Thankful

As I watch while it feels like parts of the world are crumbling, As I see people struggle, people ending their lives, people trying to make it through, I think “I’m experiencing and witnessing a lot of awful stuff, I could fall apart and nobody would blame me, it’s happened many many times before.” And then I realize that it’s different now. I’m healthier.

I’m grateful for that health and I’m grateful for the doctor who has helped get me there. For over a year she has worked with me. She told me “I will sit with you in the uncomfortable. You won’t scare me away.”

She didn’t have the pop culture references I appreciate but I let it slide because she seemed to have other skills that were helpful. We got to the root of a lot of the suicidal thinking I have been struggling with for the majority of the past four years, and more accurately, most of my life. I went off meds for the first time in a long time and have stayed off them. She helped me deconstruct everything that was going on, taking apart all the Lego bricks of my brain that were built on a faulty structure. There might even be more bricks to be taken apart before the rebuilding happens. But a lot of good has happened.

And then this doctor who’s helped me so much, we broke up with each other. And it was awful. I couldn’t afford to come and I couldn’t get the closure I wanted from her. It left me hurt and angry. But I didn’t tailspin, and that’s because of the work I have done with her. So I am grateful.

Things are still not put back together but sometimes the tearing apart is what’s more important. I know I wish it all could have ended differently, but as we celebrate Thanksgiving it seems like a time to remember we can be grateful for things even if they don’t always work out how we hope, even if we get hurt. And also to acknowledge even though she helped me immensely, I was the one who chose to take apart the bricks, to heal, to do the heavy lifting, and I am still that strong being.