Why I stopped journalling this summer
And what I'm learning about my relationship with ruminating
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Hi friend,
It started in June. First, a tectonic shift in our family. Then it felt as though my life changed dramatically—in ways I hadn’t expected and didn’t know how to navigate. Then it was my birthday, which I often struggle with anyway. I started experiencing some new-to-me medical issues. Then I had to let go of the hope that I would have a summery summer. And finally, I got the news that my grandma passed away unexpectedly. She died in her sleep, which was a peaceful thought… but still, she was gone. Each of these things came with their own difficult emotions: sadness, grief, disappointment, loneliness, anxiety, confusion, and even hopelessness. After my grandma died, I felt lost in a sea of it all.
I stopped going to therapy in January of this year, partially for financial reasons but mostly because I needed a break. A break from constantly reflecting on my emotional state and things that felt challenging. I’d gone for three years, and it was important work, especially when I got to the stage of looking at it through the lens of possibly having complex-PTSD (C-PTSD). To have someone simply validate my feelings and experiences was healing enough, some days, especially for Little Cait. But this summer, I got to a point where I wanted some help. I reached out to my old therapist and asked if she was open to connecting for just 1-2 sessions. Thankfully, she said yes—and had an opening later that week.
We met on Zoom and she asked what I was hoping to get out of our time together. I asked if I could simply dump all the things I was struggling with and have her help me sift through it. There was too much—too much change, too much loss, too many big thoughts and feelings. I’d been trying to act like I was fine, but I wasn’t. I didn’t know what to do anymore. She listened and asked questions. Validated me and asked more. I told her everything that had been happening and how I’d been feeling, but also all the questions I had… and the stories I was coming up with to fill in the blanks. When I’d exhausted myself, she looked at me and said:
“Ok, Cait. What are you going to do in order to come back to yourself and your life?”
Right. My life. My life. I wasn’t in it… I was ruminating about it.