Stay With Me || H.S

46

[Lana]

The first three months felt as if they dragged on for eternity, familiarizing myself with being alone for the first time in a few weeks was hard. I had done the one thing I was afraid of when I let myself be open to Harry – I became too dependent. And it was not just pitiful, but completely nonsensical.

I let my walls come down and forgot what it was like to build them up again – by myself – subconsciously I handed that task over to Harry, and drove us to an end.

Instead of sitting and reimagining my fight with Harry, I focused all the energy of my heart break on remembering what my life was like before I met him, and how I used to be tough as nails and could handle myself in any situation. Though it didn't come easily since the reason behind my independence stemmed from Ben's abuse and my determination to try and escape with my mother.

I realized that although my rehabilitation depended on me, I knew I couldn't get over the trauma all on my own, so instead of depending on friends or family, I sought out professional help. But that was only after I went through hell and back to get me and my mother some health insurance. That alone took me two months.

In October I started seeing Dr. Khan, and after a few sessions with her she made me realize that the only reason I slept with guys was to feel some sort of acceptance from men, since I lacked that acceptance from Ben. She claimed, I did it to feel loved, and even when I denied it with all my heart, she said all I wanted was to be loved by my father, because I in turn loved him. I cursed her and her whole lineage after that assumption, and didn't come back for weeks.

But her words came with me, they kept rattling around my head for those weeks away from her, and it stalled me from continuing my road to a full recovery, not to mention it worried the shit out of my mom.

Finally, after weeks of sleeping away the days, I went back to Dr.Khan and begged her to help me get over these fucking daddy issues.

She started with making me think of all the good times I had with Ben before the beatings started, pin pointing the small details in my memories that indicated the start of his own frustration and addictions.

Dr. Khan uncovered memories I had no idea I was suppressing:

Daddy used to sniff white stuff when mommy went to work. He told me it was pixie dust and it made him fly.

I tried to take some too cause I wanted to fly too, but Daddy got mad and hit me. He hit mommy too when she saw me and yelled at him for it. He hit us everyday after then..

She said it was my minds way of dealing with the trauma, to block any attempts that could hurt me, the way Ben had done for such a long time. After that it all started making sense and it helped me come to terms with none of his behavior being my fault. Not his addiction, or his poor choices.

Dr. Khan also tried to get me to forgive Ben for all he put me and my mother through, but I told her that's gonna take another years worth of appointments to accomplish.

We then took on the task of working on my codependency issues, and I told her it started with a guy, but I didn't elaborate on his identity. After all my progress I still wasn't ready to talk about Harry just yet, I had been doing so good with focusing on me and my well being that I sort of bottled up everything that had to do with him. I promised her we would talk about him when I was sure I'd be okay. Though his weekly calls made it hard to focus on me for a little while, but they eventually stopped coming through, and I assured myself it was for the best.

Despite some of the missing details of how my codependency evolved, I managed to get over the idea of having someone come to 'my rescue'and began doing little things on my own again. I busied myself with following up all my doctors appointments, and made sure the doctors here got in touch with Dr. Mayer so all my medications could be transferred over and I wouldn't have to start up a whole new set of meds.