Every now and then there is a day that reminds me how my life was before therapy. A day when I surprise myself and say “Oh snap, remember when anger ruled your life and how you would have responded so differently to this particular event?” It is not a pleasant road to travel down. However, as the years go by I have begun to accept that the anger, which led my life down not so rosy paths, was not mine to own.

But, I am getting ahead of myself.

Recently I have been glancing through three of my personal diaries. Diaries dating from 1968 – 1970. Diaries that record the thoughts of a girl turning thirteen, fourteen, and then fifteen. Or rather they should be records of that young girl’s thoughts.

Perhaps the diaries is why I am contemplating how my life was before therapy. You see, my diaries are very superficial. They are entries of mundane comings and goings of an adolescence.

None of the angst, none of the insecurities, none of the teenage woes make their appearance in the written pages.

When I took them down from the attic I was hoping for some insight into the person I can’t remember. It was not to be. What I uncovered instead was the tip of an iceberg that can only be classified as my lifelong battle dealing with someone else’s anger.

My diary is mundane because to write anything else would have caused extreme personal battles in my life.

I knew my mother read my diaries.

I could not tell my truths.

I was horribly afraid of my mother.

This is where therapy helped me to begin to connect the dots. The fears that were perpetuated throughout my childhood ~ the anger that grew from these unresolved fears ~ was a legacy that was being handed down to me.

A legacy that was going to continue it’s cycle….if I let it.

Today I am grateful: For courage.