Dear Bea (an email I’ll never actually send)

Dear Bea,

I feel like I’m doing that thing where I make myself crazy. I’m part scared and anxious, part angry and part just done; I give up.

I feel like I’ve spent this whole year trusting you in fits and starts, small steps and big steps. I’ve been as honest as I could allow myself to be, but of course there were always things I held back, too afraid to say. But now it feels like we reached a point in our relationship where I’m not afraid to say things to you, and I don’t have as much fear that your reaction will be to hate me, be angry with me, leave me.

We’ve spent the year working towards me losing the facade, working towards me being more open and honest with hubby. And I finally got there; I talked to him about things I never dreamed I would have been able to when we were first married. I’ve never felt safer and more trusting of him.

Only now….it seems that the extra trust I gave, being authentic and real with you and hubby has backfired. You left. I emailed you 3 days ago. And you never responded, not even to acknowledge you got it but wanted to talk about it in person. Hubby is so uncomfortable with things being not perfect that he has detached from the situation and I can feel that disconnect he has created. I opened myself up, and I’m alone. He left, you left.

I feel small and frightened and alone. I’m not strong enough to do this on my own. I don’t know what to do now. The teenager is yelling at me; “I told you so, you are so dumb, what were you thinking?! All people ever do is hurt you, disappoint you. You need too much. You want too much from them. No one is ever going to care enough to be what you need. You don’t matter. And you didn’t listen, and now everything is a mess. It’s out of control, everything is ruined. You’re all alone. You can’t do anything right. Let me fix this.” And fixing it means finding the bubble, fighting to be perfect and not paying attention to anything but cleaning, organizing, planning, eating– not eating– whatever I can use to distract, to be perfect. I feel so helpless and lost and all alone, I’m ready to do what the teenager says, whatever it takes to make this feeling go away.

I know you have other clients, and a life. I know things happen. Rationally, logically, I know that you not answering an email doesn’t mean anything. But in my head is a drama of you being angry over something i wrote, you trying to figure out how to send me to another shrink because you are so fed up, you being just done with me and leaving because I’m just too needy and whiny and I don’t work hard enough to get over things and I’m just a drama queen and cry baby. I know those are all feelings, and feelings aren’t fact. But I can’t stop myself from freaking out. And I can’t help feeling a little angry, too. You know, you have to know, how fragile my trust is. You have to know that stepping out of my comfort zone to trust more only makes it more fragile. And you didn’t even bother responding. Even a simple, “I got you email, and want to respond but don’t have time right now. I’ll try to get to it this weekend, or we can talk on Tuesday.”

I know hubby cares, I know if I brought up anything I wanted to talk about he would talk to me. I know if I woke him up when I had a nightmare he would comfort me. But in my head, I feel like he is disgusted with me. Like he doesn’t want me anymore, like I’m damaged and tainted and he can’t stand the sight of me. I feel like he would leave if he could, but he’s too good a person to leave his broken wife.

This is what I get for reaching out and trusting more. It’s the backlash of it all, me freaking out and reading between the lines and finding things that aren’t really there at all. I don’t know. It’s crazy making. So…that’s where I am. In a place where I only want to hide because I can’t deal with these feelings of everyone I trusted hating me. In a place where I’m having flashbacks and nightmares and obsessing over “not my choice”. In a place that doesn’t feel rooted in the present, or very safe. In a place that is on the edge of where the bubble begins, and so ready to jump right back into that bubble of okayness, because I don’t know what else to do.

I have no idea what I’m going to do. If I’m going to email you again, and tell you some of this. If I should just wait and show up on Tuesday. If I should just fall into the bubble of okayness; prove I don’t need anyone, that I can be just fine without trusting you or hubby. If I should not show up at all; that would send a clear message that I’m hurt and mad and don’t need you. I don’t know. I’m lost. The little girl, the teenager and the grown up all want to go different ways. There’s too much in my head, I can’t sort anything out.

~Alice