galinioara

so I built the highest walls

and I turned my feelings off

but you came

you came and I fell hard

i blindly rushed in

only to feel the same pain as before

i love you

but sometimes I realize you aren’t worth the pain

i make you most important

while you don’t even notice the pain you cause me

I wish over and over

that you’ll stay

that you’ll need me too

but no matter how many times I wish

you could never love me

the way I love you”

One gently squeezes my hand between both of his palms as he says “squish.” I reciprocate. When he looks like he’s feeling sad or lost, I ask if I can squish him, and he will show me where I can squish him. Sometimes it’s almost like a hug, but most of the time, it’s just a hand or an arm I press between my palms. Then he squishes my hand in return, says “squish,” and moves on. He will come ask for squishes now, when he recognizes that he needs them.

Another boy smiles and sticks his chin out at me, and if he’s really excited, he’ll lean his whole body toward me. The first time he finally won a game at circle time, he got so excited he even ran over and bumped chins with me. He now does it when he sees me outside of school too. I stick out my chin to acknowledge him, and he grins and runs over and I lean down for a chin bump.

Yet another child swings my hand really fast. At a time when another child would be seeking a hug, she stands beside me and holds my hand, and swings it back and forth, with a smile if I’m lucky. The look on her face when I initiate the hand swinging is priceless.

Another one bumps his hip against mine when he walks by in the hallway or on the playground, or when he gets up after I’m done working with him. No eye contact, no words, but he goes out of his way to “crash” into me, and I tell him that it’s good to see him. He now loves to crash into me when I’m least expecting it. He doesn’t want anything, really. Just a bump to say “Hi, I appreciate you’re here.” And when he’s upset and we have to take a break, I’ll bump him, ask if he needs to take a walk, and we just go wander for a bit and discuss whatever’s wrong, and he’s practically glued to my side. Then one more bump before we go back into the room to face the problem.

I verbally express affection. A LOT.

My husband… doesn’t. I don’t know why. For the longest time part of me wondered if it meant he loved me less.

At some point I told him about a thing I had done as a kid. Holding hands, three squeezes means ‘I Love You’.

Suddenly he’s telling me I Love You all the time.

Holding my hand, obviously, but also randomly.

taptaptap

on my hand, my shoulder, my butt, my knee, whatever body part is closest to him, with whatever part of him is closest to me

All the time.

More often than I ever verbally said it.

It’s an ingrained signal now, I can tap three times on whatever part of him, and get three taps back in his sleep. Apparently I do the same.

It’s made a huge difference for us.

it ruined my life. i want to make this very clear. when i was younger and before i got good at boundary settings, it ruined my life. i was so invested in the internal lives of people i still considered “friends” who were using me for endless emotional labor. it completely disregarded that i was also mentally ill and struggling. i was constantly anxious, rarely sleeping, unable to control the actions of not only the other person - but also of myself. i poured hours a day into trying to talk people down from things i couldn’t talk myself down from. wasn’t trained at all. i was triggering myself by talking about certain things, throwing myself into a deeper hole in the hopes i could maybe drag everyone else out.

a lot of these people don’t even talk to me anymore. they found a new therapist and moved on, because they weren’t my friend. they were using me for my advice and time and endless attention. putting myself into their hearts didn’t push all the bad stuff out. it just made me drown in the bad stuff.

and it’s complicated; because i’ve been on both sides of this. desperately needing to just vent, no threat of the police, no professional setting, just me and someone i trust talking. i would fall into bad patches and my family would have to scrape me up. i would spend months in a bad place. needing to be pushed. to be prodded. so how can i say “don’t use your friends as therapists?”

the truth is, there’s a huge difference between leaning on someone versus expecting them to be there for you all the time when you don’t return any of that effort or emotion. i had a “friend” who waited 5 hours until i was home from a loved one’s funeral, and when i said “i’m home”, she just launched into her own problems. i remember sitting on the kitchen floor and sobbing because she literally didn’t even ask if i was okay. she didn’t ask if i was ready. she didn’t even ask anything, she just assumed that i was always there for her, always, and that she didn’t need to be there for me.

and the truth is: i don’t need much. i actually get uncomfortable when my friends thank me a lot. but the difference between a friend and someone you’re treating like a therapist is that friends let friends have their own moments. and i know that we have all had overlapping emergencies. that you know he’s having a really rough time because of his classes but you were just triggered by something you weren’t expecting. but friends are the people who start with “i know it’s a bad time, i just need to vent, are you okay?” not the people who don’t even acknowledge the bad time. not the people who don’t give me the option to say “no, i’m not okay, if it’s an emergency we can talk but i’m in a really bad place and i can’t stand anything else.” i can’t save you while i am also struggling to save myself. friends are the people who maybe, yes, vent - but then give you the option to also share, to have your voice heard. you know that you’ll get a chance. maybe not that day, but soon, if you wanted it.

there is a huge difference between someone asking about my life, genuinely listening and responding, and then talking about their problems, versus someone who basically says “are you gud?? okay here’s my life trauma for you to deal with.” everyone here has been in a conversation where the other person was literally just waiting for you to shut up so they could hear their own voice. that’s what it’s like as a therapist friend, all the time. your life becomes this inconsequential thing to them. peripheral to the help you can give.

and if you’re the therapist friend, it’s hard. do you have any idea how much responsibility i feel, all the time?! the sad thing is yes, i overextended myself and became majorly suicidal because of some of my friend/patients - but i know that if it helped them, just a little, it was worth it. but my personal safety a- mental and physical - shouldn’t be offered at all in the trade.

real therapists, paid-for-it therapists…. they’re not on every hour of the day. they go home and have a home life where their patient isn’t texting them every 18 seconds about a new emergency. that’s because the human spirit can’t survive that. we can’t survive that. and as the therapist friend, it’s hard. we are givers, you know. feel better when helping. 

but learn to set boundaries. i’m so used to the whole therapy thing that i can literally tell when someone is switching from my friend to my patient. i pull out all of my personal information. i put up a bunch of walls. i make their notification different. when i see it’s a message from them, i do a self-check: am i ready for what might be inside? do i have the energy for it? can it wait until i am in a better place? will it ruin my day? 

and learn to say no. be honest. if this isn’t a true emergency, learn to say. actually, no, i don’t want to deal with this. it doesn’t have to be for “a good reason”. it can just be …. that you’re not their therapist. you’re their friend. you saying “no” isn’t being selfish.

but i loved you. i loved you even though it was stupid, and that’s the worst of it. do you know how many times i’ve been asked, “well, what exactly were you expecting?” how many gentle we-told-you-so pat-on-the-back “you should have gotten out sooner” speeches i’ve heard. “what were you thinking” and “why do you let yourself get burned”. 

i knew better. i knew better. i told myself i could do better.

but i fell in love like this-is-forever. i fell in love like best-friend star-struck. every time you smiled at me i felt like i got hit by a truck. for a second i actually thought. for a second when i lied to myself. for a second there i saw us. i knew better but.

you almost say seven but the answer floats in your lungs like rising mud. you shift your shoulders. some part of you is already forming an excuse. that it’s not that bad sometimes. one, two, three on a day that the clouds are out. you’re just complaining about stuff. yesterday you laughed past a brick of a four, does that make the brick come down to a two-point-five.  the solid seven panic attack of last tuesday feels somehow like a little thorn, just a regular day full of a gentle three-point-nine earthquake rocking after yesterday’s close-to-an-eight. see but if tomorrow you have a real bad day, it will make today look simple.

and what if. what if tomorrow it’s a big old red eight-point-nine. like one of those days where sirens are going off in every part of you but you’re stuck behind a glass window watching it all burn down. like one of those days that your skin against the air feels foreign. like too much of everything. like sitting-in-the-shower, like can’t-eat, like the tide isn’t just coming in, it came while you were sleeping and now you’ve gotta learn how to swim. like bounce me against a bullet hole kind of day.

you keep numbers like nine and ten way out of reach. those are for the people who really are suffering. you’ve got no excuse. nine and ten are funeral numbers, for real problems, not yours, no. and sometimes you’re fine. and you’re kind of used to it. and it’s not sad, it’s just numb like a television caught on static. numb like i can’t remember if i care about this. numb like nothing works but i can’t be bothered to fix it. that’s not sad that’s every day stuff. everybody feels like this, right? feels like they’ve been shut off. right.  

maybe five. right in the middle. like not gonna shoot myself but i’m not wasting your time. a nonanswer. like could be worse could be better. like i need help but i don’t want you to worry even though i need someone to worry about me because i can’t worry about myself. maybe five. but what if five is too small. what if five is too big. what if -