Tag: Therapy

Then and Now.

I probably have typed about this in the few blogs I wrote before, but never finished. Fair warning, be prepared to read a little more of this in other blogs if they ever get posted. So far it’s the only thing that comes to my mind when I try to sit down to blog, so it’s something that needs to get out and hopefully after I can blog about other things. I feel like a broken record sometimes. I blog a lot about healing and my journey, it’s all I know right now. It is currently what’s going on in my life. Then and now. I wouldn’t quite call this a drunk thoughts blog, but I did have a good chug of some strawberry sake. Just a bit to loosen up and be not so in my head about sharing this. I actually find it hard to share this side of me because it feels super and very vulnerable of me. Maybe a part of me feels embarrassed, maybe because it still gets me in my feels or that I haven’t yet fully processed it. It’s hard for me to express because I simply do not know where I’m quite at with it all. Whatever it is, here I try to go.

These summer months, I have really compared my current self to my 2023 self. If I could describe myself this summer it would be: confident, strong, happy, healing, thriving, joyful, sober, living life to the fullest, a normal person. If I were to describe summer Sally 2023 it would be: sad, but grateful, stressed, alcohol driven, burnt out, lost, fun, goal driven, and hurt. What two very different and confusing versions of me.

A word that best described me then is lost. A word that best describes me now is healing, but of course I would not be who I am today if it wasn’t for that lost version of me. Looking back I’m actually very grateful for that part of my life (not the problems, but the lessons) and very proud of how I managed, even though I was very hurt. I sat with myself every day and I listened to my cries, I listened to my thoughts, I felt the hurt. I sat with every emotion and let them take their turn. I sat with all my doubts and gave them the time they needed. I sat there and cried out every tear in my body almost every night until there was nothing left. Some people might think it’s pretty pathetic, but it was what I needed to do for me. That was my way of trying to comfort myself. I gave myself that safe space. Now, I still have that safe space, but it’s more for the appreciation of my happiness, celebration of small steps on my healing and the new self love that I have for myself. I won’t say I’m completely on the other side, but it’s definitely a positive path.

I did something that I never thought or saw myself doing and that was to stop engaging and going silent. I let go of any hope and expectation, I let go completely. That’s such a hard thing to do. To let things go free and to let things come to or go from you. I ignored and pushed everything away as much as I could until I realized that it was something that was trying to come to me. I really crawled into my own little shell and if you weren’t someone I saw in my daily life, I unfortunately didn’t reach out to or interacted with for a bit. My social battery was fighting so hard, but my emotional side won. I’m a person who tries to act fine when I’m not, but in reality my emotions literally leak out of my pores and you can tell how I am through my body language and facial expressions. I pulled away for a bit so people didn’t have to see that side of me, ask me anything and I didn’t have to keep pretending. I’m sorry to my friends and family for that and I’m also very thankful that everyone understood that I needed some space. I put myself first and really focused on nothing, but myself and moving forward. One positive that did come out of it was my decision on schooling. Now, because of then, I still am continuing my education and I feel more comfortable with being truly vulnerable in front of others even if I feel stupid. It is not a burden. Now, I can thank the ‘then me’ and comfort any part of her that I still have left with the ‘now me’.

One thing that I learned from this and in my therapy sessions are to acknowledge all these different parts of me, listen to what they need to say, validate them and thank them. Practicing this has helped build a better relationship within myself with myself. Practicing this has allowed to me forgive myself, love all the different parts of myself, remember my worth, remember what I deserve, growth, healing, forgiving others and most importantly not to hurt others because of my own hurt. One day, I’ll be at the end with the rainbows and unicorns or in my case, a room filled with anything and everything Hello Kitty.

This was really building up in my head and I tried to avoid blogging more on it, but I guess I still have a lot to say. If you are still reading this, thank you. Sending lots of love out. Then and Now. ♡

Biggest Challenges of 2020: Therapy.

There’s still this stigma around therapy and counseling, it has gotten a lot better recently, but it’s still very much there. The more we talk about mental health and getting help this stigma around it will only get better. I don’t have any mental health relating problems, but this year has really shown to me the full effect of traumas that I have experienced or dealt with. Hi, I’m Sally and my life is pretty crazy.

THERAPY.
2020 is the year where the unimaginable happened, others and myself were out of work, everything that was a public event was no longer being held or hosted, and places that were non-essential were being shutdown. At the beginning, we really only had time to sit around and focus on ourselves. Well, I realized then that I had a little too much that I had to focus on. Things that I never realized about myself was starting to come to light. I tried to push it away like most because my problems were never anything seriously bad. Well as things started to just sit there, I ignored it. The more I ignored it, it started to subconsciously make its way into my life and affected my dreams how I was feeling for days at a time. I felt lost and like I wasn’t doing enough. The same night that I looked for a therapist, I told my best friend “Everything in my life is going great, I have no complaints, but personally, myself do not feel great at all.” We drank and I had drunk a lot, at 4 AM I was emailing a couple of different therapist. Drunk Sally said, “bitch you need help, I am going to get you help.” I didn’t remember any of it until I got a phone call from one of the centers that I emailed the next day.

Sober me thought I was just being dramatic and couldn’t believe that I had gone as far as emailing. I thought that was just crazy of me to do. Me? I don’t need help, my problems aren’t even that important, but I spoke to my friends about it and they all congratulated me instead. It wasn’t the reaction that I expected at all, but it was their support that pushed me to take the steps to look further into the therapy. It took me about a month to finally set up my first session, but I did it.

You never know how much you actually deal with until you start talking in these sessions. Without getting into detail of my own life’s work, let’s just say what I thought was normal to me started to appear a little crazy and unbelievable when saying it all out loud to a stranger. Even if my traumas aren’t as intense as others, they were still my traumas and why should I think of them or myself as any less? I can say that me, personally, am caught up to everything else in my life or pretty close to it. I have learned a lot about myself through my sessions and I have accepted and forgave parts of myself that I didn’t know needed. I’m better at seeing things for what it really is and not how I want them to seem. It’s been eye opening and I’m not so stuck anymore.

If you have been thinking about therapy, I 100% support that decision. It has helped me so much already and I’ve only gone for 2 months. Makes those calls, write those emails, because you are just as important. No matter how small your problem or issue is, you are just as important. There is nothing bad about seeking help for yourself. Do it for yourself.

SALLY ♡ T

“My needs are just as important. It’s okay to say no.”

-A Daily Self Reminder

Reach Out, You Can Do It.

You can do whatever you put your mind into, but you can also limit yourself the same way. Just always remember, it’s all you, it’s all up to you.
We all have our bad days or moments where it gets to the point of needing help and think it’s bad to reach out for that help. Let’s end that stigma. Let’s stop making ourselves and others feel weak for even thinking they need help. It’s a good thing to realize when you need help. Recognizing that and accepting is already a big step, but then you have the reaching out part. Where ever you are reaching out to could be a friend, a therapist or counselor, a help hotline, etc. IT’S OKAY! IT’S PERFECTLY FINE! YAS, GO YOU! DON’T STOP! It’s a very normal thing to do, we aren’t wired to do everything by ourselves. Get the help that you deserve. Just know you aren’t alone and you will have the support from others whenever it starts to feel scary.

I’ve thought about this for a long time, but I decided to tackle it by myself instead. Then I would reach out to my friends and kept it at that for so long after. They helped me get to where I am today. My love and support group made sure I knew seeking for extra help was normal and a really good step. They actually said they were proud of me and hearing that makes me so emotional, but in a good way. Especially, with how I’ve been feeling lately. So here I am, celebrating myself for taking the step. I am reaching out. I can do it and I know you can do it. Take care of yourself, you matter the most.

SALLY ♡ T