That’s what’s on this week’s episode of Non-Monogamy Help.

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Podcast Transcript

Hi, I'm starting a journey into non-monogamy with my long-term partner. He has been raised in a non-monogamy setting, so everything is pretty easy or easier for him. I have had a casual partnership in non-monogamy experience, but never with a serious partner. He went on a date and it triggered a deep fear in me that is rooted in a childhood trauma of being lied, gaslighted, and bullied that I I think everybody's lying to me constantly, and I have this weird paranoia feeling that everybody's lying to me and keeping secrets and being secretive about stuff that I really can't handle.

He has been really great. He's been supportive, and now he's waiting for me to get by this. But I want to know, it is not a fear of abandonment, just to be very clear. It's just this really hardcore paranoia. And I want to know if you have any advice on how to get past it. I'm going to therapy and I'm trying to work on it, but I don't want him to wait that much. I feel bad for him waiting for me to be ready, and I really don't know if I ever be ready. It's really sad and depressing for me right.

Response

So the first thing that I think is really, really important to cover here is, I think it's important to change your perception of this. So you say that you don't want your partner to have to wait. You feel bad for him having to wait for you to be ready, and you're kind of putting a timeline on yourself as far as being able to cope with your anxiety a little bit better, and that timeline is actually making things a lot harder for you. It's putting something in place that's going to just make things all around way more difficult.

And I'll get into this when I go into like, how I dealt with my anxiety and how it shifted. But if you're going to put a time frame on yourself, what that is suggesting as well is that there's some sort of perfect state that you can reach where you're fully capable and never have any issues. And I think that that is not actually a realistic thing. You do not have to be perfectly healed before being in a relationship. You do not have to be in a state where you don't have any issues. And a lot of times the wounds that we have that come from relationships, and this does sound like some of that can only be healed while we're in relation with other people.

One of the biggest mistakes that people often make when they open their relationship is they open it, they expect themselves to feel great, they expect everything to go well, and then they have big emotions, and then they close the relationship. And it makes sense, because it does actually temporarily reduce the issue, because the threat and the trigger is non-monogamy in that case, and then when they're no longer non-monogamous, then all of a sudden, the threat is no longer there, but they're not actually dealing with the issue, and they're actually kicking the can down the road, and also, in a way, kind of leaning in to that feeling of unsafety. And sometimes when you lean into that feeling, you give it even more power over you.

So I think in this case, when you're kind of putting this timeline on yourself, and I'm really, really hoping that your partner isn't putting this timeline on you. I hope that this is kind of self-inflicted, and that your partner hasn't said that they are impatient or unhappy. Like, obviously, you're dealing with this issue, and you don't want to have to deal with this issue forever, and I totally understand that, but dealing with this issue isn't going to be something that I think is benefited by having a perspective of, “Okay, one day I'll never have to deal with this again”. Right?

Like, as Gabor Mate says, I like the quote from him that I can't explicitly remember, but there's a very good quote from him that says that it's not about feeling better, it's about getting better at feeling. So I want to, if you can, kind of shift your perspective away from thinking that there needs to be a certain time period when you end the situation and you don't have to deal with it anymore.

In terms of what you're dealing with, I think it would be really, really helpful— And it's great that you're working with a therapist. It's great that you’re working on these issues, but I think that what's really, really helpful, and I speak from, like my own personal experience of dealing with anxiety and trying to cope with it, is if you can also shift your perspective on what you're coping with.

So I've dealt with really, really bad anxiety, really, really bad, having panic attacks every night, just very intense anxiety. And the first step towards me actually getting better. And right now, I would say, I don't have a generalized anxiety disorder. I still experience anxiety— and that's one big important thing to remember, is that mental health isn't about never feeling unhappy, and I'm not suggesting that that's what you're saying. But sometimes when you're kind of wanting a specific type of feeling to go away, it can be quite easy to kind of get suckered into this idea that mental health is just this state of never being bothered by anything, right?

But actually, if you think about it, a lot of the things that when we experience negative or not so great mental health is really just an overcompensating or, or, I don't want to say overreaction, because that makes it seem like the reaction isn't, you know, it kind of devalues the reaction that you're having, but it is a more extreme reaction to a stimuli that you would typically have in that normal situation, and it's the inability to cope with that reaction. So it's not to say that you won't have anxiety. It's not say I don't have anxiety now. I have anxiety, but I have a proportional response to what the situations call for, and that's really, really important.

The other aspect, before I get into like, how I've dealt with my anxiety and how that's shifted over time, I think it's also really, really important to give yourself a little bit of credit here, because, yes, you acknowledge that you have this history, you have this past, you have this issue with being lied to, feeling experiencing paranoia around that. And that totally makes sense.

But please also understand that this situation where you are non-monogamous, you're trying this, you are not—I'm going to assume, and if this is wrong, I apologise, but you didn't grow up in a situation where this was presented to you as an option. It sounds like your partner has, and that's probably benefited him a little bit when it comes to his own personal emotional processing.

But you've grown up in a mono-centric society that has told you that love looks a specific way and that you go about it in a specific way, and you are doing things now and your partner is doing things now that would typically cause a severe and unhappy reaction for most people.

So give yourself a tiny little bit of credit here, because any person who didn't have your past or didn't have history and had this pristine background where they never had any issue would probably experience some fear and anxiety when dealing with— when trying to be non-monogamous, because it's so separate to the cultural script that you grew up with.

So please give yourself a little bit of that credit, because this is an anxiety-provoking situation, even if mentally and logically you agree with it, even if you have no real problems with it, you are doing something that is going against the script that you have been taught your whole life, so it's going to provoke some anxiety. So you having anxiety in the situation, in and of itself, is a typical response to that situation.

So allow yourself a little bit of grace there and understand that it's not about being perfect, and even if you didn't have this issue, it would be totally normal for you to experience some anxiety. Now, with that said, for me, part of overcoming some of the anxiety that I've dealt with and part of getting—now, I wouldn’t say getting rid of because I do still have occasional anxiety peaks. I do still have some of that thought process. But what's different now as to when I was having panic attacks every night is how I emotionally process and also perceive my anxiety.

So when I was just starting out, I very much believed that my anxiety was like the boulder, and I was Sisyphus, and I was pushing this boulder up a hill constantly, every single time I had a panic attack, every single time I had any big anxiety peaks. And I was, to be honest, constantly anxious, like my nervous system was constantly fried, but I didn't really know it. But anytime I had kind of, like an a big panic attack or experienced a huge amount of anxiety, I would immediately think, “Oh, I failed”. Right? “The boulder has fallen down now I have to push it back up again. I failed”.

That perception was really, really, really difficult for me to cope with, because it encouraged me to beat myself up. It encouraged me to feel like a failure. It made it that much harder to deal with the anxiety, and especially when you put time limits on things and you're waiting for a situation where it's no longer around, it is almost like that, like either you pass or you fail, either you have anxiety or you don't, either you beat it or you didn't, and that creates so much tension and so much difficulty, and it never really served me.

I shifted my perspective a little bit when I started to get therapy and started to try and understand how to even just manage the panic attacks. I then started seeing my anxiety as this sort of like ghost haunting me all the time, or this evil part of myself, like a Gollum, or just this thing that was haunting me, right?

And in a way that was helpful, because what I needed to know at that point in time is that it wasn't my fault. Instead of seeing myself as like I am to blame for slipping my grip and losing this boulder and it falling down, I started to think, “Okay, I can't control this. It's like being haunted. It's like, you know, I can't, I'm not the reason why this is happening to me”. And that was helpful in the moment. Like, that was really, really helpful.

I needed to see it, like, if I got a cold, I wouldn't be like, “Oh, I'm so weak”, you know. Like, I, I really needed to have a space to sort of see myself as I'm experiencing this. I can't control the fact that I'm experiencing this, and it's not my fault and I'm not experiencing it because I failed.

Now, this perspective was helpful for a short period of time, but staying in that perspective really, really didn't help, because if I imagine my anxiety to be this haunting presence, this like demon thing that was following me, then it also meant that I was out of control of the situation, and there was nothing I could do. That I was like perpetually a victim of this constant presence in my life that was menacing and bad and that, in the end, didn't really serve me.

It also wasn't a true reflection of what the anxiety was, but it didn't really serve me because it didn't give me the tools that I needed to actually step into a more powerful position. So I then shifted, like with more therapy and with more education, I shifted my perspective of my anxiety even more, and there were two things that I learned about that shifted this perspective. The first was learning about my nervous system, understanding fight or flight, freeze and fawn, understanding the way that neural pathways in the brain works.

And there's an amazing account on Instagram called repairing_the_nervous_system, but I definitely recommend people check out, understanding that it wasn't a failure of my ability to control this, that this was how my brain developed, in order to help keep me alive, was really, really helpful in understanding that and also understanding that there is neuroplasticity, and that I can build new pathways, and that I can change those pathways. It's not that I'm just an eternal victim of the circumstance. So that really, really helped me.

I also started learning about actually, childhood brain development and how children, you know, understand and interact with the world. And there's a great account, a great person called Mr. Chazz, C-H-A-Z-Z, who is really, really amazing, and talks about how different parts of the brain are activated when children are upset and that they're not able to understand logic in those situations, they're not able to learn, and that part of working with children is understanding that their brain isn't fully developed yet.

And how can you deal with those parts of the brain that are super activated at different periods of time? There's also tons of other really lovely, gentle and authoritative parenting creators that were also really, really helpful. There's Jon Whole Parent. You can look him up. There's also the Indomitable Black Man. There's a lot of really great parenting, like just learning that was actually really, really helpful for me.

Because the way that my anxiety shifted is that instead of seeing it as this big thing that I either passed or failed at, instead of seeing it as this haunting demon that followed me around that I couldn't get rid of. I started actually seeing it for what it was, and it was me. It was me as a child trying to protect myself. A lot of the things that we do in “mental illness”, and I'm not saying that it's not an illness, but a lot of what we do when we're in those situations is about adapting and coping to the circumstances that were around us and trying to survive in those circumstances.

An example that I give on the podcast and in the column all the time is that if you're a child, you cannot—you can't walk away from a relationship that's not serving you. You don't have the agency. Your brain's not developed. You don't know how to regulate your emotions.

So it's easier for you to survive in a situation where, let's say, your parents are yelling and screaming, for you to believe that if I don't knock over my milk, my parents won't yell and scream. It's easy to believe in that situation that you can control the people around you who have the power, who should be stepping in and taking care of you, that if you just did things in the right way, then they wouldn't hurt you, and if you just did things, you know, specifically to this point, then things will be okay.

And that was kind of the core and the base of what my anxiety was, it was me trying to protect myself in a situation where I shouldn't have had to protect myself, trying to prevent things from happening to me, because when I was younger, I didn't have that person to come in and step in and take care of me.
There's another quote about anxiety that I talk about in The Anxious Guide that I heard, which also really helped me, which is that the thing that we're anxious about is not actually what we're anxious about.

So when I was having all of my panic and anxiety, I had a kind of fixation on the idea that I would have an allergic reaction and that my throat would close, like, I'm not sure why. I've never had an allergic reaction to anything. I don't even have allergies. I have no type of allergic response like, the most I've gotten is hives randomly once, right?

But I had this really strong fear. And it wasn't actually about being afraid that that would happen. It was being afraid that I can't handle it. Right? We are not actually afraid of things happening. It's actually underneath it. It's a fear that you can't handle it. And that's because for me, at least, my anxiety is my inner child who doesn't have the tools, doesn't have the ability to take care of myself, going “Nobody else is going to take care of me, so I need to take care of me”.

And what anxiety does, and paranoia and all of this stuff does is it makes you believe that if you can control these things, then you will be safe. And the ironic thing is, in my experience, is that the things that it makes you think that you can control, you actually can't. And really, when you actually step into the power that you have, and you learn how to self-soothe, and you learn, you know, I see my anxiety now as that child me going like, “Ah, I need to protect. I need to, I need to do something because I need to— We need to be safe”.

And it's me stepping in and being that parent and using those techniques that I learned about children brain development, and stepping in and saying, “We got this. It's okay. You don't need to do anything. We got this”. Because when a child is having a tantrum, trying to logic with it doesn't work. Me trying to logic with my anxiety doesn't work. Me trying to argue with it. Me being mean to it. None of that works, because when children are having tantrums, when they're having emotional, big reactions, what they need is for someone to come down to their level, to talk to them and say, “It's okay, like I hear you. I see that you're upset. It's okay”. You know?

And that's actually what I know that I need in those situations. Now, that doesn't mean I don't get scared. It doesn't mean I don't have anxiety, but and I definitely do have anxiety in situations where it calls for it, and sometimes I feel like I feel my anxiety more in my body now than I ever did before, because I'm not always in a constant fight or flight stage.

So transforming that understanding as this is something that I learned to survive. I'm no longer a kid anymore. I developed those skills when I really shouldn't have had to develop those skills. And it's sad, and I've had that mourning period of, you know, I didn't have what I needed. But I can tell myself and that part of myself that I got this, and it's not about being, you know, always being able to deal with everything like because there's so much about things that you can't control.

And it's scary at first, and when you have that little child aspect of you kind of freaking out and going, “Okay, I've got to find something I can control, because I need to protect myself”. The thing is that, you know, I can't ever prevent, you know, the worst thing from happening, and that's what the thing that I tell people is, like, you can't prevent your partner from falling in and out of love with you.

You can't prevent people from lying to you and gaslighting you. As scary as that is, the thing that you can actually do is you can be there for yourself, and you have been there for yourself, and that's the thing that I tell myself and my anxiety, like, look, if I'm going to have an allergic reaction, I can't— you know it's happened. Now. I can't automatically know, and I can't live my life waiting for that, but I know that I'll be there for myself. I know that I will take care of myself. I can take care of myself.

Whatever happens. There's so much that I can't control. I know that I zoom back. Instead of trying to control all those little things outside of my actual sphere, I focus on the thing I can control, which is telling myself, “I got you, I'm here, I'm okay, you're okay. We're gonna get through this. I hear you, I know you're scared, and that's okay”. And having that new approach to it has massively helped. It's self-compassion.

It's not trying to beat myself up or call myself a failure for not being okay. It's not expecting myself to suddenly just snap out of these situations. It's not trying to logic my way out of the situation. It's just sitting there being present, listening and then saying, I got this, you know, I, if I can't, you know, fight the battles that I have to fight, I'll get help as well.

And the ironic thing that I found, too, is that when I was stuck in anxiety and when I was in really, you know, just horrible thought process of kicking myself and blaming myself, I then also didn't have the inner strength and the inner fortitude and the power to step away from other relationships, because I felt like I needed them. I felt like I needed all these people around me. I have to keep them around me.

I can't, you know, step away from a friendship that isn't working. I can't, you know, and I did take small steps. It's not to say that I was a complete people pleaser, but I did have a lot of relationships in my life where people were not stepping up and treating me the way that I deserved, and when I actually, you know, when you do things like that, you know, because you have this kind of fear, and then bad things happen, and then you don't, you know, you kind of lose confidence in yourself and kind of betray yourself a little bit when you aren't able to, like, make those steps, when you are able to step in that power.

With anxiety, you know, anytime I tried to avoid a food, like I would avoid peanuts, because I'm like, oh, peanuts cause allergies. And I've never been allergic to a peanut, but I was like, you know, anytime I gave anxiety an inch, it would take a mile, because it was almost like telling that little kid inside of me, “Actually, you're right. I don't have what it takes. You need to step in and you need to be the protector”. So then the anxiety increased, and I just wanted to control, control, control, control.

So when it came to other relationships, I was too afraid to let them go, and I actually ended up reinforcing that, because those people weren't there to help me. But now I have much better relationships in my life, or I have better boundaries with people, a better expectations with people. So I know as well. Now, not only that, I can take care of myself, but I know that I have people that I can reach out to.

So I really think if you can shift your perspective on this, and as I said, I really, really hope that your partner isn't putting this time limit. Doesn't sound like your partner is, but if you can shift your perspective away from seeing this as something that you need to rid yourself of, as kind of this thing that you need to get over. It's not as simple as that, because this thing inside of you that's paranoid and that's scared is trying to protect you, and it has probably protected you.

A lot of our maladaptive coping techniques, even if they have made us really anxious and really unhappy, have helped us survive in those situations in the past, and it's not about condemning that, and it's not about saying, “Oh, just get over it, to stop it”. As much as I totally understand that feeling, because I felt that way so often, it's about respecting that this is something that's trying to save you.

This is, you know, your ancestors have dealt with so much in the past, and this is your inner lizard brain, like it's just trying to help you, and if you can learn to look at it instead of as this thing that's just cursing your life, and instead go, “You know what you're doing— Like, wow. Like, you've, you've done this, and you've, you've survived this long”. That can be really, really helpful.

It's also really, really helpful. And I want to address, I don't necessarily see you explicitly saying this, but I kind of get the feeling based off of, you know, you feel bad for your partner waiting for you to be ready. Here's the thing, like, not only is the point that I've said before, like you don't have to be perfectly healed before being in a relationship. And it may be that you need to be in a relationship with a supportive partner to show you, because that's kind of like what CBT is, in a way. It's like you sit in in the discomfort you see that people are coming back. You see that the things that you know you didn't die, those kind of that's kind of what it is.

I mean, the ups and downside is that I definitely want to encourage you to understand that you know you can't control other people completely, and to let go of that responsibility. That responsibility weighs heavy on that tiny little kid in you that should not be trying to protect you like it's it's a lot and it causes a lot of stress, but also that you know you don't have to be useful in order for you to be loved. And I don't know if this is specifically an issue that you're facing. I know it's something that I faced. I know I felt very much like I had to be a really good partner, and I always wanted to be a really good partner, because I felt like I get love by being useful to other people, and if I'm not useful, and if I'm a burden, then I will lose that love.

And I felt very nervous about asking for anything I wanted. In fact, I would try to engineer situations so that I got what I wanted without ever having to directly ask for it. And that really was hard for me, and what helped me step out of that is actually having a partner where I'd try to engineer these things. It wouldn't work. I'd get frustrated and snap, and then that partner would be like, do you need me? Like, is that what you need in this situation?

And I'd be like, yes. It was hard, and I felt really bad. I felt like a burden. I always felt terrible when I had these moments and anxiety, is like, it's definitely like that, like in the moment, it feels so real, and then later on, you're like, “Why did I like?” But the thing is, is that sometimes you need to be in relation in order for you to build these skills. You can't just become a perfect person in and of yourself without experiencing other people, and sometimes you need those people to be supportive, and it's not a burden to support you.

It's part of relationships. It's part of why we are in relationships with other people. And there is no solitary, single relationship out there— there isn't a single relationship out there that doesn't involve some conflict. Another thing that might be really useful as well is that I know, for me, ironically, I felt like my relationships were these, like, delicate little glass things, and I need to be super, super careful. And if we had any kind of conflict or disagreement, or if I had an emotional outburst, it was like a little crack in the glass, right?

And just enough cracks and it's gonna break. And like, I felt really, really tense. And then at the same time, I remember telling my therapist about this. I was in these online communities and online groups where I really enjoyed having disagreements with people. I really enjoyed, you know, when we had conflict, because I felt like we learned more about each other. I felt like I learned more. I felt like we grew closer together from disagreeing.

And I actually got really, really angry and frustrated in these sort of communities where I'd walk in and it would be like, if there was a hint of conflict, it would immediately be shut down. And people were like, don't argue, don't argue. And I'd be like, but it's good for us to disagree like, please like. And I remember complaining to my therapist about it, and she kind of pointed it out to me.

She was like, you know, you think that conflict in your relationships and your romantic relationships is going to break that apart. But yet, in your, you know, in your communities and in your friendships, you think conflict brings you closer together. Doesn't this seem a bit odd? And that really shifted my perspective. Was like, Holy crap. It was like that, like that, like, GIF, you know, with a space exploding mind. Like, I was like, actually, that's true.

Conflict is part of relationships. And helping other people and everybody comes to relationships with baggage. Everybody comes to things with baggage. You're not a good partner because you don't require anything, any help, like that's not what a good partner is. And it might be beneficial for you to also shift your perspective on that your partner isn't waiting for you to be ready. You are ready. You're already there.

You're already in that situation. And you by managing this with a therapist, you by working on this shows that you're ready. Somebody who is not ready is someone who's not even willing to engage in a discussion about it, like you're willing to discuss this, you're willing to talk through this, you're willing to work through this, you are ready. That is ready. So please give yourself a little bit of credit there.

You don't have to be perfectly healed, as I've said. And sometimes, you know, everybody comes to relationships with different obstacles, and relationships, in and of themselves create obstacles. There isn't going to be a single relationship that doesn't trigger somebody in some way. That's just the way human relating is, and that's okay. Your relationships don't have to be conflict free for them to be valuable, for them to be good, for them to be overall beneficial, right?

It's just exactly the same as, like, mental health. It's not about never having a negative feeling. It's about learning how to cope with those things. It's not about not having a conflict or not having any disagreement or not having any emotions between you and your partner. It's just about how you deal with that in relation. If your partner is kind of making comments about like, “Oh, you're not done with this yet”. That's not then a problem with your issue. That's a problem with your partner not being supportive.

I mean, another thing to consider as well is that you could have been, you know, the picture of mental health, and have no issues whatsoever, and then you could experience a very severe, sudden and tragic death in your family, and that could really, really affect your mental health. It's not about like childhood wounds are childhood wounds and, oh, I, I get them. I get the childhood wounds, believe me. But trauma doesn't end at childhood. Trauma can happen to anybody at any time, and it can affect anybody at any time, even if they have had the picturesque of childhoods.

So even if you were the most pristine, like you had the perfect family and everyone's so supportive and blah blah blah, things can happen. We can't control that, and they can cause trauma. There's no— and then what are you supposed to do then? “Oh, well, I'm sorry. I've experienced a severe trauma. I'm clearly not ready or okay to be in a relationship, so I'm gonna break up with people until I've gone into my cocoon and I've I've healed everything perfect, and I can come back and be the perfect partner that you need”. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

It's not how we do things, and that's not, you know, if that happened to your partner, if your partner, you know, with all of the fantastic things, it seems like they grew up with a non-monogamous background, like, that's great. Like, then they don't have the same issues. But if they experience something, if he experienced something intense that was very traumatic, would you want him to break up with you and be like, “Well, you know, I'm clearly not perfect. I can't show up in the best way possible”.

I mean, I'm not saying that never happens. There are some times when we feel like we need to step back, because we need to focus all of our energies on ourselves. And that's totally legit. I get that. But would you want like, would you believe— would you see your partner as a burden if they went through something traumatic and we're trying to work through it, I don't think you would. So I think you you can extend yourself the same gratitude and understand that like, yeah, there are situations.

We all have things that we can deal with. We all have different times in our life when maybe we have the energy to be in relationships, maybe when we don't, it doesn't sound like you're in a position where you don't have the energy to be in a relationship. You're dealing with this, you are seeking help, and you're trying. So please give yourself a little bit of grace.

So yeah, to sum up, the only way out is through. And please try to abandon this time period you've given yourself for this idea that you have to… he's waiting, and you're waiting and you're trying to wait until— you have a good relationship. Now, you may have this thing that you're dealing with, and I'm not trying to say that it's not intense and it's not difficult and that everything's perfect, but I'm saying that if you can kind of shift it away from having a deadline that will make it a lot easier for you to cope with it and to deal with it.

Change how you perceive this. I know that that's been really helpful for me. I think it would be helpful as well to see this as not this thing that you're trying to purge from yourself, but this internal system that has helped you survive in the past, that has helped your ancestors survive in the past, and it's not really serving you right now, but you have neuroplasticity. You can make new pathways. It's difficult, but you can do it, and it's not impossible.

That's the actual thing. You can control. You can't control if people decide to lie to you. You can't control if people decide to be jerks to you. You can't control that, but you can build new neural pathways, and you can be there for yourself and and rebuilding that trust and confidence in yourself and and seeing that you know that little child that was you, then you know the childhood is over. It sucks that we didn't have the things that we needed. I totally understand.

But you can give yourself what you need now, and stepping into that power is is so much better in my experience, than being sat thinking like this is just an evil thing that's part of me that I can't control. I think also learning about the nervous system would really be super helpful if that's not something you're already doing in therapy. There's, again, account called repairing_the_nervous_system on Instagram that posts a lot about the like neuroscience of the brain, of fight and flight, of neuroplasticity.

It's been really, really helpful for me, also the sort of authoritative slash gentle parenting resources, Mr. Chazz, understanding brain-based parenting how the brain works. Even if you're not a child anymore, I still think it's really, really helpful to learn re-parenting yourself, because if, especially if the only parenting examples that you have from your childhood are not very supportive ones, then learning how to do that to do that to yourself can be really, really helpful.

And last but not least, you don't have to be perfectly healed. And sometimes you might find that the only way for you to heal these sort of wounds that you have that come from relationships or come from previous experiences, is to have those experiences. See that you've come out the other end and you're fine, and that you got yourself and that you have control over whether or not you support yourself, and that is really the thing you can rely on. That can actually be way more healing than stepping away and trying to theorise this in your head and then trying to step back in it. But yeah, I hope that helps and good luck.