt he had to leave. 

I don’t feel any blame or hatred towards Jack - I don’t think I could even if I tried. I feel grateful more than anything that he stuck with me as long as he did, especially during such a tough time in the world - I genuinely could not have got through any of that without his support. We had each other's backs when the world flipped upside down as we knew it. I always used to say to him that I was grateful that he would put up with me and he always used to say “it’s not putting up with you” and it always made me feel nice, but I think towards the end of our relationship, he was putting up with me and it got the better of him. I understand that. I’ll always look back at our first home together and this time in the world in general and think about him with nothing but love. It worries me that I’ll always think about him with nothing but love, that’s what makes it so hard to move on.

There’s days when I can hardly live with myself knowing that these trust issues cost me the best relationship I’ve ever had. I know how much my trust issues affect me because I have to live with them daily, like an ever growing shadow that hangs over me. What I never realised is how badly my trust issues had an impact on my relationship with Jack. Knowing how badly I have affected him is what makes me feel like I’m an awful person. I don’t know how I can explain that the way I act and behave in relationships is conditioned into me because of the paranoia and trauma I live with from the past. I don’t know how to make that OK. I hate knowing I’ve made someone I love feel so low, and at times that’s unbearably hard to live with.

In the past, after a break up, I’ve been able to walk away from that relationship knowing that they cheated on me and I deserve better. I mean it took me some time to get to that point, sure, but once I realised my self worth again I was glowing a few months later. With this break up, it’s been different because for once I haven’t been cheated on and nothing really *happened* to make that relationship end, except my trust issues getting in the way of our happiness together. I feel like I’ve just tainted our relationship and the way he views me and I worry I’ll live with that feeling forever. Constantly trying to overcompensate and prove that I’m not a bad person, I've just been dealt some pretty rubbish hands. 3 months down the line and I still find it extremely hard to move on. Knowing I have to try and make myself stop loving someone because of my own insecurities. Knowing that relationship ended because of me. 

Therapy is uncomfortable, it makes you look into yourself. It makes you ask yourself questions and think about things you’ve never thought to think about before. It makes you make links to the past or to other situations that have happened in your life and make it make sense. I’ve already changed so much as a person since starting therapy. It’s given me so much clarity and if nothing else, it’s just nice to talk to an outsider. I love being able to reflect on my own thoughts and see things through a different perspective. It’s also made me realise that hindsight is everything. My brain used to find issues with the smallest of things even if I knew deep down it didn’t mean anything - now, I’d give anything to relive that relationship and give it a do over. I’d do it all over again and it would be so different. I wouldn’t worry like I did before and I’d have my therapist to talk to if ever those thoughts crept back in. I wouldn’t let them escalate. It hurts to know I can’t change the past, but at least I can have an impact on my future. I know my relationships in the future will be so different if only I can choose to accept love and believe that I do deserve the love I am shown. It’s hard when everyone I’ve loved has left but I know I'm on the right path and I’m finally looking forward to accepting the love I give to others.