There were times when I thought I was two people. One night, I might feel like a four-year-old-child, alone and desperate; the next day, I was a graduated women, full of strength and emotion.
I remember a time I was sitting on the floor of my bathroom. I was compelled to get a piece of paper and write, like a kid would. I didn’t give in to the feeling but it was unnerving to me. I was seeing this really bad therapist at the time and later told him about the experience telling him I feared I was two people. He said, “That only happens in the movies.”
WTF!
I fired that therapist. He was also the guy that told me to stay in my abusive 18-year marriage because Christians were not supposed to get divorced.
The right therapist matters extensively. The very care of your soul is in their hands. If they don’t give you answers that makes sense to the core of your being, find a new one.
I’ve been with my current therapist for over 15 years. When I came to him with this same scenario (different year), his reply was, “You have a memory that needs to come out.” You see, I wasn’t two people but it felt like I was when my memory was trying to surface. The fog of active dissociation would envelope me. I felt lost, afraid, and it seemed like I was splitting into another person.
Sometimes getting a piece of paper and writing in those moments helped but I needed direction to get through these times.
Anger management only works to manager anger. What we need to manage is the expulsion of the past. Get it out of you! It keeps you sick. Every time I heeded the advice of my counselor, sat down and worked through whatever sliver of yesterday was working itself out of my being, the desire to run dissipated.
I no longer felt like I was two people in that moment. Just a very sad one working through yet another horrific spot that had showed itself.
As I’ve struggled through recovering this lost territory in my being, it helps me to know that my abusers did not live a free life. They were false teachers to me. Being my rule makers, they camouflaged their lies with their distorted truth, making it difficult to catch the error of their ways because it left me in great confusion.
I am no longer confused nor do I feel like I am two people battling to survive each other. I am just Jodie now.
The bible has taught me a lot. One of those things it taught me was to see deception and call it out for what it is. I tore down my parents’ shield of religion and shut down its mocking voice.
I’m not being mean, it is just the truth. I know with everything in me that is God, without a full confession with details proving their ownership, they’re not sorry. I do not have to stand with them nor should I.
With that revelatory fact, I have so much more time to be free and find true meaning. I look at my future and smile.