A Hope Dashed

Sometimes, therapy doesn’t go so well. It’s more of an exception than a rule and when it happens, it shakes my foundation. I can’t remember how we got on the topic this last Thursday but I had said that what I felt I needed to help with my issues was that special someone to provide emotional support. My therapist said that even if I had that, it wouldn’t help; that to deal with my issues can only come from within myself. She was insistent that even if I finally had that guy to hold my hand when I’m down or do something sweet to lift me up that I would still have my issues. This dashed one of the few hopes I have.

This completely rocked me and I left therapy very shaken. Since I was five or six, I’ve hoped to have someone in my life who could, for lack of a better phrase, save me. When I was that young, it was to take me away from what my dad was doing and later I hoped for someone to sit next to me when I was receiving chemotherapy for so long and hold my hand. More recently, I’ve been hoping just for a gentle man to tell me, when things are so bleak, that everything was going to be okay. This is a hope I’ve had for nearly forty years and my therapist took it away. She is so certain that having someone special in my life would not help me at all. To be honest, I’m devastated.

I have so few hopes that when one of them is ripped from me, it hurts and it dims what little hope in general I have that I’ll get better. My therapist insists that only I can ‘fix’ myself but I’m not strong enough. I’ve been beat down for so long that I don’t feel I can do this by myself. I can’t do this by myself. I know my issues lie within myself and there is no magic fix nor someone who can say abracadabra and everything’s better. That’s really not what I’m saying I need. I just need that someone for the emotional support, to say that I can do what I need to do. Does any of this make sense?

I’m flustered about this whole thing and it’s not helped my depression. I am doing what I can do get better by taking my medications and going to therapy. I try to acknowledge what I have going for myself but it can get so hard because so often I don’t believe it. Is it so wrong to want emotional support?

My therapist also had to remind me that other than going to work and grocery shopping, I don’t do much to put myself out there thanks to my social anxiety. I didn’t need the reminder, to be honest. I told a friend recently that if I was financially independent I would be a recluse by choice. But therapy should be helping me relax my social anxiety and on the very rare occasion, I have been able to ‘get out there.’ I know it doesn’t happen enough and I know that’s how you meet people.

But still, could she have not dashed my hope of needing a special guy? Maybe I'm just being silly but don't we all need a someone who supports are heart?

Dana