I grew up in a demanding family. Where problems, taboo subjects, fights or grudges were “swept under the rug” (metaphorically speaking). I grew up in a demanding family where it was normal from Monday to Friday to have an exam through my father about what I learned in school and if I had a mistake, to have to study the subject for the rest of the night. The self-demanding and perfectionism that I suffer at 23 years old was formed by that kind of experiences in my childhood and I was able to see them, understand them, embrace them and forgive them thanks to my therapist.
Because we had this habit of never talking about those situations, those words accumulated inside me. They were stored up for several years; I grew up with the ideology that the “normal” people keep all their thoughts, problems, and uncertainties to themselves. One of the most painful examples I remember is when I was in middle school the coordinator called my parents, because a teacher had seen the wounds on my arms. After they finished talking, the coordinator told them that it was best that I not attend classes that day. My parents never talked, never wanted to bring up the subject, never could ask me if there was a reason why I was doing it and there was.
I started therapy because I noticed signs in my lifestyle, mood, and habits that indicated I was getting into depression. When you enter therapy, you may enter with only one problem, but when you’re there, you open up a Pandora’s box. Your therapist helps you see everything “under the rug”. What I thought was normal for many years, she helped me to see that it wasn’t. That my self-demanding and perfectionism didn’t magically appear in my life. For God’s sake, thanks to my therapist I relived a memory that I had blocked out for a decade.
When I was barely two weeks into therapy, she suggested that I needed to start a journal.
“The person I pay is asking me to write down everything I feel in a notebook?”, I remember that comment echoing in my mind as I listened to her proposal.
She explained to me that many times writing down everything we feel in the moment helps to relax the mind from anxieties and decrease your stress. If I needed to write down problems from the past, it would help me process the situation better. And that was it, she didn’t give me any instructions on how to do it. My perfectionism demanded that she needed to tell me if I needed a notebook or a digital platform, if I should write the date, use colors or put different topics on it. Was it one page per day or per week?
The next day I decided everything on the spot. First step: the medium was going to be a small notebook, I chose the yearbook that I designed with my close friends from the university (there were still several pages left over), the reason why I chose it was simple, every time I had to open it I was going to be happy and full of good thoughts when I saw their photos and dedications to me. Step two: the content. I remembered that I had a folder in Pinterest about motivational phrases, self-care, self-improvement, etc. So the time had come to exploit its content, every day I would choose a phrase from that folder that would be ad hoc with my emotional state. In the remaining space I had to write down everything I thought; what I dreamt, what happened in my whole day, what I felt, what I missed and what hurted me. And yes, I was going to put the date every day.
Months have passed and I may still not be able to share my emotions and problems with people, but they don’t stay in this body either, let alone “under the rug”. Journaling has been one of the best gifts I could give myself. Each individual writes down what they need to feel and embrace in words, but most importantly, they write for themselves. And that, my dear, is healing.
We have to normalize going to therapy. Many times we don’t know that we have to heal ourselves or that we had to heal certain wounds that we didn’t even know existed.
