Thought I Abandoned Myself. Then I Started Therapy.

Amy Edwards: I went on a date once with this guy, and I knew it wasn't a match. But while we're sitting there at the date, I the we were sitting at like an outdoor spot where they had those plastic things that kind of come down over the windows so they can close it off there's weather, whatever. And there was no one sitting behind him anymore. It kind of cleared out a little bit. And one of those was open, and I was cold. And so I said, "I wonder if they'd care if we shut that, cuz I'm cold."

And he said, "You're cold? It's not cold. Ask that guy behind you if he's cold." I think I started laughing because I was just like so surprised at the complete denial of my own feeling that I had just expressed. And I knew it wasn't a match anyway. He was drunk. He had like wine-stained mouth. He had a Jesus complex. I'm not even kidding. And I knew it wasn't a match. But in that moment, I should have walked out, right? I look back at that experience. It still haunts me. Haunts! It still haunts me, and I'm so embarrassed to tell you what I did next.

I I'm like I feel ashamed. Like I don't I don't even know who if I've told anybody. I stayed for the rest of the date. I I should have left. I should have left. Listen to me. This is what we're talking about today. I I didn't leave. I finished the date or whatever. And but meanwhile, I'm just like cannot wait to get away. And I call an Uber, and he's like, "Oh, you called an Uber?" like when we're walking out. And I'm like, "Yeah." And I get in the Uber, and I still let him kiss me good night.

I felt like I owed it in some way. And I mean it was a tiny kiss. There was a there's a tiny bit of open-mouthness. But anyway, I got away, and I left. I guess cuz I wanted to placate him in some way. I I don't know. He insulted me more times than that on the date, too. I could go on. But anyway, I look back on that experience, and I am mad at myself every time I look back at it. If you're like me, you point the finger at yourself more than any other person in things that have happened in your life.

And I like, why? It's so misdirected. Why am I not like irritated and angry with him? And I guess I am, but at the same time, when I reflect on that, I am more mad at myself. I am more mad that I didn't handle it different, that I didn't step up for myself, that I let myself sit there and waste precious moments of my own life, and not get the hell out of there and away from him. Right? And I wasn't in any dangerous situation in that instance. I wasn't in danger. But it was like an indignation.

This week, I've I've started going to therapy. And I kind of did it on a whim. I didn't really feel like something specific that I needed to work on, but a friend of mine was like raving about her therapist. I was like, "Give me his number. I'm checking him out." And I went, and something instantly came up. And we worked on it. And I was like, "Wow, this is really cool." He gives a lot of feedback. I've had therapy before where it was like to psychotherapy where they just don't give you enough, and they don't talk.

I'm like, "Talk! Tell me things. Tell me what you see." Anyway, he talks back. I like that. And so he offered, "Hey, do you want to do EMDR?" Because we were just talking about, I don't I don't know. It came up or whatever. So the second week that I'm there, we did EMDR. And I had thought of an event in my life that I consider traumatic. It is something that is not that not from that long ago. But when I look back on this situation, I am so mad at myself for not handling it differently.

I felt like I was in a dangerous situation. I didn't get hurt. It ended up fine. Everything ended up fine. But it doesn't take away the fact that it is super emotionally charged for me. And when I look back on it, I'm more mad at myself than anyone else. And I I actually talking it's been so emotionally charged, and now I've done EMDR about it, and I can tell that my emotional charge is much lower than it was. Like if I had talked about this a week ago, it would have been totally different. So I like I said, I wasn't hurt, but I was like, why is this still traumatic for me?

I looked up the definition of trauma. Because I was like, do you have to be hurt to have trauma? No, you don't. You can it can just be your own emotional and physical response to a distressing, dangerous, or life-threatening event that overwhelms a person's ability to cope. That's the definition of trauma. And that happened in this situation. Like there were so many instances that things could have gone completely differently. Like I ended up having to take an Uber to to this place out in the woods. I know, it's just part of the story, and I don't want to get all into that like the nuts and bolts of the story, but like that's one part of it.

I ended up being asked by my partner to take this Uber. And I was in the woods with an Uber driver, and I was so fucking scared. And thank God I had a nice Uber driver. But putting myself in these situations made me so mad, cuz I was like, "I'm, you know, a fully-grown woman, and I felt limited by finances. I felt limited I just felt limited in a lot of different ways. And now looking back, I wish I'd done it so differently. But I didn't. But I didn't. I did what I did, and now I'm mad at myself about it, right?

And I wasn't hurt. Everything turned out okay. So can I Do Do I even feel valid calling it trauma? But I just bet you're listening to this, and you have things that you've done in your life that you look back on, and you're so mad at yourself that you didn't handle it a different way. If you're anything like me, like, right? And even when we could easily direct anger at someone else, we misdirect it right back at ourselves, right? Like when you have a finger pointing, you have three more pointing back at yourself. Ah. That's good and bad, right?

Because I don't think that we are the ones to blame. And I've gained more perspective doing this EMDR. So, if you don't know what EMDR is, it is eye movement I just looked it up, so I could pull up eye movement desensitization and reprocessing. So, it's this way of going through an event, and you talk about it with the therapist, and you look really far back and forth with your eyes. And I think you can do with your eyes open and look at a light. But the way my therapist did it, he just tapped on my knee on each side, and like I just moved my eyes from side to side while I was talking about this.

And it does something where it reprograms the memory and your emotions around it and the way that you've processed it. And so I did that while I talked through this, and he had the version of me now go talk to the Amy back then, the one that was sitting on a bench outside some podunk-ass airport, I don't even know where I was, I can't remember, South Carolina or somewhere, and waiting on this Uber and filled with dread. Her intuition was going off, and she didn't do anything about it. And so I was able to talk to her and tell her that she's not going to be hurt, but also just let her know that everything's okay, right?

So he walks me through this, and I was able to process it differently and take away some of the supercharged emotions, right? This this overwhelm that I felt, this inability to cope. And just this deep feeling that I hadn't done right by myself. And if I can't count on me, who the fuck can I count on? And I think, again, that's problematic because, at any given moment, we are doing the best we can. And that version of me was doing the best that she could in that moment with the skills that she had, with the life experience that she had.

And the past versions of you are the same way. They were doing the best that they could in that moment. We weren't abandoning ourselves. We weren't. It feels like it, right? But the more I think about this, the more I'm not a fan of the abandoning yourself, right? I think that's a a fallacy, because we are doing the best we can. And if we see ourselves as abandoning ourselves, sorry, that's too many ourselves, if we see it as self-abandonment, we are mistruthful of ourselves. And that's the wrong direction. We can trust ourselves, right? We were doing the best we could at that moment.

And so we have to let go of this idea that we've abandoned ourselves and and deepen our trust with ourselves, and say, "I trust you. You were doing the best you could at that moment. And And you are going to remember it and learn. And pause. If I had really just stopped and paused just for a few minutes, I probably would have done something different. And now I'm able to give myself those pauses when I need them. And that's the learning. So, when you have here's a little exercise. Just when you can sense that overwhelm, that trauma response of overwhelm, can you pause?

And the answer is yes. The answer is yes, you can pause. Mhm. Even if you're being pressured or something, you can pause. Go to the bathroom. I looked over at my bathroom. You can go to the bathroom. You can pause for a moment, right? You can just take a breath. And when we look back and we are like, "I wish I'd done better," I think that we can take that feeling and do better right now by letting that go, that feeling of self-abandonment, that feeling of I didn't do right by myself. When we let that go, we're doing better right now, right?

We're doing better by letting go of our anger at ourselves. And that's what I am exploring. Whether it's, you know, some sort of little indignation, whether it's some sort of real trauma and hurt, whether it's some kind of disrespect. Oh boy, I can get I can get those up in my head, like a past disrespect that I hang onto that I wish I'd handled differently, and I'm mad at myself about. More mad at myself than the other person. Maybe you don't like that other person, but how much are we hanging onto it about ourselves, right?

So, letting go of the anger at ourselves does better. That's doing better. So, I am, you know, like the date that I mentioned at the beginning, I'm I really was feeling that again today. I don't know why it came up, and I thought about it today. But, I was like, "Why am I still mad at myself about it and thinking about it and beating myself up? I don't want to do that anymore, so I'm not going to. That Amy did the best she could in that moment. That you did the best they could in that moment.

And that's that. And being the best me right now, being in my shiniest version, being my being in my next, you know, best trusting version is one that lets that anger go at past me and gives myself grace and knows that I didn't abandon myself. I did what I could at that moment, and so did you. And we move forward stronger, better, more kind to ourselves. That feels good. Take a deep breath and make an audible exhale, maybe. That releases something. Yeah. So, you know, one of the things I was doing was jotting these down as they came to me, and just getting it out helps, right?

Just get it out on paper or on your phone, on your Notes app. I use that one all the time, too. But anyway, I hope that this can help you a little bit. Maybe if you lay awake at night and run through scenarios in your head like I have my entire fucking life. So, anyway, we got this. We're shining bright all the time, and I'm so happy that you're here. Thank you so much for watching, for following. Hit subscribe if you haven't. Sign up for the newsletter. I send these links straight to your inbox. And follow me on the socials if you can.

I'm at @realamyedwards on Instagram. Links are in the show notes. And I'm just so grateful that you're here and turning up for yourself. Thank yourself, cuz you certainly didn't abandon yourself right now. So, anyway, I love you so much. Thank you for being here. Keep shining bright, till next time.