It's okay? Really??

My name is Cristina Johnson
Oh what a day today has been. I was dreading my session with Michelle. I had a specific thing to talk to her about: That "feeling" of "breaking a rule" when it comes to loving someone.

As I walk in, she makes no qualms: You look like hell.

And I did. I have cried every day since Saturday - good cries and bad ones - and my mouth is so sore with fever blisters. "Yes," I agreed. "I look about as good as I feel."

"So what's going on?" she asks, her typical starting phrase.

I was afraid to tell her. How strange, I think now. How strange that I was afraid to tell her (or anyone, really) that Bill heard back from an employer here in CT and there's a good chance he could be home for Christmas.

I was scared, so at first, I didn't tell her. Instead, I told her about "the rule" and asked her what she thought about it.

"Where does it come from?" I asked. "Does the fact that Hannah and I are incest survivors have anything to do with it?"

Oh no...she won't let me off that easy.

"Where do you think it comes from?"

I said (cleverly avoiding my own responsibility for the answer), "Well, Hannah says she thought it might have to do with not believing we deserve it."

She said nothing, just kept watching....oh she doesn't let me off easy.

"But I don't think that," I finally said.

Her eyes widened and she said, "You just threw me. This is a different 'you'," she said. I would expect Hannah's kind of answer from you.

"No, no," I said. "I mean, I don't believe it consciously, anyway. And I don't believe it for Hannah or anyone else."

We spent a few moments batting back and forth about it and she finally - thankfully - helped me weed through the marsh of my mind.

"When people go through trauma - especially complex trauma like yours and especially when it includes the people who were supposed to protect and love you - it turns your perceptions upside down," she explained.

I'll sum it up:

Love always hurts. Duh. I know that. Anyone with any experience in it, knows that. But for me, as a child, the only two times I didn't do what I was asked (oh, so benevolently) to do by my father, I was either (1) sodomized or (2) strangled and suffocated. That's why it only happened twice. I learned to never tell him no. It also happened through the rapes...the many times when, if you cry or show any emotion or physical pain, they hit you. This taught me unequivocally, that love equals punishment.

"Who is going to punish you?" she asked me.

This is where it got tough, and I shrugged, rather childishly, looked sideways to the cream-colored carpet.

"My facebook friends?" I offered.

"What do you mean?"

"They'll ostracize me and chastise me and judge me."

"Right which would be excruciating for you, since you just went through that."

"Yes," I admitted.

"Who else?

I began to tear up, I whispered, "You?"

"Why would I punish you?" she asked, incredulous. "Now, now we're back to the Cristina I know," she said half-jokingly. "Listen, unless you have a gun and you're ready to use it on yourself, none of the decisions or choices you make are really my business," she said lightly. "What do you want?" she asked. "What does Cristina want?"

I was afraid to answer...still.

She wouldn't let up. "It's okay. Whatever you want, is okay. It doesn't matter what anyone else says, it's what you want and if it's not self-destructive or hurting others, then it's okay!" she stated.

This was when I told her about Bill and the job and I read to her the end of my last blog, crying as I read the words...remembering the feelings I had that day...remembering the power of them.

"So who would disapprove of that? Obviously Cindy approves and Trevor definitely approves. So who would disapprove?"

I, again, said "My facebook friends, you (meaning, her), Bill's family..." I cried. I cried not just because of these fears, but also because I was so afraid in that moment.

She said: "My husband is my best friend and I have to tell you that if I had to walk away from every family member and friend for my marriage, I would do it without question." She said she was telling me this because relationships are personal and because some need distance, some need closeness, some need to be shut off completely.

I ached with this resounding joy in my heart....I could feel it throughout my body, that I'd just kind of gotten permission to love. To love Bill. To want him here. To miss him.

Other things were discussed but this was the most important. I left with a sense of purpose and resilience and I felt elated to have these words echoing in my mind: "It's okay for me to love Bill? Oh my God it's okay? It's okay??"

I later went to see my medical doctor and he kind of hurt me...made me feel like a worthless piece of shit (which isn't really his tendency, just my own issues) but even that - even though I sat there crying as he was telling me I was beyond his scope of care - I left almost bouncing. "I have permission to love him! It's okay for me to love him!"

Nothing about this whole situation has made sense to me until now..... it's so much of that tangled barbed wire I speak of inside, that I have to untangle, but I found a loose end, and I ain't lettin' it go, not til I figure out how to untangle it. I don't want to lose this feeling. In fact, I want to expand on it. I want it to grow and bleed into everyone and anyone in my life. I want to not fear loving them.

But Bill.... Bill I love you. I always have. I miss you.