A Goodbye
Tonight was my last session with my counselor. Better Help will erase all my correspondence when the next counselor takes over. So I'm parking old journal entries here as a reminder of how far I've come.
"Hi there! My name is Peigen (pronounced Pagan). I'm engaged and live with my fiancé of 5 years. I work for a start up...currently in the role of Support Trainer and Content Developer for two OpCos. I live in Lafayette, Louisiana and I'm planning a move to Saint Petersburg, Florida by then end of this year.
This feels like a sort of housekeeping for me. Something I've been putting off that I know I need.
I'm stable and all in all successful. But it takes a lot of work to maintain all of this. A lot of compartmentalization and minimizing. I'm always guarded. I don't talk about what I think or feel. I'm even at a stand still with journaling.
In a lot of ways I feel like I've hit a plateau. Like this is as healthy as I can get without help. And the plateau is nice. Everything's good. But it's not enough."
"It's probably also relevant to summarize my history.
I grew up on 28 acres in the middle of nowhere. 50 miles from the nearest Walmart. I describe my family as pirates. Loyal and fun but morally corrupt. Great unless you cross them. My family has a history of mental illness, substance abuse and mild-medium violence.
My dad left when I was 3. He died in 2019. I've seen him maybe 20 times altogether.
My mom is probably my biggest source of tension. She was an alcoholic throughout my childhood. Dealt drugs from the time I was 10 - 20. She's been clean for 10 years now. Our relationship is cordial but distant.
I have a younger brother. He's great. We don't talk much but I know there's a mutual love there
I had another brother. He died after a car accident during a police chase. He was running from the law cause he had drugs on him. He was in a coma for a month before we pulled the plug. He just turned 19.
As you can see family history alone is pretty intense...but when you factor in my own crazy story and the fact that I've always been drawn to/adopted other broken people. There's not a whole lot of the dark side I haven't experienced.
I started getting my life together when I was 23. I can barely believe where I'm at now
I guess I need help letting go and resetting how I think of myself. I still punish myself for things that happened in 2013. I'm still terrified I'm going to back slide.
How do you build a life when you never expected to make it this far??"