Last Session With Ramira Part One

Last Session With Ramira Part One
Laurel

Tuesday afternoon after I left work early, I immediately started heading in the direction of Ramira’s office. She had called first thing that morning to ask me if I would be okay moving our appointment as a very critical client needed to be seen on an emergency basis. I had agreed without hesitation. I was fine. Like really fine, and not the fine people told themselves when they were trying to keep themselves from breaking. After I went to Mason’s building and spoke to Dan on Sunday, I felt better. I now knew that without a doubt I was meant to be with him. Being away from him the last few weeks, I had a few doubt-filled thoughts that maybe I might only be ‘in love’ with Mason, because he loved me back. Maybe the scared woman in me wanted to love him because she knew that he would protect me, but now, I knew that wasn’t the case.

I had protected myself from the person that had hurt me more than anything else ever did. I didn’t need a man to stand in front of me, and keep everything from touching me. I didn’t need anything from anyone. Not anymore. All I had to do now was whatever I wanted, and the only thing I found myself wanting was to be with him. I couldn’t wait to explore all these new feelings with Ramira. I hoped that an hour with her would give me even more clarity. When I got to her building, I bounced inside, eager to get started. Before I could even make it to a chair, she poked her head out of her office.

“Oh, good. You’re here. Come on back,” she instructed me.

I shifted my path a little to go into her office. As soon as I made it inside, I took my place on her couch, while she settled into her chair across from me.

“How are you doing, Laurel? And just so you know, I’m not recording this session today so you can speak freely. I’m aware of what happened on Saturday,” she told me, making my eyes widen a little.

“You are?”
She nodded. “Joey was worried about you.”

“Oh. I didn’t mean to make him worried,” I replied.

“I know. He’s just still trying to understand emotions. Before Madison came home, he was a totally different man, and didn’t really let himself feel anything, so he’s not exactly comfortable with emotions yet. He’s made a lot of progress, but still has a long way to go. He’ll be fine,” she reassured me. “So, how are you doing?”

“I hope so. To be honest, Ramira, I don’t think that I’ve ever felt so clear-headed. I went out shopping yesterday for a few things, and I didn’t panic. Like at all. I didn’t back away when a man came down the aisle I was in. I didn’t flinch when someone stopped to ask me for help. I didn’t freak out when a man stopped beside my car to ask me if he could have the cart. In the past, any of those situations would have caused me to have a panic attack. I’m not saying that those situations didn’t affect me at all. They did, but I was able to handle them a lot better,” I told her.

“How did they affect you?” she pressed gently.

“They made my heart beat faster and my palms got sweaty. When I got in my car, I had to sit there for a moment before I could drive, but it didn’t take me long,” I told her excitedly.

“How do you feel about the lower level of panic?” she asked.

“I love it. When I divorced Carl, I thought that I would be okay. I thought that he would just let me go, and I could heal, but that’s not what happened. I’m now where I should have been when our divorce was finalized. I don’t feel the need to constantly look over my shoulder. I still glance, but I’m not running into things, because I can’t pull my eyes back to the front.”

She tilted her head as she studied my face. “Saturday night, how did you feel?”

I sat back against the back of the couch as I tried to figure out how best to answer that question. I had felt so many things, and they had all been very intense. Ramira mirrored my position on her chair.

“Take your time, Laurel. We aren’t in a rush. I cleared my evening for you,” she said.

“That’s the thing, Ramira. I don’t know how I felt. Not entirely. I had so many different emotions that night. If Maddie hadn’t been with me, I don’t know what would have happened. I froze. All the work that I put into learning how to protect myself, and I froze. I was still afraid of him, and I let that emotion affect me. Maddie helped me so much.”

Ramira nodded understandingly. “You may have frozen, Laurel, but you still did it. You didn’t let your fear keep you down. You pushed through it and that is why you’re here. Did Madison help? Yes. Would it have been harder without her being there? Yes. But the fact remains that you still did your best, and your best was more than enough. The more you try to compare yourself to someone else, the more you're going to fail. You are not in competition with anyone else. You do not need to explain anything to anyone. You do not have to keep blaming yourself for freezing. When you go through something as traumatic as an abusive marriage, there are going to be lingering issues.

They are going to linger for years. They may linger for the rest of your life, but the important thing about it is understanding how you feel, accepting that you can’t change how you feel at any given moment, and keeping doing the work that you need to do to make sure that you live the best life you can. A life that you get to choose. No one else is going to be able to tell you what to do anymore. No one is going to get to make you feel any type of way. That time of your life is over. You have taken the first step in making sure that you are in control. Now, you have to let yourself be in control without worrying about how others feel about it. They are not you. They don’t feel things the same way you do, and nobody is wrong for that.

It’s just a part of being human. You have already done so much work, and you have laid the groundwork that you will use for the rest of your life, but it is your choice to do so. The question you should be asking is ‘what do I want to do now?’ and not “what if that hadn’t happened?’ The thing that is so dangerous about the what if question is that it doesn’t change anything. You can’t go back into the past and change anything. You can only determine your actions moving forward.”

“Hmmm, but isn’t part of making choices analyzing things that happened in the past?” I asked, making her lips lift up a little.

“Yes, but analyzing is very different from second guessing yourself. Analyzing is not making yourself feel bad over decisions that you made in a highly tense situation based on someone else’s choices. Second guessing yourself will lead you to continuing to second guessing yourself, and will make you not trust yourself in the future. Analyzing your choices will help you understand why you made those decisions. It helps you figure out if that was the right choice at that moment for that specific situation. You will be able to decide for yourself if that is a decision that you would make again if that particular situation or one like it were to arise again. If you decide that you wouldn’t make it again, you can make a different choice. Does that make sense?” she asked me.

I nodded as I clasped my hands in my lap. “It makes a lot of sense. But I have a question. What’s the difference between second guessing yourself and overanalyzing a decision you made?”

“There really isn’t any. They both will lead you to obsessively thinking about the same thing. What did you do wrong at that moment? And the answer will usually be the same for both overanalyzing and second guessing yourself. Everything. That is what your brain will tell you. It will convince you that you couldn't have possibly made any other choice, because you’re not good enough. Both overanalyzing a situation and second guessing yourself stem from not being at peace with yourself,” Ramira said very matter of factly.

“So how do you prevent yourself from doing it?”

“You do exactly what you’re doing. You work through your emotions and situations with someone until you can do it on your own.”

I tilted my head as I thought about what she said before meeting her eyes. “I hated him, Ramira. I hated him more than I had ever hated anyone or anything before…”