November 10 R1700 Brooklyn
[excerpt]

In hindsight, I feel very apprehensive about having admitted to Allie that there’s a part of me that feels threatened by getting better. What if it sounds like I shouldn’t be in therapy, like I’m not ready or too resistant to change or not in a position to be helped? I worry that I’ve given her a reason to get rid of me, that I’m a lost cause who has wasted her time. 

I mean, in many respects, I am a lost cause. I want to change but I’m so afraid of it and I don’t feel like I deserve it anyway. (No wonder I identify with Jude.) I think Allie once told me that I do deserve to get better, but what does it mean to deserve anything anyway? Who decides who deserves what? I would argue that the person with the most information is in a position to make that call and I know myself better than anyone else.

At the same time, I don’t want to stop being in therapy. It’s been helpful to me in ways that are hard to measure because it’s been over a long period of time. The support has been helpful but beyond that there are times that the persistent compassion has gotten to me like an earworm that won’t go away. To be honest, I think there’s some relation to Alternate Chris too. I feel like I’ve had a lot of alternate selves, mostly ones that consider being in control a matter of survival, but I have never had a compassionate self that spoke loudly enough for me to hear them. I may never know the full answer but I do know inherently that therapy has played a role in this. That’s positive, isn’t it?

What’s making me anxious is the anticipation of being told that I shouldn’t be in therapy, which she has every right to say. I haven’t exactly been the best patient. I feel like I’ve essentially ended my own therapy because I said too much.