The Night Owl

Today is her first day of therapy. She is so nervous. Although she has been wanting to go for so long now, she doesn’t know exactly what to expect and her mind is creating so many different scenarios, of very unlikely occurrences, like most things always did when she was scared. For example; ‘The therapist laughs at her maniacally when she tries to tell her what’s going on inside her head’. Or; ‘The therapist gets angry with her and yells at her for everything she’s ever done wrong in her life’.

She has never felt quite right. Always felt as if she was putting up a facade, mimicking personalities she created because she had none of her own. Becoming a different character depending on who she was surrounded by. One minute she was as happy as can be and the next she was tormented with despair. She felt all of her friends could see through her disguise and realize there was nothing underneath. She was a fake. She was nothing.

Sitting outside the Therapy building in her car, trying to slow down her heart rate. After several minutes of deep breathing, she puts on her mask and walks inside.

60 minutes pass.

After her first session she is filled with hope. She feels waves of relief. Validation was the one thing she needed more than anything. In just one session her Therapist validated her feelings and emotions for the first time in her life. Such a small thing made such a huge impact. Finally, she knows for sure that she has a disorder and it wasn’t her fault. Now that she is aware of its symptoms she is able to limit them. She’s far from fixed but it was the step she needed to get on the right path.

Sleep never comes easily for her. Her mind is always racing about a million things at once. After several failed attempts at imagining alternative life’s for herself, she finally gives up and sits in the large window sill in her room. Grabbing her worn out journal she sits back and writes. Trying to decipher what traits are her own and what ones she created for the people around her, she makes a list. She tries to make a list of all the things she loves and can’t live without. She thinks through every single one to check for it’s authenticity. Looking down at the list of things she creates a person, herself, and tries to imagine who she is. She stares into the night and spots a beautiful barn owl perched in a tree. She watches it as it searches for food down below. She imagines what it would be like to be an owl. Does an owl know it’s an owl? Right after it hatches, does it really know exactly what they need to do? Why was it so hard for her to know what to do? Why couldn’t it be hard wired into her brain on how to survive?

She wanted to clear her brain of all the nonsense and the chaos and heal her past. She wanted to live her life like an owl lives their lives and do what they know they need to do without the influence of others.

Now that she is aware of her wounds, she is able to heal them. She is not too broken or too damaged, just in recovery and healing. When she has put in the work that it takes, she will wake up one day and know exactly who she is and what she needs to do in her life.