Sharing the Struggle: Relocation, New Starts, and Therapy

Hello blog-viewers! It’s been a good long while since I’ve posted anything, and now that I’m over a hellish week of due dates, I finally feel like updating the ol’ blog.

The last month(ish) has been a whirlwind of a time. I moved across the province to Ottawa, started at a new university, and jumped right into my new church home. School is a lot of fun and my program is delightful. I get to see my partner every day and no longer have to rely on poor Skype connections to spend quality time with him. I’m leading a Bible study. I had the privilege to see my friend Eliot have their gender and name change affirmed by our church and diocese (check out their awesome blogpost on the service here) and on the SAME Sunday, had the privilege to sponsor my partner for baptism. I also started therapy last week.

Although there are a great many wonderful things happening in my life, I still feel pretty shitty. In fact, I’ve felt shitty for the last three years (give or take a few consecutive weeks where I was sort of feeling pleasant). I struggle with feelings of anxiety and inferiority. I’ve forgotten completely periods of time that were my darkest. I’ve made regrettable decisions that have harmed my relationship with my partner and feel grateful every day that he is still a part of my life. These feelings compounded while I was a Bible college and caused huge personal setbacks in my growth as a person and my faith in God. And I was rather content to ignore these things until a scary incident this summer.

This is painfully accurate.

I’m grateful this Thanksgiving for many things, but mostly for a new school environment that values and goes out of its way to meet the emotional and psychological needs of its students. This was grossly lacking at Bible college, where there seemed to be more in the student guidebook about disciplinary action than about student health services. Despite my own stubbornness and with great encouragement from Davis, I’ve scheduled appointments to meet with a registered psychotherapist to help start down the road of progress and recovery. I’ve decided to share this information with the internet and track along in my progress (surely without sharing the gory details of sessions with my therapist) because I have this nasty little habit of internalizing every single emotion I feel. Regardless if people read or pay attention, this is really more of a cathartic exercise to help me clear out my headspace and feel better. So if you follow this blog/this interests you, thank you for being a part of my process and allowing me this platform. If anyone wants to discuss or whatever, I’m almost always available to chat.

So yeah. This is the return of the Bible College Dropout. I hope to update more frequently again now that I have my feet on the ground in my new home. Stay tuned for next week, when I address the really, really f***ed up plus size fashion industry!