Therapy is work.
It is work you do with the help of somebody else. I remember driving to work one day being very aware of this. How everything I was doing was undoing the "negative work" that was done on me throughout my childhood. There's nothing like realizing you've been trying to climb a hill with people who claim to be there with you, but after some time you see they've tied a ball and chain to your ankle. You now must remove the ball and chain, while they keep trying to put it back on, insisting they are there to help. Now you need to get away from these people. You find a safe place, then you go back to taking the ball and chain off. Throughout that time, you slide down the hill because your confidence is shot, you're in disbelief, you're alone. Before you know it, you're at the foot of the hill again, ball and chain still connected. But you want to get them off. So you continue to work, and work, and work. And society doesn't see this work. It continues to demand other work from you, unaware of the ball and chain. All it can see is the work it wants from you. Why keep working then? Because what else is there to do? If you are to have a life, there is no option but to work. Either that or spend your life putting balls and chains on others, on your spouse, on your children, on your friends, denying your own. You don't want that, so you get back to work. It's fucking hard. Why must I be the one who does this work? Why couldn't somebody else? I'm tired. But something inside pulls me forward.
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