Doing the Inner Work

I stared down at my fingernails, trying to resist the urge to pick at the nail polish before staring back at the woman across from me. "I want to die."

The silence stretched between us as she sat there observing me in all of my inadequecy. She was perfectly dressed, with her hair done nicely in a proper up-do, small heels on her fancy shoes making her tilted legs angled with her ankles crossed appear even more elegant, and then there was her posture: it exuded confidence with her chin up, back straight, and watchful gaze.

I finally broke the silence again, "I want to kill myself."

The woman finally spoke. One word that made me shift even more uncomfortably in my seat. "Why?"

"Because..." my voice sounded squeaky and shallow, almost void of my soul as I thought of the many reasons the world would be better off without me in it. "Everyone would be safer without me."

"There are many people who'd really miss you. Is the pain you'd cause them protecting them or you?"

"Me being here hurts them!" The painful words of truth slipped out.

"How?" came the question from the red glossed lips.

"Because I am simultaneously bad at everything... I can't make anyone happy."

The lady sighed. "It isn't your job to make everyone else happy. Everyone's feelings are their own and we talked about no longer being a people pleaser."

I huffed in frustration. "I am not happy. How can I be happy right now? How can anyone be happy with what I get to live with: the guilt, the shame, the drama?"

"So you want someone to save you?" came the question with the raised eyebrows.

"No... I know that no one is coming to save me. I learned that lesson a long time ago."

The lady in front of me rubbed her forehead... was I giving her a headache? If so? Good! I had a headache almost every time I talked with her as we went round and round about what was expected out of me and trying to boost my confidence in myself, so it was about time that she got a taste of her own medicine.

"So, you want to traumatize those around you by committing suicide?"

"No!" I growled in frustration.

"If you don't have a reason to live for yourself... then live for those who'd be devastated if something happened to you."

My feelings of teenager angst came to the surface as I snarkily responded: "I thought I wasn't supposed to people please any more. Isn't placating others the very reason that I get to live with the guilt that I let myself be beaten into submission, that I allowed my future to be high jacked for someone else to feel better about themselves?"

"Alrighty then." The woman uncrossed her ankles and leaned towards me slightly, startling me with her intensity. "If you kill yourself, you end your future."

"But, I stayed silent again and again... and now have to live with my choices to protect someone else over myself." The tears slipped down my cheek.

"Yes. You have to live with those choices..." She paused and then continued pressing me, "But why did you make them?"

"Because I loved him. Because if I hadn't have spoken the way I did, he wouldn't have been angry enough to slap me. Because I am the problem. I am too much and too spicy and too intense..." I stopped myself before I insulted her by telling her that she was also too intense.

The look on her face as she softly smiled and leaned back again told me that I had met my match. She knew that she was intense and was totally at ease with it. I wished that I could be more like her. She never would've allowed herself to beg for the guy who just back-handed her before storming out of the house to come back inside and not to leave. She would've just watched in silence as he pulled away and not cared if he wrapped his car around a tree in his moment of rage.

She finally asked, "Do you think I am cold and heartless?"

My heart sank. Had she read my thoughts? Did I accidentally say that out loud? I hope the whimper didn't make it into my quiet response, "No."

"Why not?" She asked.

I restarted picking at my nails with renewed vigor. "Because you care enough to talk to me and other people going through the hard times. You take the time out of your day for us and you don't have to."

"But, you find me intense?" She pressed.

"Don't make me answer that." My eyes filled with tears as I made eye contact.

Her face softened slightly as did her voice as she responded, "Being intense is not a bad thing mi amor."

I stifled a sob. Of course she didn't think so. Her life was perfect. Everything I wish my life was: kids, a healthy relationship, a house with a white picket fence, a successful business.

In contrast, my life was a dumpster fire falling apart at the seams. I was Morticia who'd rather die than to see her love emotionally die... only the man I had loved wasn't Gomez. He was the Joker and Mr. Hyde causing the independent, smart woman in me to turn into Harley Quinn. I was insane. But, that was when I still had feelings for him. That ship had sailed. But, I still wanted to be wanted... to be loved... to be cherished... to not be someone's second choice.

"What about the man who loves you, mi amor?"

"There is no man who loves me. I am unlovable. I am discarded. I am nothing." I couldn't hold the sobs back anymore.

"Jesus loved you enough to die for you. That is what we believe." Her quiet reassurance broke me.

I felt a wave of calm wash over me. "But, I can't see Him."

"No, but you aren't talking to someone else right now either mi amor."

Confused, I looked up. The face in the mirror was me. I was both people. My inner child and the future self that I was creating were both... simply... me, myself, and I.

Our life was exactly the way we had imagined it at 7 years old. A bit more complicated of course, but... we didn't need a man to be whole. God took care of that.

We had kids.

We had a house that we worked for.

We started our own career despite the limitations of our disability.

We paid our bills and made goals and followed through on things... other than this wanting to die nonsense of course!

We loved ourselves... and that was how we created the life we have. We loved ourselves even when we hated who we were.

We loved ourselves enough to change into a stronger woman who could still hold the broken inner child who was scared of her own shadow when she felt the pressure grow too high to want to stay alive.

And, the man we needed? He was right there with friends doing His will to catch us when we needed physically lifted up. *smile*

Disclaimer: This is an artistic expression and any semblance to real or fictional people is merely coincidence as I practice my writing style - especially for certain concerned individuals who think I have nothing better to do than write about them and what they did or didn't do (depending on which narrative suits them best in the moment).