The value in the struggle of therapy.
That is perhaps the first struggle of any type of psychotherapy or deep internal work; the anxiety and fear. It is confronting to walk into a room knowing I am going to be asked to face up to my true self and explore my deepest reality. Sure I could hide behind the masks I have been crafting for years, but that would negate the reason for being there in the first place. Instead I have learned to see the anxiety for what it is; a positive. It is a sign that what I am doing means something to me, and is important. If I didn't have a sense of anxiety before being in a situation that evokes such powerful feelings of vulnerability and pain, I would say either the walls I have up are so thick I have even myself fooled, or I have somehow become so wise and content that I have nothing internal worth working through. Thankfully, I am years beyond my protective layer being thick enough to fool myself, but I am also many lifetimes away from having nothing internal I can do to improve my wellbeing.
A journey of finding peace in hospital.
Alone in my room, I look at my list of things to do each day. I tick off the things I have done, fill in my food diary, and decide study and my training diary can wait until tomorrow when I am not so tired. Curling up in bed, I am lonely, but that's okay. I am in the process of learning to feel safe in my own company; to love myself through all the struggles I have, and to not fight back against the waves of emotion that come and go. Yes I am living in a psychiatric hospital, but that is okay. I am where I need to be to feel safe enough to explore where I am at in life. I have the support and tools available to make the difficult task of completely opening myself up and facing my true self possible. I sit with my loneliness, recognising that what I am doing is hard, and that although the pattern I had gotten into of denying my feelings seemed easier in the short term, over time the denial will lead me away from who I am.
