Thinking Twice

Last week I made the mistake of texting a man. More specifically, I messaged a guy who I had gone on a date with when I visited Boston several months ago at the end of summer. I liked several things about him: his intelligence, considerateness, and critiques of capitalism. When I got back to DC though at the end of August, he said he didn’t want to try long-distance and I also sensed a gap in our emotional maturity, though I also wondered if we could have seen each other more if I had been in the Boston area for longer. When I texted him last week though, I learned that he wasn’t physically attracted to me because of my femininity.

When I learned about his femmephobia, I felt a sense of shame rush over me and my body tighten up in self-disgust.

Bleeding Purple

Several nights ago I had a dream in which one of my former professors from undergrad told me that she had started seeing my old therapist, L. When I interacted with this professor in real life several years ago, I could sense that she possessed unaddressed mental health issues. So when she told me in the dream about seeing my former therapist L, I felt happy for her, though a bit confused that we spoke about this topic while standing in one of the large, open bathrooms of my childhood home. The dream then shifted to me standing alone in an empty hallway with blue carpeting. A single showerhead jutted out of the wall, and I washed my blonde hair and saw it turn purple. As water continued to pour onto my scalp, purple hair dye ran through my fingers, the original black and the newer blonde strands nowhere in sight.

When I woke up, I knew right away that my former professor represented my mother.

I’m Real

The other day one of my best friends found out that if you google my full name and the word “blog,” this blog shows up as the first search result. When she messaged me this, I freaked out a little bit. Though I feel confident and secure in myself and in what I share on this blog, I still got shaken up by the notion of someone within my “professional” circle stumbling upon these posts especially my posts that involve strikethroughs and mentions of railings, anyway.

When I sat down and started to process my slight fear, I recognized that I felt concerned about people judging my competencies as an academic based on this blog.

Celebrating Three Years of Therapy

Drugs, food, men, shopping. I could have used any one of these to cope with the grief, racism, and remnants of trauma I experienced over the past year. I dabbled in all of them minus drugs – restricted calories for a few days, developed an intense crush or two, bought more books from Barnes and Noble and short shorts from Forever 21 than I should have – but I knew for long-term psychological stability, I should go back to disclosing my most shameful secrets to a paid professional. In all seriousness, creating and cultivating a relationship with the fifth therapist in my lifetime has been a wonderful experience, despite some necessary difficulties.

For every therapist who has helped me, at least one other has hurt my heart.