I Wish I Could Tell You

There are so many things that I simply never say. Sometimes I consciously hold them back, even going so far as to physically bite my tongue. Many things never get all the way to the word stage, even in my mind. They hover on the edges as colors, images, or emotions. The thing is, conscious or not, I can't say these things to the people they are about. I don't think I can say most of them even to people they are NOT about. I'm not certain I can say them even into an overwhelming silence. I think I'm going to try.

I don't know why I can't say those words to you that you wanted me to say. I don't know why they make me want to run and hide. I don't want you to think I'm not trying or specifically trying to avoid you. I want to do as you ask. I want to please you more than you know. In fact, I think about you too often. What would you think about the way I handled this? What would you say if you saw me the way I really am? Do you know that I analyze everything you say, everything you do, and everything you don't? Do you know how frustrated I get at your seeming perfection? You have it all figured out and I want that, more than I can say in words. I want to study you, understand you, take your mind and your past and your memories apart until I can find out how you became who you are. I want to do this so that maybe I can do it too. I want to know what you know; I want to help like you help; I want to do what you do. I feel so far beneath you that I worry about taking up your time. I feel that I don't exist before I enter your office or after I leave it. This is not a secret. What is, is that I wish I did. I wish I was important, different, worthy of notice. And yet I am relieved that I am not. And I am terrified of these feelings for fear they are inappropriate, for fear it will sound like a cliched case of patient falling for therapist. It isn't like that. I'm not in love with you. I am in awe of you...

I love you. I'm sure you know that. But I fear you. I am afraid of disappointing you, which I always seem to do. I crave your approval but don't believe it when I get it. I fear your temper but know it is earned. I hate your one-sided, self-involved views of everything. I hate your irrational reactions to the strangest things. I honestly feel that your physical problems are manifestations of your psychological issues - not that they aren't real but that you have created them. This not only includes but is especially true of the side-effects you report to every medication that might be able to help you. I don't think you want to feel better and that is why you have stopped trying. I don't trust you anymore. And now I have also finally realized that your love is now, and always has been, conditional.

I can't imagine my life without you. I don't want to imagine it. But sometimes I wonder if we are only together because I was afraid to let you go. You love me, you believe in me, you encourage me, you reassure me, and you make me feel good. I know I could never find that anywhere else and, frankly even if I could, I don't want to. But do you know that I don't feel the way I act more often than not? I can't tell you what I'm really thinking and feeling. I don't want to hurt you and I don't want you to hurt me. And sometimes, when I try to let go and trust you and tell you what is going on... I just can't do it and I don't know why. I do love you and I still find the safest place in the world is that spot where your shoulder meets your chest. And yet I fear you. Out of a perceived need to justify this fear, I play up the things you do that frighten me and downplay the things you do to support me. I do you an injustice without consciously meaning to. And you don't even know it. Would you still love me if you did?

I used to think that if I didn't watch your daughter, you would throw me away like a childish hobby you outgrew. Then I thought I had to do right by your daughter to prove myself as a person and as a mother. I have also felt that by watching your daughter, the stress it caused provided tangible justification for my feeling so fragile and overwhelmed. The thought has occurred to me that I could make amends for my past through doing right by her. When I was in the hospital, and they wanted me to say I would stop watching her, I felt betrayed and unheard and when I came home, I fought to keep her. Sometimes I think of her as one of my own. Sometimes I hope that I will become someone important to her - that someone will look up to me that doesn't have to. But lately, I wish I didn't have the responsibility of it. Not because I want to do other things, but because I want to hide from the world in the safe shadows of sleep and I can't do that with her here. I think she is good for me. I don't think I'm good for her. But I love her - it swells up my heart to think about her. I want to be good enough for her. And by being good enough for her, I hope to be good enough for you.

I don't understand you. I don't deserve the time and attention that you show me. I appreciate it, more than I know how to tell you. But I don't know why you put up with me. I have so little to offer. I want to impress you, to make you proud of me. I want to be worthy of your friendship. And I want to share in the confidence you seem to have in me. I trust you, though I can't explain it exactly. You know more about me than anyone in the entire world - possibly even more than I myself know. And yet at the same time that I trust you, I fear you. I don't understand you and I'm always afraid, somewhere in the back of my mind, often in a vague wordless way, that I can't possibly deliver whatever it is you want from me. And you continue to push me to the edges of my comfort zone and slightly beyond it. But I will keep stretching to meet your expectations, to the best of my abilities. I want to make you proud. I want to be worth everything you do for me.

I know what I need to do to be better. I'm afraid to do it. I'm afraid that I'll fail. I'm afraid that I'll succeed. I don't know how to keep what I like while changing what I don't. Sometimes, I have faith in myself and I think that I am capable of doing everything I want to do. But I am beyond terrified to admit that I feel that way. I think I am afraid that I will believe good things about myself only to find out that I am completely wrong. Better to think the worst and suspect otherwise than think the best and be knocked back into place. Besides, what if I admit that I think I can be more than I am and people expect it of me, then I am unable to deliver? The disappointment would be unbearable. Best to keep my aspirations to myself and have only myself to disappoint.