Last Thursday, I had my weekly therapy session. I have been in and out of therapy many times, for varying reasons: parents' divorce; sexuality; suicide of a teenage friend; stress; etc.
The purpose of my sessions is to figure out those patterns in my behavior ("schemas") that are self-perpretuating and adverse to my happiness. Sometimes, the session involves the use of imagery to pinpoint a feeling or sensation and understand it better.
During my session, the image that came to mind on my feeling lonely was that of me, as a child, sitting at my desk, doing my homework assiduously. My mother was in her room, watching TV, my brother downstairs playing around and avoiding his duties and my sister in her room in her crib, asleep. I sat there, practicing my penmanship, to get it perfect. Writing, erasing, re-writing, erasing. It had to be perfect. I was alone and felt the void. The void that continues to this day. I am searching to fill that void by doing what is expected of me by my parents, my superiors and even the most unimportant people in my life. Then... and now.
The name of the schema is subjugation: an inordinate need to please others while sacrificing oneself.
As a child, all I can remember is trying to always make those around me happy and to be pleased with me. So now, my imagery shows precisely that, my desire to please my parents by being the dutiful son that did his homework and was responsible, while just wanting to be a kid. I feel like I have been an adult since I was 6 or 7. That's a tall order.
I'm rambling.
A.B.
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