A while ago I said that I was just happy and that I didn’t need to process anything for a long time. I guess that span is over. I’m getting good stuff out of the processing though. Don’t read the cut tag stuff if you are likely to scoff at my woo. I don’t want to hear it.

So the therapist I’m seeing works pretty heavily with EMDR and hypnotherapy, both of which I’m quietly pretty optimistic about. The last couple of sessions we have been focusing on Francesca’s death. Yesterday we did hypnotherapy and it was very interesting. For the first part of the exercise I was supposed to be looking in a mirror at myself and finding out what I saw. (Ok, this was more complex and involved but I’m giving you the readers digest version.) I couldn’t see me. I kept seeing scenes from books, hearing songs, seeing clips from movies, pretty much anything vaguely media influenced I could come up with. I’ve never had that experience before. Then we moved on to where I was supposed to find Francesca and talk to her. It was really amazing. On one hand I don’t feel “surprised” by any of what she told me, but it was still jarring, if that makes sense. She told me that I can’t save anyone else and I need to get over myself believing that I can. She told me that her fucking up and ultimately failing at life (because overdosing on heroin whether accidental or on purpose can be seen as failing pretty easily) is not about me. She just couldn’t deal with all of the stuff that was going on for her and there was nothing I could have done about that. She told me that I can only be responsible for me and that if I try to assume responsibility for other people I will stop having enough strength to take care of myself. So on one hand none of this is earth shattering and new, on the other hand it felt more true at the core of myself than it usually does. I felt more at peace with the fact that I can’t fix people. It was really good.

I came out crying but in a good way. I’m really interested in seeing what happens with Traci and then with the baby.

It is feeling more real and present and scary to think about the miscarriage–like I am letting myself really feel everything about that. I don’t feel like I have all that much experience with feeling grief like this immediately. It’s intense.

Noah and I are also doing a lot of talking about our relationship. The conversations are not all exactly cheerful but they are reminding me more and more about why I married him. He can talk about the hard stuff. He’s not shutting down. He’s listening to hard stuff and saying hard stuff. I’m really proud of him. I believe that as I get better at sticking up for myself he will get better at not doing the things that hurt me. He doesn’t ever hurt me on purpose. Last night he got to talk really harshly about some of his truth and I think it was good for him and good for me. I’m not exactly an innocent party here. I’m really glad that I get to keep him.