Fix You

When you try your best, but you don’t succeed
When you get what you want, but not what you need
When you feel so tired, but you can’t sleep
Stuck in reverse

And the tears come streaming down your face
When you lose something you can’t replace
When you love someone, but it goes to waste
Could it be worse?

Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you

~Coldplay

I had my second therapy appointment, this evening. I talked about something I’d heard on a podcast, this past week. The person on the podcast said that most people with PTSD don’t have it just because somebody hurt them. We all get hurt. It happens because they encountered someone who wanted to hurt them. That had hit me hard, because for me, that spoke volumes. I told the therapist an example would be my mom. As far back as I can remember, she could be so kind and generous and thoughtful, but as quickly as if a switch was flipped, her eyes would completely change. She would look at me and she hated me. I never understood why or knew when it would happen. I didn’t understand there was nothing I could’ve done to prevent or change it, either. I tried so hard to say and do and act everything I believed would “bring her back”. When that failed to work, I had no doubt it was because I had failed. Something was wrong with me. I was bad.

He asked me what music young me listened to, and what she liked to wear. I described myself as having flare jeans with Doc Martin boots on, and baby blue hair clips in my hair. The Backstreet Boys or N’Sync would’ve been playing their songs on my stereo. Then, he asked me what would I say to that girl if she walked into the room with me now, with her baby blue hair clips and her little Doc Martin boots on… Tears instantly stung in my eyes. I could see that young girl. I knew what she was thinking. What she was feeling. I knew all her secrets. I knew every single thing about her. I knew exactly what she needed. She needed to know that her nose isn’t too big. That her hair is beautiful, and I’d show her how to work with her curls rather than desperately trying to brush them out. She needed to be wrapped in a hug and told I love you until it was no longer a shock to get these things from someone who meant it. Maybe even she would get annoyed with me for constantly reminding her of them.

The therapist and I discussed all this and more, until our hour had passed. Afterward, I was standing in my kitchen, making another cup of my vanilla cappuccino, when a thought suddenly formed and it washed over me in such a way, I was rocked by the profoundness in it.

What if future me, 20 or so years from now, is sitting on a couch with tears streaming down her face because she’s thinking about all the things she wishes present me could know about herself? Things present me so needs to hear and really believe.

And then I considered, what does present me need?

And then, I sat down, because all I knew was that I needed to write these thoughts. I’m not yet sure the answers to my own questions here. However, the simple fact that I’m asking them of myself, for myself, is in itself a huge deal. Perhaps present me truly doesn’t understand what exactly it is she needs right now. If future me loves present me as much as present me loves past me, though, I’m already finding something that matters a whole lot to me. And, unexpectedly, I’m even giving it to myself in this moment.