Session Eleven
Is Healing The Same As Pretending?
You’re going to question it, you know.
Question yourself.
I think for the rest of your life, you’ll always have doubts to a certain degree. Am I doing this right? Should I be here? Is this what I want?
I used to take photos of the rain.
For a while, it was my entire portfolio: raindrops, puddles, grey clouds, stormy skies.
It never bothered me before.
Until now.
Why is everything so…
Sad? Underwhelming?
Dull.
Stacy told me that the world is only as vibrant as your mind. And I said, “Can you believe I’ve lived in black and white for so long?”
She nodded. “Monochrome can feel like color to those who don’t know anything different.”
And then…
There was blue.
Like a little floating orb, disrupting the peace and quiet of my grainy film – Blu, appeared.
I clung on to the only color I’d ever seen, morphed into every shade of blue it could possibly become.
She. The orb was a she.
And that orb, unknowingly, was me.
Where did you come from? How did you get here?
But how many times could I explain away the grief, the self-hate, the insecurities? How many times could I assign meaning to a feeling, throw it into a ball and cast it into the sky?
All my photos were of rainy days.
Because I was his fucking rain.
And he was my sun.
***
I have been every version of every girl.
The sad one.
The happy one.
The drunk. The partier.
The cool girl. The shy girl. The bold girl. The flirt. The fuck.
But I have never been the girl you take home. Never been the girl to make you soup on a cold day in October. Never rubbed your back when you cried, because I cried about the same things. And then I hurt myself.
But I was arrogant, how could you tell?
I would smile, and laugh, and see? She’s fine!
I wore baggy clothes and high-waisted bikinis, starved myself on pool days and fingered my throat before dates.
‘God, you look great’!
Thanks, I hate myself.
Did that orb come to kill me? Or was it trying to tell me something? Because waking up every day and avoiding the mirror was not a way to live. I was a different person to everyone I’d ever known, and simultaneously –
I detested every single version of me to exist.
It was no wonder why I questioned Cole’s interest in me.
What shade of blue did he see?
***
“Can I ask you a question, Beatrice?” Stacy.
“Finally,” I’d responded, two days after Cole and I fucked. She told me not to phrase it like that. It’s harsh, it taints what you two shared.
But I wasn’t certain we shared anything at all. “Is it about us fucking?”
I could see her flinch, and I suppressed the urge to smile. “Why the hell am I like this, Doc?”
She ignored that, asking, “Is healing the same as pretending?”
I stared at her.
Then, “What do you mean?”
She leaned back. “I’m asking you the difference.”
“Well, I could take out a dictionary and compare the two words for you,” I scoffed, sifting through viable answers in my head.
“Sarcasm,” she noted. “Deflection.”
I swallowed.
“What does healing mean to you?” She asked.
I picked the skin around my nail, eyeing the ripped cuticles. “Not…” I whispered, “hurting myself.”
“And why do you hurt yourself?”
Because I’m ugly. Because I’m fat. Because I could always be skinnier. Because I could always be nicer, kinder, happier – laughing, laugh more! Why are you always SO. DAMN. BLUE???????
Instead, I shrugged. “It helps the pain.”
Stacy eyed me for a moment, like she was trying to figure something out.
That terrified me.
She laced her fingers together, and said, “A few years ago we had a session. You told me that the best part of that day was that something inside of you died.”
A part of me died.
A part of me died.
I bit my lip, turning towards the window. Tears welled in my waterline.
I remember her.
The girl sitting in that chair. Saying those words. Believing for the first time, it – he – was finally over.
Where did you go?
And why are you back?
“I don’t think she ever really died, Beatrice,” Stacy continued. “I think you shoved her in a casket, poured soil all over the lid, and left her on Jace’s front porch.”
I turned so fast I thought my neck would snap.
“He represented everything you fought for and failed to receive – proper love, care, partnership. All necessities for safety. And because you never” – she paused, shaking her head, “because no one ever taught you those things, you thought love was something to be earned.”
My jaw twitched. A tear slipped free.
And I was sick of pretending my heart hadn’t cracked on concrete and spilled into the drain.
“It’s not about Jace, Beatrice,” she said, gently. “It never was.”
Inhale one. Exhale two.
“It’s not about Kyle, or Zac, or Tyler, or any of the men you’ve experienced in this life.” She handed me a tissue.
Were my tears that heavy?
Stacy waited as I dabbed underneath my eyes, attempting to wipe away the mascara streaks running down my face.
My tears were that heavy.
And yet, she waited.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, shrinking, shrinking, shrinking.
“Handle yourself with care,” she reminded me. “There’s nothing to be sorry for.”
Yes there is.
You’re rude. You’re disrespectful. You’re unkind.
You’re wasting time. Her time. His time. Their time.
Your time. Your time.
“Stacy,” I choked out, anger bubbling to the surface. “Why did life deal me such a shitty fucking hand?”
A long exhale. “Beatrice,” she started, “you treat love and life like a game to be won. If you suffer, if you perform, if you give all that you have – someone will eventually hand you pocket aces.”
I scoffed, pinching the thin skin beneath my wrist. “Didn’t peg you as a poker player, Doc.”
She shook her head. “You think it’s your fault, that people treated you poorly.”
“Isn’t it?” I snapped, my mind unable to catch up with what I was saying – feeling –
Thinking.
Thoughts. So many fucking thoughts.
But her response came even faster, firmer. “No.”
And I slid down into my seat. Like a child being scolded, being told no –
No, you can’t have that seat.
No, you can’t drink your juice.
No, you can’t fall in love – because yes, yes.
They will break your heart.
“Beatrice,” she shook her head, “people can only meet you where they’ve met themselves. And emotionally unavailable people will always make you feel unworthy, even if you’re not, simply because they’re not ready themselves.”
…
Somewhere…
Somewhere deep inside me, a little girl – blue hair and blue smiles – suffocated between two walls. She screamed words I knew by heart.
Unworthy! Unseen! Unlovable!
My vocabulary. My mantra.
Unworthy! Unseen! Unlovable!
Why are you talking to yourself like this? You’re only just a child!
And that little girl gazed at me through the windowpane now.
Why do you talk to me like this, if you love me so much?
…
“Can I have some water, please?” My throat felt like it would burst with all the words I’ve swallowed down.
Thoughts. Thoughts. So. Many. Thoughts.
“We can take a break,” Stacy offered, handing me a mug, but I declined.
“No,” I gulped down the cool liquid, focusing on the way it slipped into my body. Grounding. “No, please continue. I feel like…”
“We’re making progress?” Stacy added, a slight smile on her face. “You’re finally opening up, Beatrice. This is good.”
“Me slobbering is opening up?” I scoffed.
“Yes, actually. You’re allowing yourself to feel, to breathe. You’re showing yourself that in moments of turmoil, you’re allowed to tend to your wounds.”
Inhale. Exhale. “Go ahead.”
“Okay, I’m going to question your belief here, ask you something. Is that alright with you?”
I chuckled. “You’re so polite, Stacy.”
She smiled softly. Then, “You think that if someone leaves you, that it means they found something better. Is that true?”
No, no, no – “Yes.”
She nodded. “And you believe that, this said someone is prettier, smarter… tamer, than you?”
“Tamer,” I laughed bitterly. “Well, are you going to tell me that’s not true?”
“No, I’m not,” Stacy said.
And I froze.
No one. No one. Has ever said that before.
Fawn always told me I was beautiful and no one could hold a candle to me – that I was amazing and intelligent and grand. He doesn’t deserve you, he never did.
Because that’s what we all do, to make our best friends feel better, hopeful. It’s not your fault, no it’s never our fault. They’re terrible, they treat you like shit, why do you even like him?
Why can’t you move on?
Because…
Because.
There’s a version of me buried inside of him that I thought I could save.
And that girl prayed to be resurrected by a man who didn’t believe in God.
“I uh,” my brain was on fucking fire, “I appreciate your honesty, Doc.”
Her gaze pierced my heart. “The truth is, Beatrice…”
Fuck. My. Life.
“You abandon your needs long before anyone else can abandon you.”
I felt them come now.
Hot, burning tears, a trifle of agony bubbling inside of me. Waiting for war.
“It’s a painful thing to hear, a more painful thing to feel. But look at the way you talk to yourself,” she shook her head.
Unwanted! Unseen! Unlovable!
Waste! Fuck-up! Ugly! Fat! Depressed! Whore!
“You ridicule her,” she said, “you starve her. You deprive her of care and good affirmations. You punish her for wanting love, desiring affection – and that’s why you run.
You run to these men that reinforce your beliefs, and you run from Cole because he shows you the opposite of all you’ve ever known. ”
“Stacy…”
I –
Can’t –
Breathe –
“I don’t – I don’t know why…” I tried. “Why –”
Silence.
“I don’t know how to stop.”
My vision blurred, and I don’t know when she moved closer, knelt down in front of me.
“You stop,” she whispered, “when you realize that healing doesn’t mean becoming a different person.”
I met her eyes.
“It means realizing that you are worthy of the love you spent your whole life giving away.” She took my hand. “And you, Beatrice, Blu” – she smiled – “you never needed permission to be loved.”