Keep going. If I could encourage my past self with anything, it might be a hug and the reassurance that things are going to be ok. But the second would be to keep going. It’s hard work, facing the demons. Even acknowledging there are demons to face.
I remember early in therapy when we walked right up to the core reason I was there: my relationship with my mom. It was an overwhelming experience, having known but never truly acknowledged. Like walking up to a big gray mass, overwhelming and enveloping. Numb not from lack of feeling, but from feeling far too much to handle.
It gets better.
Deciding to end things with my mom was as colossal an effort. Deciding I wouldn’t visit her anymore as I sat mere miles from her house. Hesitating to write it out. Telling her I didn’t want to speak to her again. Sending the message. I passed out and slept for hours.
It gets better.
Over four years into therapy. All the progress. All the awareness. Sitting with my therapist and debating for the nth time whether I could brave the question that had plagued me the entire time: was this real? Was everything that happened, all the things that didn’t, were they truly what they were? I’d been gaslit my entire life. I knew better, but instinctively was terrified she would turn it back on me. Tell me it wasn’t. It was all a fiction, and I had been the problem all along. My eardrums rattling as my nervous system lit itself on fire. The rapid breathing. The eternity it took just to ask. Just to ask.
It gets better.
But it doesn’t get better before it gets worse. Before going back through. Before the long dark nights of the soul, the burning, the reliving.
I don’t begrudge anyone for not wanting to do this. I didn’t start until I was in my mid 30’s. I knew I needed it for a decade before I did it. But man, if I could tell myself what I know now: do it. The sooner the better. Every agonizing moment. Every mistake. Every spiral. Every burning, self-loathing, miserable, sweat-soaked, confused, angry, sad, and lost moment. It really won’t feel like it, and then one day it will all come into view. The work won’t do itself, and it is hard. But it is worth it.
It gets so much better.
This is a special series for Jay’s 40th year. To receive all posts straight to your inbox, be sure to subscribe.
