Today was different. I had what could only be classified as a breakthrough. Part of me was relieved to have it and another part of me wanted to crawl into a hiding spot.

I don’t usually talk during group therapy, I only ever give feedback. I have a lot of different reasons for my lack of motivation to share my own stories:

1. Talking about it puts a label on myself that I have issues when I don’t want that to be true.

2. Talking about it makes it real. If I don’t talk about it, it’s easy for me to pretend that these things don’t effect me as much as others say they do.

3. I don’t want to have to relive the problems I have been shutting out for so long.

4. I don’t want to share in group because they will only give me feedback that I already understand and have known about.

5. It’s hard to explain why I got to a point where I felt that suicide would relieve me of my emotional turmoil.

Despite all these reasons, I talked today. I actually started talking and didn’t stop until we ran out of time. I told them about my dad, my mom, my friends, myself, my struggles. I told them about how I have basically been self-sufficient for two years now and even though I wasn’t a legal adult, I had been pretty damn close to being one for awhile. I told them about my friend joining a gang and then running away to California because he began to hate us. He ran away and we didn’t know where he was for weeks because he didn’t even tell us. I told them about how I know that you are suppose to lose friends your senior year in order to find the true ones, but I had lost three very close friends of mine in the span of three months. I told them about how, whenever I get panic attacks all I can hear is my dad’s voice pounding in my head all the uncertainties I have about myself. I told them about how I had a grudge against my mom because for five years, she did nothing while her daughter tried to reach out multiple times. When I tried to ask for help, when I thought I couldn’t handle it anymore. But she did nothing each time, and now, when I need her least of all is when she starts trying to be a mom. I told them that I no longer needed my mom to be there, I spent so long wishing for her to help that I no longer need it because I taught myself how to help me, without her. I told them about how I had lawyer so long with this illness because I had kept on pretending that it wasn’t as bad as I thought. I was just being weak. I know now that I was wrong for that and I’m paying for it in weekly panic attacks. I even told them about how I had to call 911 for my friend because he was going to kill himself and later that night he told me that if I had called any later he would have either been hurt badly or died. Which brought up more reasons I don’t like talking:

6. Some of the things I have experienced are horrifying and just cause I am traumatized doesn’t mean I want to put that on anyone else.

7. I don’t want their pity or concern. I don’t want them to feel sorry for me or ask me how I am dealing with it. Because I’m not. I’m not dealing with anything.

So I just kept talking. Going from one topic to another. My grandpa would describe it as “vomit if the mouth.” But my counselor would say it was me finally releasing. I don’t feel better or worse about it. I feel nothing. Honestly, I would rather not do it again. I stand by my reasons.

Despite how I feel, my counselor said the next time I show up, I will start because I need to learn to start communicating more often. Maybe it will start helping. But maybe it won’t.