Frustration...

Another night where I am just going to write.  I had another therapy appointment.  Like every other appointment, I looked forward to my session for most of the week especially since I had a tougher couple of weeks but when I got into her office I felt all of my defenses go up.  Suddenly I was like, "I don't want to be here.  I want to go home."  Of course, I didn't go home.  I just started talking, in much the same way that I'm writing right now.   We discussed my new fears of looking at my personality traits inherent in me that had nothing to do with my abuse: like the fact that every time I'm anxious, I react with anger first.  It's something I've been doing for a super long time.  I'm sure even my parents remember me doing that when I was child but this isn't a quality that I'm proud to have.   Reacting initially with anger instead of the anxiety always gets a far more negative response from those around me.  In many ways, the topic becomes combative and things escalate to a full blown fight.   It's sort of horrible.

There's also that whole competitive thing that I have about me.  Although, it's gotten so much better in the past couple of years and I've made enormous strides there without even trying it's still a flaw of my personality.  Seriously, I've been competitive with super close friends.  It was a main reason my sister and I didn't get along for so many years.  I spent a good portion of my life feeling jealous and bitter toward her.  I've done it Jamie and Katie as well.  I'm not proud of it and I don't know why I do it but it's something I've done for as long as I can remember.   I get that it could be that I see what is amazing and talented and gorgeous about the girls around me and I get super envious because I can't see my own.  Still, that's no excuse for the way I've treated each of them in past years.  I'm surprised any of them, my sister included, still want anything to do with me quite honestly.  It's a horrible flaw and I hate it.  I don't know where it comes from.

The wise woman and I spent a good amount of time addressing the basic fear that I'm reluctant to look at these types of negative personality traits in myself because I'm afraid it's going to negate the abuse that I went through.  That it was those flaws, these absurd and awful characteristics within me that caused me to abused.  If I wasn't so a, b, or c then maybe he wouldn't have done this or that.  If I wasn't so strong-willed and caustic at times maybe he wouldn't have had the desire to manipulate and overpower me.   Maybe if I hadn't dressed like that or made that statement, he wouldn't have thought I "wanted it."  Ever the wise one, my therapist wanted to know what I felt so compelled to blame myself for his actions.   We discussed how a lot of the hope that I could go back and change things was my way of maintaining some semblance of control over a situation where I actually had very little control.  I can't accept the fact that there was nothing I could do at least not emotionally anyway.  And clearly, I can't let it go and just admit that I was victimized.

So I don't know... it left me with a whole lot to think about.  I think I need to let it settle further before any of it makes sense.   The whole thing is so frustrating.  I don't want to think about this anymore.  I don't want to be all bent out of shape all the time.  I don't want him to control me in this way anymore but I know that the only way it will go away is for me to accept what happened.  I can't accept and I won't accept it.  I won't accept that I was powerless.  Admitting that, fully accepting that means that it could happen again and I won't ever let it happen again.  It can't. I can't do it again...