Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves

I had my therapy session today, followed by the weekly grocery shopping trip (wink wink.  Oh, wait, no it was an actual grocery shopping trip!).  I had a whole five hours of sleep last night, so I wasn’t on top of my game.  However, I was feeling upbeat for the first time in a long time.

My therapist is a gem among gems.  She has stuck with me (yes, I know I pay her, but still.  She could have fired me at any time) through mumble mumble years of my bullshit.  She found me a tarot card reader, a naturopath, and a body worker.  She talked to me frankly about medication, natural supplements, and a variety of therapy techniques–including electroshock therapy.

She called me on my shit when I tried to spin her a story.  She pointed out when I was taking refuge in my theories because I couldn’t bear to deal with reality.  She would become impatient when I spun off onto an elaborate tangent that had no bearing on the matter at hand.  She was my rock when I felt like I was drowning.  I am very thankful to have found her at a time when I desperately needed someone to guide me through the abyss.

Anyway, today, for the second session in a row, I talked about the strides I’ve made rather than the problems and issues with which I was struggling.  As with in the last session, today, I focused on the amazing women I have met online through my burgeoning interest in politics, sports, and through my blog, as well as on the amazing women I know in real life.

As to the former, I have met them all within the last year.  My therapist and I were amazed that it has been almost a year since the election.  Well, to be more accurate, a year since Grampy McCain picked the Thrilla from Wasilla as his VP candidate.  I hopped on the intertoobz, found Mudflats, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Some of the other women are FB friends.  Some are real life friends.  They are all strong, beautiful, determined, quirky women who have had shitty childhoods, endured some shitty stuff later in life, and now are ready to say, “Fuck that shit.  I am so much more than that.”

The most valuable part about meeting these women is that I no longer feel alone in my experiences.  I told my therapist (she was in the trenches for the feminist movement) that it must seem like a duh to her, but hearing personal stories from like-minded women has really made me feel as if I am part of something bigger than myself.  It is one thing to hear the stats about women and abuse; it’s another to listen to or read the stories in some detail.

I can write about my father being a narcissist who saw his children as an extension of himself.  I can say how he was such a charming man, women would be swept off their feet by him.  They would gush about how handsome he was, and they wanted to feel the beam of his attention.  What they didn’t realize is that he promptly forgot about them as soon as the conversation was done.  He only charmed them because that was what he did.  I can put this out there and then hear similar stories in return.  I can talk about having a father who didn’t understand the concepts of personal boundaries, and I get affirmations from other women that yes, indeed, their fathers, too.

I can write about a particularly shitty relationship that almost destroyed me, and almost every woman can relate to that.  Part of the depression I suffered stemmed from how isolated I was.  I thought that I was stupid because I let what happened to me (as an adult) happen.  If only I had, I should have know better than to, why didn’t I just?  These questions plagued and demoralized me until I was paralyzed by shame, guilt, and self-recriminations.   Hearing from other women I admire that they had gone through something similar gave me a small measure of comfort.

By the way, it really saddens me the mean, hateful, hurtful things we humans do to each other–especially to the ones we say we love.

These women are of different races, religions, nations, sexual orientations, countries, ages, and backgrounds.  Some are stay-at-home wives/moms; some work outside the home.  Some have office jobs, and some are their own bosses.  As I said, most of them have had shitty childhoods and not so spectacular twenties.  Most have felt like outsiders for most of their lives.  They always knew they were different, even if they couldn’t articulate why they felt that way.

Each one of these women is fucking incredible.  I am deeply touched by how much they enrich my life.  When I see the strength that we as a collective group have, it inspires me to try to replicate a similar group locally.  So, to my sisters out there, thank you all for being role models for me–not because you’re perfect, but because you are warm, wonderfully flawed, beautiful, passionate, intelligent, caring women who are ready to make a difference, damn it.  You have helped me find my voice, and I want you all to add yours to mine so we can collectively rock the world.  Shock and awe, baby, shock and awe.

Back to my therapy session.  Right before the end, my therapist said that there was something different about me–physically.  It was that I was more inhabited in my body and more at ease with myself.  I told her that for the first time in–well, ever, I felt comfortable in my skin.  I still have issues with my body, but I didn’t hate it like I used to.  I feel grounded to the earth instead of up in the air.  I feel–like a real person.

The funny thing is that I have had two women tell me something similar today.  After going through rough patches, they are more at peace with themselves than they have been in a long time.

The thing I always hated when I was deeply depressed was hearing the ‘solutions’ people would dole out.  Go for a walk!  Say positive affirmations!  Call a friend!  Take a bath!  And the worst, “Buck up.  You can do it.”  All this crap pissed me off because it presupposed that there was a simple solution to a very complex problem.  “Fake it until you make it.”  That’s another one I hate.  “No one can love you until you love yourself.”  Well, then it’s pretty fucking hopeless, isn’t it?  They are all bromides meant to soothe without really offering a solution.  Do you want to know the real way to breaking depression?  Well, here it is:

Fuck if I know.  I know the steps I have taken and what I have worked on to reach this point of my life.  I know some of the reasons I feel better about myself.  What I don’t know is how, exactly, the change happened.  You know why?  Because I didn’t make it happen.  It was organic (after years of a lot of fucking hard work).  The steps I took to better myself led to the change, but not in a quantifiable way.

Change happened.  I accept it gratefully.  I am humbled by it, and I am fucking relieved.  The burden that I have been carrying around since I was a little girl has now tumbled off my back, and oh, how much lighter I feel.

For the first time in mumble mumble years, I can see the beginning of the end of my therapy sessions.  If you had asked me even a year ago if I would ever reach this point, I would have laughed bitterly in your face.  What a difference a year makes.  I can’t wait to see what happens next.