I was definitely irritated by therapy in the same way. I think as I've matured from, say, when I was married at 22 to now, when I'm 40, I've learned a lot about my behavior, what motivates it, and so on. And yet therapy was kind of like, "I have to do MORE work? So unfair."

I feel sort of vaguely pissed at what I actually have to work on in therapy.

Oh, I'm pissed, too. I thought it was behind me. And -- I said this before -- I *did* do useful, good work in therapy in my 30s that helped a lot. But I was super misguided in thinking that was all there was to deal with. Like, I knew back then that my Mom's method of parenting was to gaslight the shit out of us and recruit other family members to help (the less said about the Peach Ice Cream Incident, the better, but fuck you entire family, just fuck you). I discussed it with my therapist at the time. I acknowledged that damn, that is horrific, and we came up with ways to set boundaries with my Mom.

But apparently it's the gift that keep on giving and I have to deal with it again.

But it's hard work, yo.

Yeah, damn it.

Lately I've been delving into just how much I blame myself for my dad's abuse of me. It gets really dark, really fast, up to the point where I realize I wanted my dad to scream at me, just because I was so starved for attention.

I just wanna ignore it all so much.

I just wanna ignore it all so much.

Co-signed SO HARD.

I hug you guys. I wish you could share whatever members of my family that you wanted.

I know I should go to therapy, but I can't. The idea of facing the rest of what I need to deal with terrifies me. I've worked on a lot of stuff, especially since Rob's death, but I know I could do better. Except doing better probably requires a therapist, and the idea of bringing all of my shit into the open for someone else to judge makes me run for the hills.

I have to do work for work; I don't want to do work for this. I fully realize how stupid that sounds, but there it is, in all of its nasty glory.

To those of you who took the leap (even though it's hard), you are much braver than I. I wish I had half of your courage. I'm stuck at "nope, not gonna."

~ma for y'all that are doing the work.

Steph (and Tom, and everyone else), the recent unpleasantness has also dredged up a lot of crap for me that I thought I'd dealt with. I'm sorry you're going through this. (And I join in with the others who are like, "MORE work? So unfair".

In my heart, I am holding each of your hearts carefully, like I held Sammie when she first climbed down out of that big tree to where I could scoop her up and take her home. You are precious. You are loved. You deserve to be cared for. You deserve to have your space and boundaries as you want and need them.

you are much braver than I.

I'm not, though. The only way I got to therapy this time was because I *thought* I was going for something else (a.k.a., 2016 Blows So Hard) and then my psyche bait-and-switched me. I thought I could handle showing up and asking for coping strategies for my crumbling in the face of all the stress 2016 is throwing at me. I didn't know it was going to be Let's Dredge Up The Horror Show Of Your Childhood And How It's Fucking Over Your Life Today. I can't emphasize that enough: I had NO idea this would happen. If I did, I would NEVER have walked through that door.

I have to do work for work; I don't want to do work for this. I fully realize how stupid that sounds, but there it is, in all of its nasty glory.

Nope. That's not stupid at all. I am right there with you. I do *not* want to do this work, because it is ugly and scary and harder than I ever dreamed. But I'm in the middle of it, and stopping now would be like stopping in the middle of bypass surgery -- I'd be way worse off than before I started. So now I have to do the fucking work.

For me, and part of the reason my therapist broke up with me, it's that I don't have the (spoons? not exactly) ability to be broken right now. Going any deeper and working on the deep stuff will break me, and that's a crucial first phase of putting me back together better, I can't be broken right now. Too many people are depending on me.

I'm strong enough to manage myself and be there for them for now, and ideally in a couple years people won't die if/when I fail to show up because I'm crying under the bed.