#therapy journal

[aghosts-eulogy]

"but there is something that happens when you are told you are too much. you begin to ask everyone, "how small would you like me?""

[fella-lovin-fella]

[snail-raven]

help my junk journal sometimes flops open on its own. It is too chunky or possessed.

This is also warning not to buy a multiple hundred pages journal for this purpose. This baby is with me for over year and a half and I have still so many pages to fill

[karivem]

My Journal Ecosystem For 2026📓🌷⭐ Diary, Commonplace, Planner, Joy journa, Therapy journal

[evendeath]

[simonoliverseville]

“I have been doing a stellar job keeping up on my therapy journal and it makes me feel a nice steady sense of accomplishment.”

[jadedbirch]

Last year, shortly before Halloween, I got a call from one of my best friends, let's call him L. His husband was back in the hospital, his metastatic cancer out of control again. We've been fighting this fight for 3 previous years. I've known his husband, let's call him R, for over 20 years, because that's how long they've been together. 15 years my senior, R had been in many ways the big brother and the gay uncle I've always needed in my life. The previous year, when R was feeling better and my wife and I were working from Rome, L&R came to stay with us for a week. R said it was his bucket list trip and we went balls to the wall to make it the most awesome experience for him, including private tours of Hadrian's Villa and horse drawn carriage rides through Old Town Rome.

By October 2023, this Roman trip in October 2022 felt like a distant past. How could things have deteriorated so quickly? But that's metastatic cancer for you. It turns on a dime and devours without mercy.

We spent Thanksgiving 2023 in and out of the hospital so that we could spend more time with R and provide support for L. Even realizing it was hopeless, R asked me to give him Reiki. I hoped that by sharing energy healing with him, I was also able to share my love in some small, tangible way. I felt so helpless. I had spent the prior 3 years pulling strings with all my scientific and medical connections to get him the best possible care. Not trusting in conventional medicine, I became a certified energy healer and a Reiki Master FOR HIM. And after so much fighting, was it really going to be for nothing?

A few days after Thanksgiving R was discharged, but it wasn't because he was better. It was because there was nothing else the doctors could do for him. Not that this is what was said - they still spoke of continuing his radiation treatments, even though it became increasingly obvious that there was no longer a way to get his cancer under control. It had overrun all of his major organs, including the lungs and the liver.

I was in the middle of a conference for work when L called me again. He said R was raving and paranoid and had told L to get out of their house. That was the day I stopped praying for God to save him and started praying for him to die as quickly as possible.

It happened the night of December 8, 12 days before L's 45th birthday. We rushed to their house the next day. It was the middle of Channukah and L, who is also Jewish, lit the menorah, and we talked of how in Jewish tradition dying on a Holy Day was a sign of righteousness. R, who was a recovering Catholic most of his life, was certainly one of the most Righteous people I had ever known. He gave off real Mother Gaia vibes, turning every arid patch of land into a blossoming garden. He nurtured us as he would have nurtured his flowers.

So, why am I writing about all this now? My wife and I just went back to Rome and it was like a punch in the face. Being flooded with all those memories of R&L there with us back in 2022, how happy we were, how hopeful things seemed. How quickly it was gone. Now, with the holidays sneaking up on me, that means the 1st anniversary of R's death, and how impossible it will be to experience Halloween, Thanksgiving, Channukah, and Christmas without thinking of how we spent those holidays last year and why. I know grief is non-linear, it folds back on itself like an ourobouros at times, and I suppose this is one of those times, when I feel the loss of him most keenly. And yet, there are times when he doesn't feel gone at all, when I can hear his voice in my head so clearly, making awful, inappropriate, and often morbid jokes, like a court jester laughing at his own execution. And I know he's still with me, an interdimensional being, free of the bounds of his mortal coil, to be wherever he wants to be, and so many places at the same time because time and space mean nothing to a being of light. When you think of death that way, it seems silly to cry, and yet... I think this is also how we heal: we let the light in by letting the tears out.

So, fall and winter 2024 are going to be tough, I see. I guess I can only hope that fall and winter 2025 feel a little bit better, less sharp, less like a punch in the face.*

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*This has been written and shared as a form of therapy journaling. While this is personal, you are welcome to share it, if you find it helpful, as long as you do so in a respectful manner.

[tkwmatsu]

Journal Entry #4 Having Realistic Expectations

I figured the best way to get out of burnout is to draw something you truly enjoy. So here we are...Alucard from Castlevania: Nocturne. It was fun drawing him.

Probably not ready to jump right back into polished drawings or fully-rendered paintings just yet, but hopefully, I’ll get there eventually...

On a side note, my natural art style is considered somewhat outdated in my country, but it seems to work well within certain niche genres (like Gothic or Dark Fantasy, which I love). Maybe it's time to stop forcing myself to 'modernize' or cater to trends, and just let my style evolve naturally.

Suppose I want to allow myself to create whatever however I want truly. In that case, I’ll also have to let go of certain expectations... like growing a massive audience (let alone monetizing what I do) which is not art's primary purpose anyway. It’s a hard pill to take, especially when you struggle with low self-worth. But I’m working very hard with my CBT sessions to rely less on external validation.