Archive of Our Own ^beta

They say the world doesn’t go out with a bang but with a whimper. That’s true; at least it was for me. Not that my world had ended, it only felt like it had. And to be honest, I hadn’t even noticed it starting on its downward track; I only suddenly found myself in a very dark place and without a map to guide me out.

My name is Jensen Ackles, I’m 31 one years old, and I have depression.

I sit in the waiting room looking around at the people occupying the other chairs. There’s a lady sitting across from me reading a glossy magazine and tapping her feet slightly to a beat only she can hear. She’s average looking, if there was ever such an expression. She wouldn’t stand out in a crowd; she’s just a normal, everyday soccer mom on her way to whatever she has on her schedule. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s mentally going over her shopping list for dinner right this minute.

Next to her is a young lady in her early 20s, with dark shoulder-length hair put up in a casual pony tail. She has a model’s face and a perfect body; she’s one of those I would be afraid of talking to because she’s too perfect.

There’s a frosted glass door next to the reception area, and the few times it has been opened I have been able to spot a long corridor with doors on both sides. I’ve already sat here a while, and quite a few people have been called in already. I assume there are about 20 therapists here, and I wonder if the man just walking out has been with the same therapist I will be seeing.

The man is in his early 40s, about my height, broad shoulders, well built, a little thin in the hair department, but he keeps it short, and it’s starting to be more grey than brown. Not bad looking, not extremely good-looking either, but definitely one of those who will age with dignity.

And here I thought I was too good-looking to belong. Not that I have any illusions that someone who looks like me can’t be depressed. Not that I am stunningly good-looking or anything. But I do know that I have been lucky in the looks department. That is, as long as I actually bother to cut my hair, shave and dress okay.

I don’t find myself hideous; that’s not one of my problems. No, my problem is that I have nothing besides looks, and looks don’t count.

But it’s not really what I’m talking about. I’m talking about what’s shown in your face and your attitude. I thought the waiting room would be filled with people looking sad and sorry, who’d probably gone without showering for at least two weeks. And yet what I see are people looking like everyone else. I can’t spot anything on them.

Truthfully, I have gone days, if not weeks without really paying attention to my looks, but not when I have to go out of the house. So I will never show up here without at least having showered first.

But listen to me, assuming they are all depressed. I don’t know if they’re depressed. Not everyone going to therapy is depressed. Some might have, I don’t know… Some might have post traumatic stress syndrome, maybe. Some might have anxiety and phobias. I really don’t know what kind of problems people are taking to a therapist; I am new to this. I’m kind of lost here. But at least I thought they would all look a little bit more stressed in a way.

And that was one of my problems coming in here; I thought I might be too well dressed, too clean shaven. What if the therapist looks at me and says, “Sorry, you take too good care of yourself to have depression, so I cannot help you. You are just a fake.”

I almost contemplated not dressing up in nice clothes, to try to at least make myself look sad. Luckily my better judgment won and I actually dressed up like a normal human being.

What’s really going on in my head is: What will the therapist say? I mean, how will he start? Will he ask me why I’m here?

What should I say? That I’m here because I am depressed? Can I say that without being diagnosed? Isn’t that his job to find out and not mine to tell?

Can you be depressed without having depression? Isn’t there a difference between depression and depressive reaction? Is there depression and clinical depression? I’ve heard all those terms, and they confuse me.

I’m starting to think all that reading online has confused me more than it’s helped.

The doctor told me I should be aware that in psychiatry, you often don’t get a diagnosis, though. What then?

What am I supposed to say if anyone asks me why I’m in therapy? It’s not like any huge traumatic event has happened to me that makes me need therapy, so why would I need it now?

Should I say, “Hi, I have depression,” or “I’m being treated for symptoms of depression,” or “I’m in therapy because I’ve been feeling so unstable lately”?

Or maybe I should say, “I was in therapy for a short time, but he kicked me out because there was nothing wrong with me. I was just faking and apparently I am a whiney son of a bitch that just can’t deal with ordinary stuff like most other people can without a problem.”

Damn, it will be good hearing what he says. Just getting to know if I have something here, or if I’m just totally lost in my own self-pity.

It’ll be good just getting started, because this waiting, this vacuum I am living in, is killing me. It’s making me nervous, and I can’t deal with it anymore. I want to fight, but to do that, I need to know what I am fighting against.

I don’t like who I am anymore, I don’t want to be who I am, and I need help to change.

“Jensen Ackles?”

I didn’t even hear the door being opened and jump at the sound of my name.

“Yes.” I smile, or I at least think it’s a smile. It might just be a grimace. I try not to look at him as I follow him into his office – the fourth door on the right down the corridor.

I almost expect a couch to lie down on, but there isn’t one. The office is painted in sterile white and has a large corner desk at the far end of the room below the windows, which face the opposite building. The desk is covered with papers in a not too tidy order and a rather small monitor that’s hooked up to the computer standing on the floor below the desk.

Just inside the door is a small round table surrounded by two chairs. He motions for me to sit on the one closest to the door, beneath the clock, and he sits down in the other. There are two glasses, a pitcher of water and a box of Kleenex on the table. He offers me a glass of water and I gratefully accept. It gives me something to do with my hands.

“Hello, my name is Misha Collins. I’m a psychologist and I’m the one who’s going to try and help you,” he starts. “I have the letter from your doctor that referred you to me, but I’d like to hear from you why you are here.”

He’s looking straight at me and I feel like I want to crumble under his gaze. He doesn’t look intimidating and he doesn’t look like he’s out to get me. But he does look like he’s looking straight into me, searching for signs, trying to figure me out.

I guess that is sort of what he’s doing.

“Um, I….” Oh, aren’t I getting off to a flying start? “I have mood swings,” I say.

And it’s true; I do, all the time. My friends, the few I have confided in, are telling me that it’s perfectly normal, everyone does. I think mine have gotten out of control, though. They are in charge of my life now, instead of the other way around.

I have this constant urge to flee, to hide from responsibility and the constant pressures of my life.

Sometimes I think that if I could just get a break for a while, if I could only fly to Hawaii and stay there for six months and rest, then everything would be okay. Other times I know that this doesn’t come from external stress, that this comes from within, and that it wouldn’t go away even if I ran. My life would still be the same when I got home, wouldn’t it? The same pressure, the same failures waiting for me. Or rather; there would still be nothing waiting for me. My life would still be spent in the eternal waiting room where nothing happens. Where nothing is ever going to happen, and all I can do is wait for it to be over.

I simply exist.

All of these thoughts run through my head in a fraction of a second as I continue telling him that the mood swings are worse than they have ever been before. That I either seem to be “low” or “high” and never in between. I tell him that my highs are usually cut short by a rapid fall into a sudden low. Into the abyss where I feel like I am swallowed whole and where everything is dark.

He asks me to describe the darkness, what I am feeling when I am down there, and I hear myself tell him that’s when I don’t want to live.

This is the part I have really been nervous about telling him.

How do I say something like that with a straight face? How do I tell another person that I have periods where I simply don’t want to live, but at the same time I want to make sure they understand that I’m not suicidal?

I don’t want to try to pretend to feel as bad as those who actually see no other way than to end their life. Yet I do want to show him how bad I really feel at my worst.

So I do tell him. I tell him that on those days my only thought is that I don’t want to live. On those days all I can do is lie in my bed and cry because all is black. All is cold and I see no way out. On those days I feel sadness so grave that it grabs my heart with an iron fist, and the coldness from it spreads out in my blood and bones, and there is nothing left of me.

To my relief there are no red lights going off anywhere. No dismissal of my feelings and no shocking gasps. He just takes the information as it is and looks at me and says, “And when you don’t want to live, have you ever contemplated how you are going to end your life?”

I take my time thinking about it, knowing that this is an important answer. I know it’s vital to be truthful.

I know I have occasionally been thinking about the medications I keep in my house. I have a selection of Advil, Tylenol and Tylenol with Codeine, and I have been wondering if they could do it. But I never, ever, in that moment, contemplated doing it or thought that is how I will do it. So no, I haven’t done that, and I feel I am being honest when I tell him, “No.”

“And do you think you ever will do that?”


Honestly, no I don’t think so. “No.”


“Why not?” Why won’t I commit suicide?

I didn’t see this question coming. Why not? I chew on it
.
I couldn’t be a coward, is that it? I don’t think so. When I’m feeling like this, I don’t know how cowardly it is. I can’t really blame those who have done it because I kind of understand them. But I realize I couldn’t do that to those around me.

It’s not that they can’t live perfectly well without me; I’m sure they can. It’s not like I am that important to them anyway. I mean, I am—sort of—but they’ll do okay. But there are always questions, no matter how it’s done, when it’s not a natural death. Why did he do it? Didn’t we do enough to help him? How could we have overlooked these signs? Did he try to warn us?

Even if you leave a letter, there will always be questions. I’ve seen it myself. I saw it when Dad’s cousin committed suicide; I saw it after my brother’s friend’s girlfriend did it.

There were always questions as to why. There was so much guilt all over the place. There was so much responsibility left in those left behind. If I kill myself, I will eventually be an even bigger burden to my family than I am today, and I cannot do that.

“I can’t,” I say, and I wonder how to phrase it better. “It’s like….I lie there, in my bed, and I just cry, and I don’t want to live. But I don’t think about killing myself. But I… And I know this sounds incredibly selfish, and I almost don’t want to say it, but I am actually sad that I don’t have cancer or something else, because then I could just give up.”

My first meeting with these thoughts was especially bad. It happened ten years ago, the first time I was ever put on anti-depressants.

I had no will to live, even though I didn’t think about ending it.

I just didn’t see what the point of living was. Every day a part of me hoped there would be some sort of traffic accident, and that would be it.

I remember receiving the news that a friend of a friend was seriously ill. She was going in for her third operation for a brain tumor and they knew that if it wasn’t successful she would die. There was nothing more to do. She had been sick for years already and the cancer was progressive.

And there I was, cognitively aware that this was terrible news.

I knew it was awful, but I couldn’t in my heart understand what was so bad about it. And all the while I was thinking it, I knew how wrong it was. I knew how terrible I was for thinking like that, yet I couldn’t help it.

I understood that those left behind, if she didn’t make it, would mourn. But the thing was, I couldn’t see what the sad part for her was, other than the obvious pain of having cancer. But the pain only contributed to the thoughts that it would be better for her just to give up and let go.

Those thoughts were scary.

In the middle of it all, in the darkness that was my life, it was scary that the thoughts I knew were wrong felt so right. It’s this fear that keeps me alive. That fear is my guide. There was absolutely no connection between what my brain told me and what I felt, and I was scared that one day my brain would stop trying to correct my feelings.

Fortunately for me, by the time this young girl died about a year later, I didn’t think those thoughts anymore. I would never have been able to live with myself if I knew I hadn’t had enough compassion to feel saddened by the news of her death.

The problem is that I am back again, back to the place where I just want to give up; where I don’t see any point in living and where I think the few better years might have been my naïve hopes of a future that will never emerge.

“Give up?” The therapist, Misha, asks me to explain.


“Yes. Then I could be allowed to die.”

I have a feeling that this time, the climb out will be much steeper.

“Allowed?” He asks me to clarify.

“Yes. It wouldn’t be my fault then. It wouldn’t be something I did, but just something that happened to me. I could be let out of this life, and there would be no one to blame.”

Sleep, I think. I could just sleep. I am so tired! I am tired of living, and I am only 31. I’m not sure I can take another 50 years.

“And who decides now?”


“What do you mean?”


“Who is it that doesn’t allow you to die now?” He stresses the word who.

Again I have to think. I have to really dig into my own thoughts because this is something I have never reflected about. Who is it that doesn’t allow me to die?

I am rather relieved when I realize that in the end, it is me that doesn’t allow myself to die. I’m the one who draws that line and makes sure I don’t cross it.

“I don’t,” I say. “It’s me.”


“That’s good,” is his only answer.

 
Our time is up for now and he lets me walk out with a feeling of relief—something that I never thought would happen after only one session. I honestly expected to walk home somewhat dissatisfied. Instead I feel we have already done a great deal of work.

He also provided me with a lot of forms to fill out: five forms in total. Two hundred and fifty questions to be answered as truthfully as possible.

I never thought I would be this honest either, even though I had decided before I started that I would be completely frank. I had to give this a 100% chance even though it would be tough.

I knew that this, this talking to a professional, was my best way of possibly getting rid of my confusions once and for all. So I decided, above everything else, that I had to be totally honest with the psychologist. Because if he was going to help me the best he could, then he needed to know as accurately as possible exactly what we was dealing with.

And where I thought I wouldn’t be able to find the words, he goes straight to the core with his questions. I’m starting to understand why he holds the profession he does. I believe in him, I am already starting to trust him, and I feel more hope than I ever have before.

Even if my soul is ripped wide open, I feel like a burden has been lifted from my shoulders. I told him about my darkest hours and he helped me realize that even when everything feels at its worst, I am still in control.

 
I feel ten pounds lighter when I walk home. It’s a good hour’s walk and I enjoy the sunshine. Autumn has given way to winter, but the snow has yet to come, so bright light from the sun is a welcome break from the grey overcast days that have been dominating the weather map for the last few weeks. It suits my mood.

The weather is perfect for a stroll, and I enjoy the feeling of freedom.

It’s amazing how much the feeling of being accepted—yes that’s it, that was what it was. I felt he accepted me—it’s amazing how much that has done for my mood. I felt he believed me. He didn’t brush me off, but accepted my feelings for what they are, and that feels good. It’s amazing how much that can do to my spirit. I feel I can fly now, that my feet aren’t really touching the ground.

For a brief moment I think that I’m on a high now, and now that someone believes me, this is how I’m going to stay, so in the end I will be marked as a fake anyway. It’s just a stray thought though, because one, I know I never stay like this for more than two days anyway, and two, if I did, that would actually be great news.

I even laugh when I see the tall guy being wrapped up in his dog’s leashes. One dog has walked around him one way and the other the other way, and he is completely trapped in the chaos of dogs and leashes. He looks at me as I pass and fixes his eyes on mine and says, “Dogs,” while shaking his head. I can see he loves them though, by how he’s patting their heads and smiling.

I stop by the store to do some grocery shopping before I go home. My fridge has been dangerously empty for quite a while and today I feel like making soup from scratch.

I’m no chef, but I do enjoy the feeling of making real food now and then. It makes me feel better about myself. I can enjoy my own company, breathe in the smell of the food while it cooks and often sip a glass of white wine while I carefully prepare my meal. The food tastes much better when I have prepared it with love.

Sometimes I put music on, other times I watch TV, but I always value these moments. These are the times I feel good about myself, where I have all the answers to how I will make my life good again. These are the times I decide that I will invite all my friends (including those I haven’t seen in years, but who will probably come into my life again if I try to get in touch) over for dinner and start entertaining guests again.

I have no other words for it than that I am happy in these moments.

I feel energetic and optimistic and think that I can do anything I want. I’m Superman! Today is going to be a good day. I even think I’ll call Chris and tell him about it.

Two days later I wake up to complete chaos. I turn over and sleep another hour; I am not ready to face the day. I try to ignore the gnawing hunger in my stomach and think that if I only fall asleep again I won’t even notice it.

My boost from the therapy session didn’t last.

It was a good boost though. It gave me a fuel of optimism that led me to attack the kitchen as only I can do. It was during making the soup (which tasted delicious, I might add) that it occured to me that cleaning the kitchen cabinets was long overdue. There was food in there that I had brought with me when I moved in here three years ago.

The very next day I rolled up my sleeves and started the job. First thing I did was clean out the pantry. I filled up close to half a garbage bag of expired food and cringed with the thought of how much money I’d wasted on food not eaten.

I was ashamed.

The next thing on my list was the above counter cabinets that are filled to the brim with unmatching plates and cups, all hand-me-downs from people with better judgment than I have. I should have known there was a reason they got rid of them; they are all ugly.

And while I was at it, I could just as well clean the cabinets.

That is where my plan failed.

In known Jensen style, I only got halfway through before my battery ran out.

One minute I was feeling great, the next there was no energy left, and I just couldn’t finish the job. I was left with a house that looked like chaos. There were cups, plates and utensils everywhere, and in the middle of it all was me, fighting with the overpowering feeling of defeat.

So I did the only thing I knew to do: I went to bed.

Three hours later I woke up to stumble into the bathroom to swallow some migraine medication, and the very next day, I stayed in bed.

“Welcome back, Jensen. It’s been a week.”

Seven days and I am just as lost about where to start. I don’t know where to go from here. Last week was good, last week helped me, but how will I come up with anything to say today? My brain is completely empty. I’m worried that last week’s session must have been some sort of fluke and today is when everything is going to crumble down.

“How has your week been?”

How has it been? It’s been ups and downs. Which one should I pick?

“It’s been normal, I guess,” I start. “Had a few good days when I left here, and then I had a down period. Yesterday was especially bad.”

“Hm,“ Misha says and looks at me. He taps his pen against his lower lip, but doesn’t write anything on his pad. I was surprised last time how little he wrote down. I thought he would make notes all the time. “What happened?”

“Come on Chris, pick up, pick up….” I think as I call him for the second time. I tried calling him earlier today as well, but it’s not that unusual that he misses the phone if he’s rehearsing. He usually calls back though, when he sees he’s a missed call. But it’s been two hours now and no call back yet. Surely he’s had a break by now.

I’ve wanted to tell Chris about the first session at the therapist’s. I was so happy and I just wanted to share it with someone.

“Not much,” I decide to tell Misha. “I just called a friend of mine on Friday and he didn’t pick up. Which is okay, because face it, people can be too busy,” I hurriedly add so he won’t think I expect everyone to be at my beck and call. “And then I called again on Saturday. He picked up that time but he didn’t have time to talk to me, which again is okay, because he is busy now. He has a band with his friend Steve. They’re doing okay at the moment, so they have a lot of gigs, and in between he is trying to get his degree in physical therapy, so he has enough on his plate. But the thing is, he promised to call me back and he never did. And it’s starting to feel a bit, I don’t know. Sad, I guess? Which I know is stupid. It’s just me being silly, really.”

“Maybe he forgot?” I think as the clock works its way towards 7:00PM. I know they’ll be ready to go on shortly after that and he promised to call long before the gig started. “Maybe he just hasn’t had time?” I think again as the clock passes seven, and I know he won’t be calling tonight.

“Should I have called him?” I wonder before answering my own question with a no. If he could, he would have, I’m sure. It’s just that I’m so sick of always being the one that has to call.

It’s not like that all the time, but for a while now he hasn’t called one single time. He’s always happy when I do, but I’m the one who always has to take the initiative. If I don’t call him, we can go weeks without talking.

Often we do. And I understand. He has plenty of friends to call and talk to, and many friends that constantly keep in touch with him, so it’s not like he’s desperate for some contact.

So why call me?

I get that, but it hurts anyway. I wish…. Fuck, even just thinking it feels embarrassing, but it really feels like I get picked last, and I hate that. I hate being the kid always left behind. The one no one ever wants.

I remember it all too well how I was never included, so I get that. I know I’m that kid. But I just… I don’t have to like it, that’s all.

Sometimes I just want to let myself wallow in self-pity for a while, because even though I put on a brave face and say, “Hey, that’s just how it is,” I really hate it! But as soon as those feelings pop up, I feel bad about that as well, because good people don’t feel sorry for themselves. Strong people pick themselves up and go on. They don’t give up.

It’s so hard though, to actually feel that I’m okay with it, to accept reality and go from there.

And that’s really not Chris’ fault, so I can’t blame him. He’s the one who’s actually been there for me all these years. He is my friend, so I can’t actually start blaming him. Doubting him and feeling disappointed when he doesn’t call back feels a little bit like spitting on the one good guy, so I can’t do that. I can’t allow myself to feel those things.

But right now it does hurt me, and I can’t say anything because I don’t want to come off as whiney. And I won’t call him when he’s told me that he will call me back because I don’t want to look desperate. How pathetic is that?

So yeah, I’m sad.

“And maybe you feel a bit angry as well?” The therapist drags me out of my train of thought.

Angry? No, why would I be angry? It’s my own fault for being so stupid, so I have no one to be angry at besides myself.

“Nah, mostly sad,” I say and feel the deep wounds of the sadness taking up residence in the pit of my stomach. It feels like a black cloud expanding and filling my body with hurt. I get physically cold and I feel like wrapping myself in a fleece blanket. I want to hold a steaming hot cup of coffee in my hands to warm them and to take large gulps of it to wash away the murky mood I’m in. I want to hide from the outside world and tuck myself into my own self-made bubble where no one can reach me, where I’m safe, and where I can convince myself that I’m okay on my own.

“But is it okay that people ignore your phone calls and don’t call you back?”


“No, but he probably didn’t mean it,” I explain, not wanting to put him in a bad light. “I mean, like I said, he’s busy.”


“But it does evoke a feeling in you. You get sad.”


“Yes.”


“How can we understand that?”


“What?”


“Why do you think that is, that you are saddened by it?”


“It makes me feel small, like I’m not worth anything.”


“You’re not worth anything?”


“Yeah, like I’m not important enough.”


“To him?”

“To him. In general.” It makes me feel lonely. Alone.

It’s not their fault, it’s just how it is. I mean, people are busy. They do prioritize how to divide their time. I’m just not far enough up on anyone’s list to actually be important and that makes me sad. It kind of feels like I’m just an acquaintance to the people I call my friends, like they are in the top five on my list of friends, while I’m far down on theirs, like 20th or even 30th. Down where you no longer keep track.


I can feel the tears prick behind my eyes now and I bite the tip of my tongue not to let them flow. I won’t be the guy that cries in every session. I feel like a kid saying this, because really, who keeps scores like that when they’re in their 30s?

I guess I do.

“You’re not important and that makes you sad?”


“Yes.”


“Where does this sadness come from? Have you felt it before? Does this often happen, that you
feel like you are not important?”

All the time, I want to say. That’s just how it is. I never really question it. It just is. That’s a fact. I am not important. It’s always been like that.

“Yeah.”


“Has it been like this all your life or has it started recently?”


“Yeah. I guess. It was just….it was like that throughout school, I guess.”


“So we are talking which age here?”


“Ten? Twelve?”


“All the way back to when you were a kid.”


“Yes.”


“And what made you feel like you weren’t important then?”

“I was just not part of the peer group, I guess.” I’m a bit hesitant when I say this, because to be honest, I am not sure it’s completely true. “For instance, when there were parties being arranged in my class, there were always four or five kids who were never invited. I was, of course, one of those kids. And the two we were invited to, we were told that their mom had only let them have the party if everyone was invited, so it was very clear that the only reason we were there was because everyone was invited, not because they wanted us there.”

“And how did that make you feel?”


“Small. Very small.”


“That’s not a good feeling.”


“No it’s not.”


“And why did they do that? Why weren’t you invited?”

“I don’t know. I’ve tried to think about it but I can’t find a good reason for it.

The weird thing is, when I think back, I hardly remember anything. Part of me is far from sure it’s even true.

Maybe I have misinterpreted everything. I have no way to check the facts today, no way to get a reality check, to see if I am on the same page as the rest of them, or if I am the one who’s making it all up. All I can remember are the feelings I had, the feeling of not belonging, and that’s the feeling I still carry with me.

What I do remember is that I dreaded every recess because I knew that I had to stay moving. I had to look like I was on my way from one place to another so that it wasn’t so obvious I was all alone. I didn’t know this was what I was doing at the time. It wasn’t until I was grown that I realized that all my life I’ve been having these strategies for hiding.

I would spend a long time collecting my stuff when going outside. Then I would make sure not to use the closest entrance, but walk through the hallways inside the school, so that I would use up as much time as possible to actually get outside. Finally, outside I would walk across the playground to get to the boys’ bathroom and would use up plenty of time in there until it was time to go back in again. This way, I would always use up the minutes while it looked like I was doing something rather than wandering aimlessly around. No one would notice.

I know now that I did it because it would be so embarrassing being the kid that was alone, so I tried my best to hide it. Ironically, I always wanted the teachers to see it, and I have spent years being sad that they never did. I thought it was so obvious, but I must have been better at hiding it than I thought. Not even my parents suspected. It wasn’t until I was 25 that I found a word for it.

I always thought bullying was only physical. That is was being beaten and spat on. I was so confused growing up, feeling bullied but not having a name for it. It wasn’t until about five or six years ago when I saw a documentary about indirect bullying that the pieces fell into place for me. That’s it, I thought. That’s what it was, and I finally had a name for it.

Of course, I have close to no memories of it, and it’s not like I can go back to the kids and ask them, especially when they claim they had no idea. So here I am, thinking I might have been bullied at school. But maybe it was all in my head?

I even remember someone from the school paper picking out people from my class to ask about bullying. They picked out me and one other guy that was regularly beaten up on the way home from school. They asked us if we felt we were bullied at school. I wanted to say yes, but if no one kicked me or yelled nasty words at me, then that wasn’t bullying, was it? So I said the only thing I could: I said no. Funny enough, so did the other kid, even though his treatment often ended up with him bleeding.

I’m taking the bus home today. I intended on walking, it would be good for me, but I don’t feel up to it.

My head is pounding and I feel a bit dizzy. It felt stuffy in there today. The air, I mean. Stale in a way. Like it had been recycled one too many times. The walls closed in a bit as well, and where I felt like flying last week, I drag my feet today. I just want to crawl into bed and stay there. I’m exhausted. I feel like I’ve been crying for two weeks straight when in fact I haven’t shed a single tear.

I can stay in bed though. It’s not like I have anything better to do. Not until Friday anyway. And if I can find an excuse, I’d like to skip out on Friday as well. Friday is Tom’s birthday, and I don’t know why I am invited. It’s not like he’s a close friend. I know him, sure, but I don’t feel like we’re buddies. He’s invited practically the entire world though, and yeah, I am sure he’ll be happy to see me there, but that’s it.

It’s going to be greetings at the door, then I’ll be left on my own. Then what? Play wallflower for the rest of the evening?

I know it’s a vicious circle. You actually have to be around people to get to know them and you have to get to know them to become friends. But without friends who can introduce you to other people, you won’t meet many new ones, and so on and so forth. The thing is, I think it’s so uncomfortable, that even when I actually do know them, I’d rather not go. The ironic part is, I actually like talking to people when I get them one on one. But they have to approach me because I’m too shy to approach them.

I could play the migraine card to get out of it, except I won’t do that. I never do that unless it is actually a migraine. I hate to think that people think I’m lying when I’m claiming migraines, so I try to use that excuse as little as possible.

I could say I’m tired though. But honestly, why would I be tired? It’s not like I ever do anything. And everyone knows it. I have nothing but time—time to rest. And I do spend most of that time in bed anyway, so I should be able to stay awake one lousy Friday night.

So I guess I’ll go then. I’ll stay for a while and then I’ll go home early.

I can do that. Sure I can. I think.

Friday comes all too soon and I haven’t done anything in the time since my therapy session and now. All I’ve done is watch daytime TV and contemplate opening my laptop to work.

I’ve opened the laptop, but only to surf the net; there hasn’t been any work done. To be honest, I haven’t done any productive work for more than three months.

Not that it matters much. I haven’t had a real job in close to ten years. Not since my migraines became too severe to work and I ended up on extended sick leave for never returning to work. I have begun to receive disability benefits, which allow me a tiny bit of income on the side.

I am grateful for that. At least it lets me pretend now and then that I am something more than just home.

So I make websites.

I’m not particularly good at it, but I’m not bad either. I can’t keep up with all the new development, but as long as the client only needs a plain html or asp site, I am ready to do my best.

That’s how I met Tom.

He needed a website for his café but didn’t have much money to pay. He knew Steve who knew me, who wanted something to do and couldn’t charge too much because there was no guarantee when I could deliver, since I never know when I will be well enough to work.

He got a cheap website; I got a new friend and a lot of coffee. I think it was a good deal.

Being here isn’t as bad as I thought it would be.

Tom greeted me at the door, just as I expected. He gave me a warm welcome and stuck a beer in my hand. I took one sip but decided to dump it after half a bottle.

Although not quite a migraine, the fucking fog is still present. It’s like acid smoke crawling its way into every corner of my brain and I can’t pinpoint exactly where it’s located.

“Fizzy” would be my best description of it. It does mean, though, that a migraine is lurking. The swollen fingers and sore muscles would also be hints.

Unless I’m careful there will be a full-blown attack within a few hours, and I’d very much like to avoid that. However, with these signs I don’t think I can fully avoid it; I can only try to delay it until I’m home again.

Be careful what you wish for, I think.

I really didn’t want to come here, but now that I am, I’d like to at least get out early. And it seems like I might get my wish.

I check that the small pill box I always carry with me is safely in my pocket before I ditch my jacket on the bed with the rest of the jackets. It’s an old fisherman’s friend tin box filled with Relpax, Advil and Voltaren. I never leave the house without it. I hate taking them because they make me into a sleepwalker, but not taking them is worse. That would only eventually leave me with headaches so severe I can’t even lay still because of the pain. It would also most likely have me vomiting my guts out. The pain, both in my head and in my body, would be excruciating.

Somehow the pain seems to spread to my neck and arms as well as the upper part of my back. The pull between the shoulder blades—a pull that has already started, I might add—is more than a little frustrating. I have the urge to put my fingers in there and force the lock open. Whatever it is that’s pulling my shoulder blades together must be broken and I can literally picture my fingers digging their way under each shoulder blade and pulling them apart.

That is nothing compared to the iron claw that eats its way into my right eye, though. It’s anchored in my neck, just beneath the skull, where the neck and skull meet. It is pushed through my brain and straight into my right eye where five very long teeth of a shiny and sharp grip claw are piercing their way into the jelly material of my eye.

I avoid the alcohol—that will only force the migraine to emerge even faster—and head outside to avoid the heated air inside.

That’s when I see him: the man with the dogs.

Well, he’s not in the company of his dogs now, but it’s definitely him. He’s here, right in front of me, and talking to that guy, Chad, I think his name is.

I’ve seen Chad a couple of times before at Tom’s gatherings, but I’ve never spoken to him. Personally, I have never had the courage to go up to him and introduce myself; he looks far too confident for that. And he’s never even glanced my way, so I guess I’m not interesting enough for his kind.

I feel a pang of jealousy watching them. I wish I could be as confident, as sure of myself, as fearless.

I watch Tall Guy (that’s what he’s called in my head) throw his head back and laugh at something Chad is saying, and I envy him the courage of letting his voice carry out in a room (or back yard) full of strange people. I would die if it was me. What if someone heard me?

This guy, however, seems unfazed with people watching him and seems totally comfortable in his own body.

“Hey, Mike, wait up!” Tall Guy hollers and waves at a guy on the other side of the yard and takes off towards someone I can’t see.

I don’t see much more of him after that, just a few glimpses across the room or on the other side of the yard. I can’t help but admire how well both he and Chad work the room. They’re confident, happy and seemingly careless. They walk straight up to people, acting like it’s obvious that the other person wants to talk to them. And in Tall Guy’s case, he does it without even acting arrogant.

I’m rather pleased when I walk home. Not because I’m particularly happy—actually, I have a throbbing headache and the medications haven’t completely kicked in yet. No, I’m content that I showed up and I stayed rather long, even though I didn’t want to.

And truth be told, I had a rather good time. Tom didn’t completely ignore me after the first greeting and even though I wasn’t very active in small-talking with strangers, a few actually approached me for a little chat and it was nice.

Some actually sat down with me for an extended time, and that made me feel sort of included. Not in the ‘it’ group, but at least I wasn’t unwanted. It did make me uncomfortable though, when they asked me what I did for a living. That’s not such a great subject for small talk. It’s easy to say I’m a web designer and then go on, but when they take interest in it, then it gets complicated.

It sounds better to say, “I’m a web designer,” than to say, “I’m a web designer, but I don’t really work. You see, I’m on a disability benefit.” Because this will inevitably be followed by “Oh, I’m sorry,” which is something I hate. I know what they mean is they’re sorry I have a condition that made me unable to work and not “Sorry you got a disability benefit when you cannot work,” but sometimes that’s what it feels like. Especially in the tedious period when I was applying for disability benefits, where I got so many “Are you sure you want that? Wouldn’t you rather work?”

Of course I’d rather work. I would love to work, but I can’t. There’s a huge difference between won’t and can’t and I can’t! God knows I’ve tried. I tried for a few years, and I don’t know how I managed. Honestly, I don’t. I did a horrible job. I could never concentrate. I was always too tired, too unfocused, too worn out by either pain or medications.

The only reason I could hold on to a job was because I gritted my teeth and worked, on half-speed, when I was sick, and sat up long nights to catch up when I was well. There was no time to be me, to be with friends and family. Work took absolutely everything I had, and yet I only managed about 80% of what I should have. It couldn’t last, and it didn’t. The only reason it was even remotely possible was because I was overusing medications.

Every sign of headache would prompt me to pop pills. So much so, that I used medications close to every day, which is about three times as much as I’m meant to take. God only knows how I’ve avoided getting medicine-induced migraines.

For periods I have been sure that now, now my luck has finally run out, and it’s time to take a de-tox, but every time, I’ve come to a better period after a few months of hell. I only pray my luck won’t run out any time soon.

I sleep in the next morning. Without anything to get up to, the day feels empty.

That’s the downside of having one evening amongst lots of people: the emptiness it leaves me with is almost more than I can bear, and the downfall is almost not worth the peak I’ll experience when I’m in the company of others. It’s like the day after Christmas when I was a kid, and I knew that it would be a whole year until the next time.

I feel like I have gotten a taste of what could have been, but as I was about to embrace it, it’s ripped from me, and all that is left is a big, black hole. It leaves me restless and kind of like a caged animal.

My brain can’t seem to come up with anything for me to do so I stay in bed. Which is why I’m half asleep when Chris finally calls, a week and a half late, in the middle of the day.

“Jen, I’m so glad I caught you,” he says the second I answer the phone. And really, why wouldn’t he, it’s not like I have anything better to do.

“Hi,” I say, rather unenthusiastic.

“I’m so sorry, I meant to call you last week. You must have thought I totally blew you off,” he says, totally in line with the thoughts I’ve had plenty of times during the week.

“Nah,” I say, not ready to admit that he did in fact hurt my feelings pretty badly. I don’t want to come off as needy. “I figured you had a reason.”

“Fuck, I mean, I meant to call you,” he says and continues by telling me all the unfortunate events that prevented him from getting in touch with me.

“It’s okay,” I say and I almost mean it. “I had forgotten about it anyway.”

“So, was there something you wanted?”

“Nah,I just wanted to hear how you were doing,” I say. The high from the first session is long gone now, and I don’t feel like making a huge deal out of it now. I figure I can drop it into conversation somewhere.

We go on talking about the gigs they’ve been playing, the things he’s seen and the stuff he and Steve have been doing, and I manage to mention that I’ve started therapy and that I think I can work with it. When he asks me how it is, I can only answer okay and a part of me feels cheated on.

I’m early for my session by about 20 minutes. I don’t mind waiting though, I am usually lost in my own thoughts anyway, and it doesn’t seem that long until Misha opens the door and invites me in.

“Waiting long?” he asks, and I have come to realize this is his standard way of greeting me.

“The usual quarter of an hour,” I say, because we have already covered this in a previous session. This time though, he goes further.

“So why are you always this early?” he asks me.

I give him my usual answer that If I’m having a migraine I won’t be able to walk as fast as I normally do, so I’ll play it safe and take an earlier bus.

I leave out the thoughts I have about what will happen if the bus is late, and I’ll have to run to make it. That would make me break a sweat which again would make me really uncomfortable.

I hate sweating in public. It makes me nervous, which makes me sweat even more. I admire those who can pull the summers off with dignity; I’m not one of them.

But telling Misha about how I am too embarrassed to sweat in public is too much, so I stick to putting the weight on the third reason (beside migraines and sweating), and that is my fear of being late.

“And what would happen if you were late?” he asks.

“You’ll have to wait for me.”

“And what’s so terrible about letting me wait for a change? I am often five minutes late calling you up. Why is that okay but not the other way around?”

Because your time is more valuable than mine, I want to tell him. Everyone’s time is more valuable than mine. Because you are home all day anyway, has been a standard excuse for why I should be the flexible one when family or friends come over. It doesn’t matter that I put things on hold for them. They have a tight schedule, I don’t. Fair enough, I am home. It doesn’t mean I like to be treated like my time isn’t important.

I realize this is the same issue we have talked about before, but with another outcome.

I am not as important as them. It doesn’t matter who they are, I am not as important. I adapt to their schedule, no matter what. If I don’t adapt, which is expected of me, then I risk them rejecting me. Their time is more important than my time, more important than me. If I set down some rules, if I give them a schedule they have to keep, then I risk them telling me that it, or that I, aren’t worth it. Whatever else they might have on their schedule is always more important than me.

So I can wait forever if that’s what it takes. Because it’s better than being rejected.

Part of me feels that this is embarrassing. Whenever they tell me that I can me flexible but they can’t, it feels like they are pointing at the little boy walking the corridors at school, trying to hide that he is alone. And I feel exposed.

When they do show up, after letting me wait forever, I lie. I tell them that “No, I haven’t been waiting long. I had actually forgotten it was today you were meant to come, thank god I was home!” I do my best not to make them embarrassed for letting me wait so long, because I don’t want to make anyone feel uncomfortable.

“But why are you taking responsibility for their feelings?”Misha asks.

“I’m not,” I say. “Well, I am, but it’s only because if they feel embarrassed then I feel embarrassed, and I don’t want that.”

“Isn’t it about time you grow up and learn to face those feelings then? Isn’t feeling uncomfortable when confronting others part of being grown up?”

Now I feel stupid.

“I guess,” I say, and I feel it comes out rather weak.

He’s right though.

“Guess you’ll have to work on that. You’ll have to work on learning how to live with that feeling, because there will be times when you’ll have to confront them with the consequences of their actions, and that is just something you’ll have to live with.”

I feel stupid for not being mature enough to handle this. I should be, shouldn’t I? I feel stupid for regressing to a little boy every time I am met with some resistance.

I tell Misha this, not even aware that I felt this way. I never knew all of these thoughts were hidden inside of me, ready to be revealed by a few questions as simple as why I feel bad if anyone has to wait for me.

“But you are not stupid,” Misha says, throwing me off by focusing on a part I didn’t even know I was telling.

“But it’s not smart or mature to react that way,” I say.

“No, but it is understandable,” he tells me, and his facial expression is one of great determination. He is telling me a fact rather than suggesting a solution.

“But I overreact,” I say.

“It’s not overreaction,” he tells me, and he almost sounds a bit angry that I can think that way. “Considering your past, it’s understandable that you react this way.”

“However—” He stops me when I try to say something. “—no matter how much this behavior was necessary for you once, it is no longer working for you. It is counterproductive, and is actually working against you now. What young Jensen couldn’t deal with, adult Jensen can, so there is no need to for you to feel nine years old when met with confrontations anymore.“

And when I think he is finished, he adds another thing.

“It is not your fault!”

I don’t go straight home after session. I need to clear my head a bit and decide to take a walk around a lake that’s close by. It’s spring and I wish I had my camera. I could use the distraction.

The air is cold when I’m not walking in direct sun. I’m not surprised to see snow still lying where there is mostly shadow.

I love the first snow of the year, but hate the look of the last one to go. I love how pure it looks when it first falls. The cover of white snow covering the dirty ground always makes me think of it as nature’s own correction fluid, and I feel like it’s cleansing my soul as well. For a little moment in time I am pure, and I have been given a blank canvas and new crayons to start drawing my life again. No old mistakes are holding me down. But that’s only for a short time before the short days and long nights make me forget what daylight is, and I try to go outside as little as possible.

Right now though, I’ll breathe in early spring, trying to get a sense of the new life that is waiting just beneath the surface.

I’m not finding as many signs of spring as I would like. There is still soggy ground and no flowers peeking up. Winter has held a long, cold grip and is reluctant to let go. I feel cheated out of spring this year. It’s like nature is trying to remind me that we can never really start over, that every person carries their life with them wherever they go.

New beginnings do not exist.

I hope to go forward though.

It’s not your fault. Misha’s words got to me, and not in the way I would have guessed.

The words run through my head over and over; they almost haunt me. One would think they’d be comforting, but it’s the complete opposite; they frustrate me. They rip apart something inside me and unleash feelings I didn’t know I had.

I’ve always assumed there must have been some conspiracy, something I couldn’t remember, something that was wrong with me, but now I’m not so sure. I have spent so much time questioning what was wrong with me, why they didn’t like me, and until this day I have still not come up with an answer.

Not until I started realizing that I actively helped isolate myself.

It wasn’t that they didn’t like me, it was I that didn’t like myself. It wasn’t until I realized I had been so good building strategies for not being rejected that I saw that by doing this, I not only avoided being found out, but I also played an active part in not being included. By making the choice myself not to play, they could not reject me.

That realization was quite a shock.

I had played an active part, and I still do. It’s the same strategy I still use. I have never stopped.

And yet he told me it’s not my fault.

I want to throw up. Even though I’m tucked in below a stack of blankets, my body won’t relax. I lie curled up in a fetal position and it seems that every muscle in my body is tense. Even my jaw is aching. I shiver and I’m cold to the bone.

I carefully roll out of bed and walk on sore feet into the bathroom. I strip down to nothing and step into the shower. The temperature is already set on hot and it doesn’t take long until the water is warm enough to scald my skin. I sink down to the floor and sit cross-legged, letting the water run over me.

My shower has been my savior more times than I can count. On days like this, it’s the only way I know how to deal. When my body aches and my stomach cramps up, all I can do is stretch out on the floor in the shower. I push my butt as far as I can towards the wall and stretch my legs up the wall. Lying with my hip in a 90 degree angle lets the vertebrae fall into place, and the tense muscles in my stomach relax after retching. Sometimes I almost fall asleep like that, on the floor in my shower, with hot water running over me.

I lie there until the hot water runs out.

“Do your parents love you?” Misha asked me today.

“I guess,” I told him. “I guess they do.” Funny what it can do to you when your parents aren’t big on showing emotions. I was sixteen before they told me they loved me, and yet sixteen years later I still don’t trust it.

It felt uncomfortable then. It still feels uncomfortable now when they tell me. It makes me squirm.

Misha asked me once why I am so scared of being myself in front of them. What would happen if I ever told them I disagree with something?

I told him I was scared they wouldn’t like me anymore.

There’s a difference in being loved and being liked. I do believe now that they probably love me, and that they will love me no matter what. I don’t feel it with certainty though. I have to use my rational mind to come to that conclusion.

That doesn’t mean they like me though. I still think that if they don’t like me, my world would end.

I cannot take that chance. Being liked is most important of all.

It’s not your fault.

Whose fault is it then?

I have never really reflected much about why I need to be liked. What will happen if someone doesn’t like me?

It scares me.

I guess it takes a confident person to be brave enough not to seek confirmation from others.

I constantly seek outwards to confirm myself. I seek self-realization in feedback from other people, and this is a very uncertain source of confirmation. When it’s not given, I am nothing.

I am nothing.

I’m not worthy of anything. I’m not doing anything, and I’m not doing anything to contribute to anything.

I am nothing.

I once told myself that I don’t need to be much, that it is enough just to be part of a larger picture. It’s enough to be just a tiny little piece of something large called life.

I pictured myself as a butterfly.

A butterfly that flapped its wings, and the wind from that one little butterfly started a chain reaction that changed rain to sun somewhere else.

I pictured myself not as something big, but maybe the small part that played a supportive role in someone else’s life.

Somewhere along the line I’ve lost my faith.

Somewhere along the line I was lost, and the chain reaction turning rain to sun turned instead light to dark.

My hope, my goal even, is to one day be that butterfly again.

Misha has asked me many times to describe how I feel when I have my darkest days. I told him it’s like opening a cabinet and thousands of marbles falls out, each marble representing a thought, and I try to catch them before they hit the ground. I know I have to catch them to keep them from going astray, but there are too many, and they hit fast and from all directions, so I have no other choice than to crunch down and seek shelter. The marbles hit me hard, and I have no protection.

It’s like my skin, my only protection from the outside world, is a fragile membrane just like the surface of the water. Every word that hits me penetrates the skin and makes ripples that spread out and distort my clear thoughts.

I’m overwhelmed. All I can do is lie down and wait for it to pass. Wait for the marbles to roll away and the ripples to calm down. I have to wait it out, wait until the torrent of thoughts slows down to a manageable number and I’m able to focus on them again.

I sometimes try to catch the thoughts. I want to look at them closely, to see what they really are, but they disappear before I have the chance to have another look.

It frustrates me because I have no idea where they come from; I only feel their impact.

It leaves me open. It leaves me vulnerable to every little comment from every person I talk to. A single little comment can start this avalanche of thoughts, and I am always at risk of being thrown.

Tom drops by the next evening. He wants me to make some changes on his website and I’m happy to do it. It’s not a big job, and he always pays me what I ask, so he’s a great customer.

Not like some of the others I’ve had. I hate it when people don’t pay me.

It’s not like they have bought a website from a large company, where no private persons will notice if there is some decrease in the company’s economy. No, in this case, each bill that is not paid is money straight out of my private pocket. It's my salary they are digging into.

And what bugs me the most is that almost everyone I make websites for are friends or friends of friends, and I can’t understand how people can stomach not to pay a friend for the job he’s doing for them.

And I? I never dare to say anything.

The problem is, if anyone hasn’t paid me, I can’t look them in the eyes afterwards. I get embarrassed about it, like I have done something wrong.

That’s why I like working for Tom. He’s always telling me he’s happy with the work I’ve done, and he always pays the day he gets the bill. There are never any problems with him.

Today we’re going over some new text and a few new photos for his site.

What I like about Tom is that he values my opinions. Unlike so many others, he actually lets me have rather free rein. It’s so unlike all of those who know exactly what they want; they just need me to transform it from paper to screen, with as little effort as possible. They are just using me as a tool, not a brain, and I don’t like that. It is money though—although very little money—because their reason for doing it is usually so that they can get away with paying me almost nothing.

Tom, however, showed me what he wanted, what his colors were and what information he needed on the site, and asked me what I could make of that. Then he paid me for the time I actually spent. I’ve got to love him for it.

We bow our heads over work for about two hours before we’ve covered all I need to know to actually do the job. I ask him if he wants to stay to catch the game and when he nods I pick up a couple of beers from the fridge.

I can’t hide my smile as I retrieve the two chilled bottles from behind the butter and the ham. I notice the condensation dripping down the glass and run my thumb over a droplet to wipe it off. I try to think how long it’s been since I had company over—especially company that wasn’t planned. I can’t remember.

It’s lucky I had some beer in there; I haven’t been in the store for a couple of days and I haven’t exactly stocked up in case of company.

Actually, nothing in this house is ready for company.

It would have been so embarrassing if he’d come over just a couple a days ago when the whole house looked like a bomb had gone off. It’s a good thing I had one of my better days today and actually did some cleaning. It’s not spotless, but it’s clean enough. It looks lived in, but not filthy.

That’s one of the things I’ve been working on: lowering my bar.

When I started therapy I had mood swings like nothing else. I would be high up one day and far down the next, and I couldn’t find a pattern.

Misha did though.

After a while he presented me with a theory. He said I expect too much of myself, that I put the bar too high.

I wanted to laugh at him. Doesn’t he see that I am the complete opposite, that I give up too soon?

“You try too hard,” he said, “you expect so much from yourself, and when you can’t meet your own expectations you’ll beat yourself up over it, and you fall into depression. And when you claw yourself out again, you grit your teeth and decide that this time you’ll do it right. And then two days later, you crash down again. This goes round and round. What we need to work on is having you learn to accept that not perfect is okay. You don’t have to be the best at everything. It’s okay that the house isn’t a magazine display when people drop by and it’s okay that you aren’t the best web designer in the world. You are good enough, and that should be good enough for you too. Your goal should be to live by your own standards and not by others’. If it doesn’t sit right with you, then it isn’t right for you.”

Funny thing though, he seems to be right.

Once I tried to think about why I couldn’t invite friends over unless my house was spotless, there was only one voice in my head: my mom’s. I hear her telling me it’s so good I have a couple of days left until my birthday so that I have time to clean away the boxes that I have in my hallway before the guests come, because it’s so embarrassing if they’re still there six months after I moved in. Or she’s telling me she put away the snow shovel I hadn’t put away since last winter, because it looks so cluttered when you have things like that lying around in the summer. She never even asked me why they were still there, she never does, and apparently that is unimportant. Had I been too sick to get around to it? She didn’t even ask me if I wanted it put away. Her sole focus was what the neighbors would think if I didn’t put my winter equipment away for the summer.

And I thanked her for it.

So now I’m trying to follow what I want, even though it is hard to ignore the voice in my head constantly telling me I’m not good enough. Instead of doing what it takes to meet other people’s expectations, I try now to clean to the extent where I find it comfortable, and I stop there. And to my surprise, my house is even cleaner now than it used to be.

Seems like the more nagging I got, the less I was willing to do. Not because I wanted to disobey, but because it became overwhelming, and I would feel powerless to even start.

It isn’t as spotless as I could get it before on those rare occasions when I didn’t crash before it was finished, but it’s never as cluttered at it used to be either. It’s even more on a somewhat tidy level, and I am happy with it.

Some days it looks like a bomb has gone off, but that’s only when I have had a long period of migraines and things have piled up. The thing is, when I don’t get depressed over it on top of that, it’s much easier to clean it up again once the migraine has passed. I have noticed that I handle my migraines better because of this as well.

They are just as frequent, and they are just as hard. I beat myself up much less over it though, and it doesn’t feel like a failure that I have let chores go unfinished just because I haven’t been able to get out of bed, or just because I’ve been too out of it due to medications to actually do anything. And that makes me able to jump back into my life much faster when the migraines are over, rather than spending another day or two crawling out of the darkness that the migraines triggered.

Group therapy is probably the scariest thing I’ve ever attended. Not because I was scared of the people, per se, but—yeah, okay, so I was kind of scared of the people. I was scared that when I arrived they would see straight through me and realize that I didn’t belong. I knew I had been thoroughly evaluated before being accepted to the group, so someone had already done the screening and I had made the cut, but still. What if I was just faking?

And I think that is, ironically, what has been bothering me most through the whole therapy period. I had those thoughts the first day in the waiting room, and they have never really left. What if I’m just faking?

I told Misha as much. He asked me how I felt about starting group therapy, and I told him I was scared. I was scared of being exposed as a fake.

It didn’t help that he was the one that had suggested group therapy for me, because he, after being my therapist for a few months, felt that I would benefit from it. It didn’t help that I had been interviewed by the two therapists who would lead the group, before being accepted to the group. I still didn’t think they would be able to see through my crap.

And I thought this even though I was determined to be 100% honest when I started, and I have, cross my heart, tried to be as honest as I can throughout the whole process. Because what if what I say is being interpreted as more serious than it really is? What if I am just whining about ordinary things and making it sound like a problem while I’m actually just having my own private little pity party?

How embarrassing would that be to come into a room with seven other people who are there on seemingly the same premise as me, and they turn out to have real problems while I am just a fake? Of course, being scared of starting group therapy is kind of in the job description to anyone who’s been given the diagnosis of social anxiety, or at least, lacking that diagnosis, being treated for symptoms of social anxiety.

The group consists of eight patients, with two psychologists leading the group. The rules are simple: The group starts precisely 3:30 every time and ends precisely at 5:00. It’s 1 ½ hours set aside to group—nothing more, nothing less. The eight people starting the group will be the only ones in it when it ends. If anyone leaves the group, no one will take their place. We are not allowed to have contact with anyone in group outside of the group, and whatever is said in group stays there.

It is once a week for 20 sessions. Other than that – no guidelines.

It’s unnerving. There are so many questions.

It’s nothing I’ve even done before. What do you say? How do you start? Am I taking up space in the group? How do you decide who’s allowed to talk about what at which time? Which topics are allowed? Which topics are too private? Too stupid? If I start a conversation and the others have no interest, am I stealing valuable time from them? Do I have the right to set the agenda? What if what I say just falls to the ground? Will I feel rejected? Will I ever dare to raise another subject another time?

If someone else says the same things that I would have liked to raise, and the subject is being discussed but with the focus on another person, can I raise the subject again later, or is it now off-limits? Will I then feel robbed of my opportunity? Do I need the focus to be on me when we discuss subjects that concern me?

Is it egocentric of me to say I can sympathize when I do recognize what they are talking about? Is that stealing their focus or is it showing support? Do I change the way the conversation goes by interfering? Do I have the right to do that?

I’m confused. I’m confused to the extent that it makes me numb.

It turns out that I have no trouble talking in group. I have no trouble responding to what the others are sharing, but I do get frustrated when I get feedback that I am in fact using the group well. I am apparently very actively engaged. I’m frustrated because I feel I really don’t act, I only react, but I cannot say this without sounding like a fool. So I am even more frustrated by each week, feeling that even though I’m being noticed and participating, I am not really being seen. The focus is never on me and this both discourages me and makes me feel embarrassed for my own selfishness. Why would I need to be the focus? Why is it important that they see me? Why isn’t it enough for me that I can learn from their stories?

I do learn a lot, but always with the sting of disappointment in myself.

I have been in therapy for quite a few months already and have learned a lot, yet I feel I have even more questions now than before I started. I wonder if there is ever an end to the questions.

At least I’ve started to understand why I feel the way I do. To see not only why I have built a wall around myself but even that I have done it. I wasn’t even aware that the wall was that strong until we started investigating it. Hell, I didn’t even know it was there.
If anyone had asked me four months ago, I would have said I was relatively fearless. It didn’t feel like fear. At least not like how I thought fear would ever feel like. Concern maybe, but not fear. I didn’t recognize the fear in me because I didn’t see how large an impact it had and how much I was willing to avoid doing what I didn’t even know I dreaded. It didn’t feel like I was holding back or avoiding things because I was afraid, but because of cold facts or me simply trying to be polite.

I was just being realistic; that was what I did. For instance, I tried not to force myself on people that didn’t want anything to do with me because that would be impolite. Nothing wrong in that; I’m raised to show consideration after all. Except that I never questioned if it was at all true that they didn’t want anything to do with me. For me that was just a cold fact and not my fear of being rejected.

It made me sad though.

Now I have learned to see behind my motivations, and I see that it is, in fact, fear behind my actions. I have learned to see those feelings and ask why that fear is there in the first place. I can see that most of the times I do it out of fear of rejection or fear of being exposed as a fake. I am scared that anyone would think I am not real.

But realizing this doesn’t make it better, it just makes it more obvious.

I didn’t know I had started to change until I run into Tall Guy today.

We run into each other on my way home from session. I’ve seen him many times now, almost every Wednesday actually, which is my usual day for a session. And we always nod and smile when we pass each other on the street.

Apparently he must live along this way somewhere, since he always takes his dogs out here.

When I see him, I don’t feel the same level of anxiety as I usually do.

I won’t say I’m bursting with confidence, but a little voice inside tells me that it might only be my out-of-proportion fears acting up, rather than a real threat. I have come to understand that I often react very strongly to small situations. I called it over-reaction. Misha called it a natural reaction to a threat that is no longer there.

Today I am deep in thought when I hear a loud woof and a voice yelling, “No, Harley. No!”

I look up only to see a large mastiff doing its best to run free and attack me—or well, lick me to death would be a better description. He’s very eager. Tall Guy does his best to hold him back, and even though Harley is impressive, the rather impressive guy, I must admit, still manages to pull him back.

“Sorry about that,” he says. “He’s just a bit too fond of people, and equally badly behaved. I am working on it though, but he doesn’t exactly learn easily.”

“No problem,” I say and reach out my hand so Harley can sniff it. I also bend down to pat the smaller dog on the head. I’m not sure what kind of dog it is, but it is much better behaved and eager now that the connection has been established.

“That’s Harley,” Tall Guy says and points at the mastiff. “He’s a Mastiff cross, and this girl is Sadie, my Dingo-German Shepherd mix. She’s the smart one.”

“Harley, Sadie,” I say to them as if they were people I’ve just been introduced to. They’re not very interested though. Harley’s busy sniffing some other dog’s business card, and Sadie’s washing herself.

“And my name is Jared,” he says as an afterthought.

“Jensen,” I answer.

We look at each other for a little while, and just when it starts to get uncomfortable and Jared starts to collect the dogs to walk off, my newly found hint of confidence shows its color.

“Didn’t I see you at Tom’s birthday party?” I say before I can regret it.

The second it is out I want to disappear. Way to establish the fact that he is noticeable and I’m not. It’s obvious that I remember him, after all this time, and he probably doesn’t remember me. Or worse, what if he actually did notice me and thought I was a dork? What if Tom has told him about how pathetic I am, and he connects the dots now that I have told him my name? But really, the most likely option is that he really didn’t even notice me.

“Yes,” he says enthusiastically. “Yes, I knew I had seen you somewhere, I just couldn’t remember from where. So….” He drags it out. “A friend of Tom’s huh?”

“Yeah,” I breathe, “I made a website for him, and he kind of held on I guess.” I shake it off as no big deal, but really, it is. It’s a big deal, both that Tom wants to stay friends and that Jared remembers me.

“Websites? So you’re a web designer?”

And there’s that question again. I only nod and try not to put too much into it. I mean, I am a web designer, and that is why I made the website, so I can get off with just saying yes. He hasn’t technically asked me how much I work.

I still feel like I am deceiving him though. I feel like I am making him believe I’m something I’m not. Like he would think I do this full time, and that’s like making him believe I am better than I really am.

“Must be interesting,” he goes on, and I feel it’s too uncomfortable to continue. It’s like every step of this conversation takes us further and further into a pretend world.

“Could be,” I say, “but to be honest I don’t work that much. I’m on a disability, so it’s only a couple of websites a year.”

I avoid looking at him by kicking at a stone on the ground. Harley reacts instantly and takes off after it, which is a surprise to Jared who almost gets his arm ripped off.

I don’t tell him how I hate those websites even though I love web design. I don’t tell him how I hate the fear for when the client will finally ask for something I cannot make and realize I have no idea what I am doing. How I hate to always wait for the moment when the client will be fed up waiting for me to finish with something that should be an easy job and then tell me that I am a lousy web designer. I could never look them in the eye if they didn’t like what I did.

“I’m sorry,” Jared says, and for a short moment I think I said that out loud, but I realize he’s talking about me being on benefit.

“Nah, it would be harder without it,” I say, and I mean that. I also know that’s not what he meant. I hope though, that he will understand that this is my way of telling him that I don’t want to talk about it anymore.

“I guess,” he says.

“What about you?” I take the opportunity to shift focus to him.

“Studying to become an engineer,” he says. He nods in the direction of where the college lies, and indicates that’s where he’s studying.

He tells me that he was meant to start study years ago, with his friend Chad, but that he was delayed because his mother fell ill. “She wanted me to go,” he says while constantly tugging at Harley’s leash in an attempt to get the dog to move in the same direction as the rest of us. We have fallen into step together and are walking slowly down towards the park. “She wanted me to study, but I couldn’t leave her. I knew there was a good chance that she wouldn’t make it, and I would never be able to live with myself if she died while I was so far away.”

I’m scared to say anything. Part of me wants to ask what happened, but another part of me knows that I should let him talk, let him decide what to say next without being interrupted by me. I’m scared that if I interrupt I’ll change the direction of the conversation and steal away from what he is telling me. I look at him though, really look at him, so that he’ll understand that I am listening, that he has my attention.

“I’m happy I stayed, that I could be with her. She died three years later, and though those years were hard, I am so happy we had them together.”

He tells me how ALS had started in her respiratory system, how her lung capacity had withered, how she soon lost the ability to talk and to eat, and what this did to his family, and all I can do is lend him an ear.

He doesn’t try to paint a pretty picture. He talks about how they sometimes resented her for being sick. He talks about how he could be so angry and frustrated with her, when she was frustrated about not being able to do what she had done before. But he also talks about how much he loved her and how much he misses her.

He’s glad he stayed with her. He did love her and he did do it out of love. He doesn’t try to make himself better than he is, but he calls hard times hard, and somehow that makes a much bigger impression on me.

After talking to Jared I am torn. I’m torn between sadness, anger and frustration, but the strongest emotion I’m feeling is awe. I’m at awe for being let into his life like this. Without being asked, he opened up to me, and he shared some incredibly important details from his life, and I feel honored by the gift that he gave me.

And that is exactly what I feel it was: a gift. He entrusted me with his inner self.

Instead of showing me a façade, he showed me who he is on the inside, who the real Jared is. He shared who he was without putting up a mask. He laid himself bare and trusted me to accept him for what he is.

It’s all clear to me now why I am floored by this experience. I realize that where I thought I needed someone to listen to me to make me feel accepted, it was actually the other way around. It was by being entrusted with someone else’s secrets that I felt most acknowledged. By willingly sharing from his life, he showed me that I was worthy of his trust. I only hope I won’t disappoint him. He makes me want to strive to be a better person.

He spoke so highly of his mom, and I can’t help but wonder if he would have done the same if she was still alive. Does death change our relationship to people? Are we suddenly forgiving them the grudge that we might have held against them in life?

I can’t help wonder if my feelings towards my own mother would be different if she wasn’t still alive. If she wasn’t still annoying me on a daily basis.

That’s what I feel it is. The issues between us are like a wound that will never heal because we constantly scratch it and never let it rest.

The last couple of months though, I’ve finally started to admit to myself that I am truly angry with her. She is losing her position as the top authority in my life and I am starting to claim that position. It’s long overdue, like a late teen rebellion phase, but it is highly needed. It’s just as painful as any teen rebellion phase would be too.

I’m angry at her for always being so scared that someone in our family would embarrass themselves or the family. I’m angry at her for always correcting me on things I didn’t do wrong, just in case I might humiliate her. I’m angry at her for not encouraging me in what I liked and what I was good at, instead trying to make me into someone I’m not. I’m angry at her for teaching me that I’m not good enough.

I’m angry at her for being just as I’ve been in all these years.

I’ve come to realize that I’ve never had a chance to figure out who I am or what I really want. I have simply spent all my life trying to be someone else. I also realize that it’s not easy standing up for yourself when you don’t know who you are.

Next time I see Jared he walks over to me and starts walking beside me without a word. I smile at him and let him know that I approve.

Why wouldn’t I? I desperately want to get to know him better. I want him to notice me, to like me.

“So how did your assignment go?” I ask, remembering he had a paper due last week.

“Great,” he says, seemingly happy I asked.

I have been thinking a lot about what he told me last week, and how I reacted to it afterwards. Not only the subject matter, but about how I felt having had the pleasure of listening to him.

One of my fears has always been to intrude. I have a tendency to assume that if a person decides not to share something with me, it must be because he, or she, doesn’t find me worthy of knowing. Sharing is a matter of trust, and I haven’t been found trustworthy. And to prevent them from feeling that they have to tell me, even though they don’t want to, I abstain from asking.

At the same time though, I feel reluctant to share, not because I don’t trust them, but because I don’t want to bother them with my problems. And that’s the irony of it all. If they don’t share with me, it’s my fault, but if I don’t share with them, it’s still my fault. I take all the responsibility all the time. No matter what happens, it’s my fault.

It makes me realize though, that instead of being so scared of intruding when they don’t offer to share, I should ask anyway, but make sure that they understand that the decision is completely up to them. I don’t have the right to know, but I can offer an ear if they want it. My fear of intruding has brought me to the other side of the scale, has made me seem like I’m not interested. By not encouraging people to share with me, I have played an active part in making myself feel rejected.

With Jared though, I don’t think that’s a problem.

He is open about himself, but not in a persistent way. He does show interest in me, but if I am reluctant to share, he offers something of himself instead. It’s like he’s telling me I can trust him because he is trusting me. If he gives something to me, then maybe someday I will give something back to him. It’s like he doesn’t seek attention just to get attention, but to take attention away from me, without losing sight of me.

Again I’m reminded that it takes a confident person not to seek attention, yet he gets it without seeking it because he is giving it to others.

It’s working. I do trust Jared. I do want to share more with him and at the same time, I want to learn more about him. He fascinates me to no end.

I take advantage of my uplifted spirits and decide to finally hang the picture up on the wall. I painted it six months ago and already it’s outdated. I want to put it up though, as a reminder of who I don’t want to revert back to being.

It was about 5 months into therapy that Misha asked me to paint it. He told me to use my creative skills to illustrate what it felt like when I was falling. To make a picture of what happens when my world spins out of control.

I was reluctant to do it, simply because I didn’t think I could. I was terrified of the empty canvas. Just the idea of attacking it was more than I could handle. I hadn’t touched painting in years, not since high school, and never acrylic paint.

Of course he hadn’t specified how I should do it. I could have gone with Photoshop if I wanted. But it was like the more he challenged me, the more I challenged myself. So I took this opportunity to find out if I liked working with this medium. I had been thinking about it for a long time, but as usual I hadn’t tried. I’d seen it as yet another way to possibly fail. This time though, I figured that if I failed I could always make a Photoshop illustration to complete the task, but I should at least give acrylic painting a chance.

I’m happy I did.

I loved the feel of the brush gliding through the paint and making its mark on the canvas. The smooth texture was therapeutic in itself, as was watching the picture grow into something very close to how I wanted it.

It was a victory like nothing I have felt in a long time.

Not only did Misha give me a way to visualize my feelings, but he also opened the door to my creativity again: a door that had been locked for a long time and that I had been too scared to open up.

I painted a man marked with a butterfly tattoo, and I imagine he is me.

I painted him faceless, with his back to the viewer. He’s hiding from the world, like I am when I crunch down under the blankets in my bed.

It’s darkness around him, he’s wrapped in it, and I imagine it is cold.

Marbles hits him in the back and they’re piercing his body. They’re ripping him wide open.

I can feel the exact places he’s hit. The pain is palpable and well-known. It sits between the shoulder blades, pulling my shoulder blades together, and the impact leaves an invisible scar that forever leaves the area sore and stiff. Pain is radiating from this point, spreading to my shoulders, neck and arms.

I painted the whole picture in Payne’s Grey, a nice shade of monochromatic colors. That’s how I picture it: colorless except for shades of bluish grey.

I cry when I look at it now. Not because it makes me sad, but because it makes me strong. I realize this is how I don’t want to be anymore.

I finally have a picture of what I am fighting.

We have fallen into a routine, Jared and I.

Every Wednesday at noon we meet up outside McDonald’s and walk together to the end of the park, where Jared will run off with his mutts and I’ll head home to my house.

We have never talked about it, we just started to expect it after accidently bumping into each other so many times. Since he started walking with me that one time back in January, we’ve done it most every week. If one of us doesn’t turn up one day, no one mentions it, we just try again next week.

We talk about anything. I’ve started to open up to him, and he has continued to share with me. I’ve told him about my family, about my life and about therapy. He has told me more about himself. I’ve learned that Chad is his best friend. They’ve been friends since they were kids, and they had decided to study together. Of course that didn’t go as planned, with Jared’s mother dying, but when Jared was finally ready to go to school, Chad was still in town, and they decided to share a place.

I find it hard to cross that line between walking buddies and friends. I mean, Jared is probably the person I talk to most now, outside of therapy that is, yet I don’t know if I can call him a friend. I’d like to though. I would absolutely love to call him a friend, but friends you can invite over to watch the game, right?

I wonder if we talk like this because we’re strangers or because we are growing closer?

I don’t know if I can invite Jared over. I don’t know how he would react. Does he consider me a friend, or am I just convenient company while he walks his dogs?

Jared seems to like company at all times. He’s so alive. He talks a lot. It’s like he’s bursting with energy and he needs people around him to feed him that energy.

But he doesn’t drain me; no, he fills me with energy as well.

It’s about half an hour’s walk to the park where we go our separate ways. It has never been a question whether or not I want to come to the park with them and I’ve never offered. That’s one of the other unspoken rules. We walk to the park together and then say goodbye.

I wonder how Jared does it, watching the dogs. I’ve seen him when I walk away. He lets the dogs off their leashes and they run off. They are crazy and he is laughing and seems so relaxed.

I would be terrified. I would be so scared all the time about everything that could go wrong. There could be other dogs in the park (and there usually are), there could be people that are scared of dogs (and Harley doesn’t seem to understand that he is bigger than most of them. He seems to think he’s just a tiny little lap dog). There is the road not far away, with cars driving at an awfully high speed, and a dog has nothing against a large car.

It would kill me to be responsible for two little lives. I simply don’t see how he’s managing it.

Just crossing the street is hard enough for me. I’m always concerned where the cars comes from , how fast they are coming and when I can cross. It’s like I’m four years old again and don’t yet know how to read the traffic. It wasn’t always like this. It’s like all the clutter in my brain, combined with the fog from the migraines, is narrowing my field of vision and I no longer have any indication of what’s happening around me.

I get scared. I need a longer time to scan my surroundings and I get embarrassed by it. People are able to read their surroundings in matter of seconds, while I need much longer. I have to stop. I need my surroundings to slow down with me and when they don’t, I get insecure.

Often I turn around and pretend I didn’t mean to cross the road anyway. I start pacing around, like I am actually on my way to do something else. I walk in circles until the traffic slows down enough for me to take the chance of crossing.

Just standing there until the cars actually stop or slow down to let me cross would be too embarrassing. That’s what young kids and old ladies do, not a 31-year-old man.

I revert to using my old strategies, the ones developed in school. I pretend I’m on my way to somewhere else so that it doesn’t look like I’m waiting for things to slow down. Anything not to look like the fool I am.

I didn’t know before that this is what social anxiety might be about. I mean, these are just my little quirks, right? My stupidity at its finest. It wasn’t until we started talking about it in group that I saw that even in this situation it was my fear of people judging me, of people thinking I’m stupid, that stopped me from crossing that street.

If I wasn’t so scared that the driver of the car, the man or woman I don’t know, never will meet and who has no interest in me whatsoever; if I wasn’t so scared of what he or she must think about my ability to read traffic, then I wouldn’t have had any problems crossing the street. But because of what one stranger will think, I choose to walk long distances to avoid the crossings where I know there is heavy traffic. I avoid taking the direct route home from downtown, because the bus stop is at the wrong place for me to cross the street. I need to have control of every detail before I can do anything. I need to know exactly what will happen every step of the way before I can set out on a journey.

I didn’t realize it was the sum of small things like this that in the end made my anxiety into a problem. Not until someone pointed it out and made me see that it’s the sum of these small things that has kept me mostly isolated for the better part of ten years.

It seems like having a picture of my fears makes them easier to tackle. Maybe it’s as simple as knowing where they come from now.

Whenever I meet them now, my fears, they are no longer unknown. That doesn’t mean they’re not there, but they’re lessened. It hasn’t made me less angry though. I’ve been more angry than I’ve ever felt before. Mostly at Mom, actually. It seems like I am always annoyed with her. I always have been, really, but the difference is now I know why.

Misha asked me if I ever felt compassion for the little boy that used to be me. I had to tell him no. I never have, not until now. And when I touch it now I’ll lock up those feelings so fast because it evokes so many emotions I’m not ready to face.

It’s funny how I can watch myself from the outside, look back at that little boy and feel compassion for him, but when I think of it in terms of me, I feel nothing. It’s like I only can feel compassion for someone other than myself.

Group therapy surprises me.

Not only do I fit in perfectly, it seems like the therapists knew their job, after all. Who knew? We are all on the same level. Well, most of us.

Two people decide to leave the group and I am surprised at my own reaction. My first reaction is disappointment and I am not sure if it’s in them or me. I feel the group has failed them. We couldn’t help them. And then I get angry. It wasn’t us. I realize we are all responsible for our own feelings, and I feel proud when I see that the reason I have made so much progress and they haven’t is because I do all the hard work myself.

I’m not saying I am better than them. I don’t think I am. I think it has a lot to do with timing, actually. I think I was given this opportunity at the best possible time. I was ready, I was focused and I was motivated. And I had the time to work with myself.

I’ve been in therapy for eleven months, one to two times a week, and I have taken many hard steps. I have gone through stages from anger and depression to and hope and anticipation. I think it’s been the best and the worst experience of my life, and I know I’ll come out stronger at the other end.

What I learned was that I did all the work.

Sure, I couldn’t have done it without Misha. But he only asked the right questions. It was I who found the answers and adapted my thoughts accordingly. The hardest part to learn was that there is only one way to make a change, and that is to try and fail. You cannot change your automatic reactions by thinking rationally; you have achieve new experiences by doing it. That’s the only way to change your behavioral pattern: to learn that it actually works. You have to face your fears and risk it going wrong.

When it doesn’t, you have learned that it might be okay. And if it does, then you learn you can handle that too.

I noticed that as time went by that even the fog in my brain got lighter. It’s like when my brain isn’t so busy worrying, I have more energy to see other things: simple things like paying attention to friends and simply enjoying life.

That’s one of my biggest regrets in all of this, that I’ve been so introverted.

It’s natural though. It takes a surplus of energy to focus outwards, and I’ve been running on an energy deficit for so long. But I’m getting there now; I have climbed out of the hole. I’m not far up on the plus side, but I am at plus, and I am still climbing. I am starting to recognize the old me—the one I was afraid was lost.

I even offered to watch Jared’s dogs, he didn’t even have to ask. It was one weekend when he had to go away and his usual dog sitter was not available. It was scary, sure. He could have rejected me. He could have looked at me as the worst possible dog sitter in the world and told me he didn’t want me near his dogs. But he didn’t. He asked me if I knew what I was doing, and I said not really, and he showed me the ropes. And I did fine. I’m sure the dogs were used to having it a bit different, but they were fed, given water and walked, and they got lots of hugs. I didn’t let them sleep in my bed, but it was close.

Jared and I are walking in the park together. Ever since I watched the dogs for the weekend I’ve started coming with Jared to the park.

Harley usually runs around Jared, but Sadie keeps close to me. If Jared feels abandoned by his girl, he doesn’t show it.

He’s about to start his second year at college and I’m about to quit therapy. Misha thinks it’s about time.

I’m getting slightly worried as I’m getting closer to the end.

When I started, I thought it would be such a long journey, and it has been. But at the same time, it seems to have gone by so fast. It’s like I’ve lived 10 years in the span of only 11 months.

In a way it’s seemed easy, like it’s been just given to me, but at the same time it’s been very hard. For once, my disability benefit has been a blessing; it’s given me time to just process therapy without being distracted by the normal stress of a daytime job. I’ve spent every waking hour thinking and analyzing, and it has taken so much out of me. I think that’s much of the secret behind my progress this year.

I’ve been on a roller coaster of emotions. As I’ve opened up to my feelings, all kind of emotions have bled through. The body is amazing in the way it protects itself, but sometimes it’s a bit too efficient. It seems like there is no way to close in the bad without losing some of the good as well. Turns out you can’t repress the bad memories and your hurtful feelings without also repressing the good memories from that period. Now that I am dealing with the fears of my past, the memories have also started coming back. Not in great amounts, but in little drips. I am starting to become a whole person again, but mental healing is also painful.

Part of me is looking forward to it all slowing down now. I’m looking forward to not being infused with new thoughts to process even before I’m finished processing the last ones.

An age has past in the blink of the eye. I feel I have changed tremendously, yet there is still a long way to go. “Five years,” Misha said when we started talking about ending therapy. “You should keep your focus on five years from now. That’s when you’ll have a chance to see a real change. These things take time, but you are welcome to write me in five years to tell me where you stand.”

Five years.

It’s been a massive change in just under one year, and I can’t even imagine where I’ll be in five years. In a better place, I hope.

Now I am left to myself and only my friends and family for support if anything should happen. Misha has been my safety net for close to a year, and that has made my whole experience a lot easier. That is what scares me the most.

My experience tells me that when I’m at my worst, there is no one around me to pick me up, that I am all on my own. Sure I have family. Sure I have some friends. But I don’t trust that anyone will be there to catch me if I fall.

“Sure you understand that I couldn’t be there for you,” Josh told me four months ago in one of our infrequent conversations.

Sure I do. He has enough on his plate, what with our suicidal mom and a newborn son to take care of. And I told him that I feel bad about not being there more for Mom, that it all has fallen on him, and he say that he understands. He says it’s okay, but that it means I am also on my own because there are no resources left since all his energy goes to her.

So I am alone if I ever fall down into depression again. And I panicked. I could hardly breathe when I started thinking about it, and it took Misha two weeks to convince me that I would be okay. Because there is one massive difference from the last time I fell. I am changed! I am not the same person I was.

That being said, there is no guarantee I won’t be depressed again. Chances are massive that I will be, but next time I’ll stand stronger because I have learned to ask the right questions. I have experience in working my way out of it now. So I have a much stronger position in myself than I have ever had before.

Five years. I should expect it to take five years.

I don’t know where I’ll be in five years, but one thing I know: I would really like Jared to be there with me and I won’t be able to see it come true unless I actually dare to give him a chance.

Which, by the way, is scary.

The possibility of it maybe going my way is more tempting than ever though. I should try, before I lose courage.

“So, Jared,” I say. “What do you say about coming over to my place to watch the game tonight?”