You’re here, he says. You keep coming back. Let’s acknowledge the bravery in that.
I nod. Silent.
How does it feel for you to hear that?
I’m not brave enough to answer.
————
A friend mentioned fearlessness to me today and it hit me. That word doesn’t even exist in my vocabulary.
Fearless. Brave.
Those adjectives are fake storefronts propped up in an effort to convince anyone approaching that there isn’t a paper shack hidden behind, ready to blow over in a breeze. The truth is I keep going back to therapy out of desperation.
I keep going back for my kids.
I keep going back because I’m afraid of the alternative.
I keep going back because I don’t have insurance and they accept sliding scale fees.
Because so long as I feel as if I’m doing something, anything, to get better, I’ll hopefully keep putting one foot in front of another.
Because I don’t feel like I have a choice.
—————
That word fearlessness especially worries me. Maybe because my anxiety tends to translate into feelings of fear for me. So I would never ever use that word to describe myself.
I think I have sporadic moments of bravery and I think I can be tenacious. Calling for my first appointment took six months of working up the nerve after a two and a half year depression that rendered me barely able to answer a text, let alone ask for help.
Moments of bravery.
I’m determined to see this through until there’s a moment where I feel like I’ve done it. Like I’ve made sense of most of what I’m struggling with. I know there is never a finite end to working on all this stuff.
Well, except for death.
But I am hopeful there will come a time where I feel as if I’ve got enough tools in the toolbox, so to speak, that I can move forward without therapy.
Or at least without so much of it.
All of that, for me, comes from a place of fear. The fear that if I fall into a deep depression again I won’t make it out. Ever. Or alive.
—————
Another friend and I discussed self-acceptance.
Radical self-acceptance.
Refusing to compromise one’s identity.
That, to me, is where fearlessness and bravery take flight.
My wings are not yet feathered.
allison writes 
I see a therapist every week. I went years avoiding therapy, trying to treat myself. It worked for awhile. And then it didn’t. I just want to say that it takes a great deal of courage to show up at your therapist appointment. I know this because every week a little voice tells me maybe I should cancel my appointment. Just skip this one. You can always go back next week, it says. However, I drag myself there anyway, usually irritable and bitchy. Yes. Therapy takes a lot of courage. Facing yourself takes a lot of courage.
However, fearlessness is a myth. Bravery actually requires fear. Without fear it’s not bravery. Bravery is being consumed by fear and doing it anyway.
You have courage. You have bravery and, my God, you have the balls to write about your own self-doubt. I don’t. I think you’re doing really well.
And you’re a voice crying out in the desert for those of us who can’t find our voices.
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Thank you. This is so beauty. You’ve made me cry a bit. In a good way. You have courage too. You’re someone who, every time I read your writing I think, “I wish I had half her courage.” Thank you for your voice and inspiration
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