It's Never too Late

I am still enjoying the sessions with my therapist, I didn't spend the whole session crying this time, so I guess that is progress?

She is having me keep a dream journal. I never remember my dreams but she tells me I will start to do so now that she is bringing stuff up, some of the dreams may be 'venting dreams' i.e. letting things go.

The 1st week I was actually not getting rested as I kept waking every hour or so in a panic I had forgotten my dreams.

I have been repeating my trigger word 'Peace' as often as I can think of it. I am a terrible road-rage-aholic and try doing deep breathing now to help. I am trying to think before I speak and not snap at everyone like I normally do.

But I think the thing I have benefited most from is her constantly telling me the things I did not absorb as a child:
I am worthy
The things that happened as a child are not my fault. I was a child.
I was not protected, and that abuse of trust by both my parents, grandparents and family, and later my 1st husband is what has made me so brittle and hard on the outside and so fragile on the inside.

She is breaking through the tough shell and helping me to strengthen that fragile interior.

She explains to me why my Mother is reacting the way she is with her own health issues. She is reinforcing to me that my responsibility is towards my own family here in SA. That if my mom chooses to just give up and stay in bed, to live her life in fear, then that is her choice and I have to honour that choice.

She is teaching me that I am strong. That the things I have been through would have broken so many others. That the fact I was brave enough to pick myself up, start my life over and to create the life I wanted is a testament to my strength.

It is almost as if she is giving me the parenting I never had as a child. It is something I need to get healthy mentally. To balance the hard and the soft.