Therapy?

 I have been going to some kind of therapy since my early 20's.  I am a professional at going but not at getting it all to stick sometimes.

I have been to counseling for anger, anxiety, and depression.  Marriage counseling, family counseling, and grief counseling. Spiritual-based, cognitive-based, and mindfulness-based therapy. Holy moly guacamole.

Maybe I am a little obsessed? Maybe I really am/was a tad bananas? Maybe I just want to find ways to be a better, happier human?  

I like to think that it is the last one of the three.

I fervently believe that therapy is a good thing and it has been of benefit to me in so many times of my life.  What I have come to learn, however, is that therapy is not only something that one needs to seek out when life is in the proverbial toilet.  Like coloring my greys, getting check-ups or mammograms, talking to a skilled professional about my mental and emotional well-being is a type of personal maintenance equally as important as my physical wellness.  And really, sometimes, it is more important.

In the 70's and 80's mental health was not a dinner table topic, unless you lived in my house I guess.  And even there, we did not have meaningful conversations about it.  We did not know how.  It was taboo. It was something that was not widely discussed, shared with others, or seen as a normal thing to get "fixed." It was something broken that we had to deal with- and did not do that gracefully.

In my teens, my dad had what was diagnosed back then as a nervous break, or a breakdown.  I now know that this is not what was going on and not just because his diagnosis was changed so many times over the years. There were medical underpinnings accompanying mental health that were compounded over time that led to everything- but that is another story.

Something inexplicably changed in my father and no matter how much he tried, or the types of medications and in-patient therapies, or how often he was told to "just shake it off" things never went back to "normal dad."  He was never the same. EVER.

At the time, neither my mother nor I were invited to be a part of the equation in trying to understand what was going on with dad or to figure out proper coping skills ourselves.  That wasn't really a thing.  Instead, it was kept quiet along with all of the fears, anger, and sadness that accompanied this life altering non-diagnosis.

There was an element of shame because nobody I knew talked about anything like this.  We did not discuss it in school and on tv, if you had any mental health issues you were a crazy person or an axe murderer.  I knew that I must be the only person with this happening in their home for real.  I knew that this was something that I could not readily share.  It was embarrassing, I was even told so.  

Only two of my friends knew what life was like at home, because only two were permitted to come to my house when dad was "not away."  I don't know if I ever really shared with them the extent of what was up, but I am sure they knew. Eventually, I would try to bring people in.  Some would not understand and my home life even ended one romantic relationship.  He was not having any part.

There were times when I blamed my dad for what he was going through.  Times that I blamed my mom.  I even scoured my father's military medical records as I looked to find blame there.  I even blamed myself.  But yet, we never talked about it, the true impact of what was happening, to anyone.

I cut off ties with my closest friends, who knew me before dad got sick.  The ones who tried to keep in touch, I ended up unconsciously alienating them through my behavior and words.  I could not risk them learning that life was not perfect.  That things had fallen apart.  That I was a mess. I mean, even my English teacher, sophomore year, was clear that my failings had nothing to do with my home when I confided in her.  Those were not her exact words (You can't let what is going on at home impact your academics) but that was how I took it. If home was impacting me, maybe it was all my fault.  Maybe I deserved it. And what if my friends finally saw these truths? I was not going to let that happen. I made sure of it.

I began to live my life very differently than I had before.  I mourned for my dad, yet he was still alive, simply transformed.  Yet I had not tools in my toolbelt to cope, to love, to connect in a genuine way that was the real me. And I even admit, there were times that I hid from him, my dad.  Without any skills myself, I could not engage regularly and at one point in my life, I did not at all.  And then the guilt piled on.  I was a horrible daughter, and there were people who were more than happy to let me know this was true.  And I believed them, because I already knew it to be true.

But I was trying to survive.  No excuse just facts.  You see the life I began to live, while encompassing some beautiful and successful moments, was mostly a facade.  I was still hiding so many truths from myself and from others.  It was how you do it, right?

Not happy? Pretend things are rosy to others.  Something happen that is unacceptable?  Explain it away. Rationalize. Blame yourself.  Hide reality and your feelings that accompany it.  

Unfortunately, with that comes poor coping skills that just makes it worse. A different way to hide.

I could only manage so many hidden truths and the complete brokenness I felt in relation to my father got shoved into the deepest recesses of my being.  I could not comprehend how I, the person he spent the most time with other than his coworkers or mom, was unable to bring my daddy back and then get him the help to rescue him once his dementia began tugging at the edges and eventually grasped the last light from him.

It was shitty.  All of it. everything that came before that I had chosen to ignore or blame, and everything that came after that I chose to deny and blame.  Most of what I chose to do and not to do.  I just did not have the competencies. And those I did have, they were lost, frozen, unusable.

We are not born with the innate ability to cope with the shitty.  Period.

I do not care about the "Oh, buck up" or the "Just get over it" -ness in our society.  Because some of us, we just did not learn the skills to be able to do that.  And others, if they learned them, for some reason they forgot.  It is not their fault.  And, Period again.

So, for me, I took steps.  I slowly began to take steps to right the things in my life that did not feel right. It is not easy.  It is not fast. And I am far from crazy.  I just didn't know.  But I learned....and I continue to learn.

With each layer that becomes seemingly "fixed" along comes another layer to laugh at the world.

I am finally at a point in my life where I am ok that I regularly tune in and tune up my mental well-being.  I am an ardent advocate for mental health awareness and getting support.  I see the value in it and I know that one's mental health is like one's physical health.  We all have it.  We all need to take care of it.

I no longer blame myself, mostly, for things in my past. I still try to make sense of it, but I don't dwell there.

I am ravenous for information and a more balanced skillset as I am entering the last decades of my life.  Not because I am worried about my date with death and how I might be judged, but for the person I am, that I want to be, and the people that I love. And I know what happiness and love for self and others really means.

I am no longer afraid of what other people will think about the life I lived with my dad.  He was an absolutely amazing man, before and after.  And I am truly thankful for all that he has taught me, both before and after. And most of all, I. know how lucky I am that he waited for me.  He waited for me to come back into his life as I grew into my own.  He waited and loved me unconditionally and we enjoyed the last years of his life, together.  And in my heart I know that he even waited, in the final hours of his life, to make sure that once he was gone, that I would be ok.

And he was right.  I am.  Thank you, Daddy!

PS. Daddy passed away peacefully a few hours after my hubs came to dad's Hospice room with me.  I told him all about the wonderful man I would spend the rest of my life with and assured him that he would take care of the kids and I and I would care for him.  I told him it was ok for him to go home now because I was going to make it now.

My Hero