My session with my therapist yesterday was pretty deep and revealing to me, even though it was only our second session. We talked about the only two times I've been suicidal.. my senior year of high school and just a few weeks ago. She helped me to see two similarities between them. The first is loosing the trust of someone I looked up too. The second issue is the feeling of disappointing others.
The first time I was suicidal is still extremely painful for me. The first day of my senior year my best friend walked in on my mom having sex with the barn owner's husband. He was one of the FEW men I trusted. It really messed me up, to the point that I quit riding. I still loved my horse VERY much and spent time with him, but for my mom that wasn't enough. Not long after I graduated high school, she sold him. I trusted Ken. In a lot of ways he was like a father to me. The barn and his and his wife's house was my safe place. He and my mom ruined that for me. I've never been angry about any of my traumas but this one. I bottled up the anger inside because I didn't want to be the one to hurt Jerri (ken's wife) and their kids. I will never fully get over loosing my happy place and most of all Greyson. He is the only reason I didn't commit suicide my senior year. Because of my mom's selfish desires, I suffered.
My second happy place became my church. I became extremely close to my youth pastor and actually once I graduated high school I began helping her with the youth group. I turned down a full ride scholarship for several reasons, but one being her. I believed everything she said, her word was gold to me. I still love her very much. However, the past few months, I have seen just how much she hurt and damaged me too. I loved and believed in God, but church was never really about him for me. It was about pleasing Nicole and others in the church. I didn't understand my depression and anxiety back then. My psychiatrist now says I had PTSD even back then, I just never was diagnosed because there wasn't any mental health professionals in my town. So my church was my "therapy", my youth pastor was my therapist. Only she didn't know what she was doing to me. I would tell her about things that had been done to me. She would tell me I needed to give it to God and help others. At camps and special services, she would tell me to go down for prayer. Even if I didn't want too, I did because I didn't want to disappoint her, even in high school. Only prayer wasn't a miracle pill, but she expected it to be. When I would continue to have issues, she would get disappointed in me, saying I gave to God now move on. As if not trusting men and even some women because you were molested multiple times and beaten to the point of broken bones could just be moved past. But I didn't want to disappoint her, so I began hiding my feelings. I began acting like I was okay, like I had done just what she said. Once I finally moved away to a different college I realized the damage that had been done. So I realized I couldn't trust her, which was so very painful. Again, I had lost someone I trusted and it had ruined my faith in God. By feeling like I was disappointing her when I couldn't move on, I began feeling like I was disappointing God.
We made the connections yesterday in therapy. The breaking straw that caused me to actually attempt suicide was feeling like I had disappointed my DBT therapist by moving back in with my parents. My whole life has been about pleasing people. Now knowing that, how do I move past it? This goes all the way back to my childhood. If I disappointed my mom, she didn't love me. If I made her happy, she loved me. How do you retrain yourself from something you've learned your whole life?
A huge realization, but an even bigger mountain to overcome...
