This is my apology to you all. I started writing for myself several years ago, but I also wanted to maybe bring hope to someone else. If you want to stay in that hopeful place, stop reading this now. Close the window, and keep doing your work. If you choose not to close the window and keep reading, know that you were warned.

If you’ve been following along on my journey, you know that my intention for 2025 was self-compassion. I was beginning to see myself differently. But right now. Right now. I have none. I look in the mirror and I see someone who is hopeless. I see a piece of shit who failed again. Someone who just doesn’t have what it takes. Big surprise. (My therapist says I have a victim mindset right now. So be it.)

I was making so much progress. I wrote my narrative. My therapist read it aloud. I rewrote my narrative. I read it aloud. It was still difficult to read. I still felt like I was choking on words. I wrote letters to myself, myself at different ages. I was trying to understand and have compassion. On October 31st, I wrote about what my life would be like if that one person weren’t still taking up space in my life. My realization was that things wouldn’t be much different. That person came into my life and hurt me because of patterns and trauma that were already there. I realized I needed to heal in those areas. I started writing my bylaws. You know, the things I needed to change. The patterns that came from all the negative garbage in my life.

And then the bomb went off. My therapist is referring me. She thinks I need to see someone who specializes in something else. I’ve contacted countless people. Emails to people that she sent referrals for who had less experience and education, and seemingly no background in trauma. I’ve talked with four different individuals. One seemed okay, but it was $250 out of pocket and online-only. One sounded like she was excited to see the monkeys at the circus… way too peppy and talkative (like my son when he drinks Mountain Dew). One told me she would only work to make my “situation” better, but my “situation” is one that I don’t want to change. She thought it needed to. There is nothing wrong with that “situation.” No exceptions, though. And the last one I talked with was overwhelming. She asked me 15 intrusive questions without taking a breath or letting me answer. I tried to answer, starting with one of the questions I remembered that didn’t feel particularly triggering, but she cut me off and started asking rapid-fire questions again. I told her three times that she was overwhelming me with personal questions I wasn’t ready to answer and that she wasn’t listening. She told me to take a deep breath. By the time the phone call ended, I was hyperventilating with an ugly cry and collapsed into Tim’s arms, angry and upset that I am even in this situation.

The thing is, I don’t feel ready to talk about this stuff with someone else. It took me YEARS to talk about it with my therapist. It took me years to feel like I could trust. So, my options are to see someone else when I don’t feel ready, or to flounder by myself.

I don’t expect anyone to understand why I am choosing to flounder. Ten years ago, I was in and out of hospitals, floundering. I was convinced there was no hope for me. I was convinced there was no one out there who was willing to take on all my problems. I was convinced I would end my life by the age of 40, and not one person would care enough or have the ability to help.

It comes down to safety. My heart is pounding out of my chest all the time. I feel overwhelmed. I can’t articulate what I am thinking and feeling. My jaw is tense and locked. If I make eye contact with someone, I just want to shrink away. I no longer feel safe. I have no one to talk with again. I am alone. And hopping on a computer screen with someone once a week or once a month is terrifying. You know what isn’t terrifying? The worst thing I can think of. The hospital. At least it’s a familiar road. At least I know I’ll be treated poorly. At least I know I’ll be overmedicated. At least I know no one will get close and then walk away.

I understand why my therapist is making the referral, at least partially. She doesn’t feel equipped to handle this issue I haven’t had the words, confidence, or readiness to actually discuss. That’s an ethical problem. I get it. But I don’t understand why we can’t do different work. I have plenty, and those ones don’t feel so daunting. I have to believe I fucked up somewhere. I blamed myself when I knew her marriage had ended. I was so fucking needy. I was reaching out all the time. I was terrified of being hospitalized, but I was trying so hard to keep from self-harming or worse. But I knew it was taking time away from her family. I am sure there is more, that is only what I can name. I am sure, just like many things in my life, I have been annoying, irritating, overwhelming, and overall just been too much. And holy hell, I know my narrative isn’t easy to read. After I read a very watered-down and minimally detailed version at Annie’s House, my therapist told me he felt absolutely no connection to me. Because I am not someone to connect with? Or because I’m not likeable? Or because it was too much to open up to? I’ll never know. I just know when I looked up after reading, the group wasn’t even looking at me. It was as if they didn’t hear anything.

I just don’t want to try to find another therapist. I don’t trust them. I don’t actually believe any of them care enough to put the energy into someone like me. I’m going to change all the names here, but my track record is awful. Diane would turn her chair around, tell me to get over it, talk about her own family, get drunk on days she saw me to forget about me, and sage her office after I left. Janice would also sage her office. She claimed to be an EMDR therapist, but after having real EMDR, I realized I got the budget version of someone who bought stuff off the internet and wanted a paycheck from the really fucked up girl who basically lived in the hospital. The main hospital I went to didn’t even send my therapist to see me unless they were filling out my treatment plan and asking me to sign it. Bev at one of the hospitals I was at convinced me to share my story (again, it was very lacking in any detail) and then informed me she had turned in her two-week notice and would be gone in two days. I went without a therapist for another week until the art therapist decided she could maybe fit me in. I saw her once. Sam at a residential was great. He listened and seemed to genuinely care. And then he left. No warning. No explanation. Theresa, at a residential I was at, after group one day, pulled me into her office and told me that I was the reason she decided she would never be a therapist again. She literally cleaned out her office that night and never came back. I’ve had and tried others. I don’t connect well. Just like the therapist at Annie’s said.

So here’s my apology. I am sorry to lose hope. I am sorry if you lose hope because I have. I am sorry if you had hope for me and I have disappointed you. I am sorry you had to read my ramblings, which aren’t well thought out and may even be hurtful…I am just hoping that getting it out will make me sleep tonight. I am sorry that, unless I make it out of this funk, you won’t get to know where the story goes from here. You won’t know how my story ends.

I am just sorry.