NJM17: For My Therapist in These Foolish Things

I’m still at the office. It’s 4:45 and I’m wiped. Figured I’d write my entry now because I have my virtual therapy tonight.

I was texting with [Athena] a little while ago and she asked me how I’m doing.

It’s funny. I told her that I was trying to remember how awful chemotherapy felt and I really couldn’t! I mean, yeah, I remember that I felt like shit but told myself over and over that I was going to make it through. In fact, I told myself that I had to make it through, but I can’t really recall that feeling of chemo yuck. I know what it is and I can describe it verbally, but I can’t get my brain to conjure up just how gross chemotherapy is.

I have figured out that my brain does this thing with trauma: it forgets!

I’m pretty sure that’s a very basic instinctual thing in order to survive, but I want to do more than survive, you know?

I don’t want to spend the rest of my life jumping from trauma to trauma. I don’t think that’s how it’s supposed to work. I have to learn how to process some things that have happened over the last few years. Things like:

• The breakup of two engagements
• My this-close-to-a-stroke carotid artery dissection
• The mugging/assault next to my apartment while walking my dog
• Covid. I mean, duh
• Cancer. I mean, DUHHHH!

I don’t want my brain to push all of this stuff back into the deep recesses of my mind where they fester. In fact, I truly think that’s how cancer happened - I held things inside until the blackness created a tumor.

How do I get this out? I mean, yes, I journal a lot. I work out. I think I do the things I’m supposed to do, but I also feel like I’m missing something in the healing process.

This is a job for my therapist.

Stay tuned!
GS