Sense of Then

One of the most important things my therapist helped me understand was the feelings wheel, so I could name my feelings and sit with them. I wrote that down in my first journal and remember thinking I had no idea what this woman was talking about — it was like she was speaking a made-up language to me. I took a lot of notes in the beginning of our sessions, as if the magic words she used needed to be saved in my life so I could see them again before they could disappear. I had already learned how quickly things could disappear.

My first therapy journal starts September 13, 2024. The assignment was to name what I was feeling, then think about and journal what was happening in my life. My first feeling was grumpy. I had applied for a volunteer position, and I was excluded in a way that wasn’t noted in any policy or in the application requirements. I was probably more powerless and vulnerable, but I didn’t know what those words felt like yet. In the days after, my feelings were shame, sadness, embarrassment, grief, ignored, sad, nervous, untethered, sad, thoughtful, irritated. By a week later, I had worked through my own guilt over other people’s expectations that I did not give in to — I didn’t text birthday pictures to my mother. The next week started with content and proud of myself, and ended with worried and anxious. I wrote: “I don’t know what exactly I did wrong, so I’m worried about doing it again.” That statement could be applied to many different things and experiences in my life.

Two years later, in the last nine months or so, I’ve been able to understand patterns of emotions, timelines of events that impacted me, and where a lot of my negative coping patterns began. I’m only recently realizing that, while painful and isolating, any estrangement between my mother and me has consistently been placed on me — along with any fixing of the relationship. I have been responsible for her feelings, silent treatments, and meeting expectations that I become someone else.

I can’t make my mother love me in the way I need to be loved. She told me that once: “I can’t love you the way you apparently need me to.” I find that extraordinarily confusing. Like — you can’t even try? Is it easier to keep me out of sight, out of mind, than try to love me like I need to be loved? If my mom can’t do it — apparently never could — how would I ever learn what it looks like out in the world?

I get now that it’s up to me to love and parent my inner child. And I do. It’s easier now that she’s been awake for over a year. But it’s lonely to have to figure it out on my own — to be both my own mother and daughter to a mother who prefers I exist outside her life.

The most recent thing I wrote in my current journal, dated July 16, 2026, was a reminder to expose myself to smells from the time things happened, to help jog my memory. I have a blank spot in my memories for the entirety of my 7th-grade year that I’m trying to uncover. The journal note specified not just smells — listening to music and using the other senses can help, too.