take my hand, wreck my plans

CHAPTER 11: this is me trying

(mainly about Meredith, i wanted to make a chapter to explain her backstory)

"What can you tell me about that time you drowned?" Dr Wyatt inquired
"I... There's not much to say. I was pushed into the sound and the water was freezing." Meredith explained, getting chills from the memories. "I remember swimming... then I gave up and the next thing I remember is waking up in a hospital bed."
"You stopped fighting and you drowned but you were pulled out of the water by your best friend and then your loved ones did everything to save you."

Meredith had no idea where she was going with this. She focused on the aquarium and watched the colorful fishes swim in circles. It was already her seventh session in two weeks and she felt like she was going nowhere. All Dr Wyatt did was make her relive her worst traumas without helping her in the slightest.

"They gave you a chance to live again even after you gave up." She continued.
"Yes, I am aware of that." Meredith was starting to get annoyed.
"Meredith. You need to understand that you have to acknowledge that this experience is probably one of the biggest roots of your problems. You are unconsciously thinking you're living on borrowed time and the death of many of your friends who were there to bring you back to life seem to have just accentuated this raging guilt of being alive you're feeling. But I am telling you, your life is worth living, no matter how many times your mother tried to convince you of the opposite. You don't have to carry this guilt and resentment of your own life around like a big burden." Dr Wyatt explained calmly.

Meredith was flabbergasted and the words of Dr Wyatt seemed to echo on a loop in her head. Did she just explained from start to finish the very core of her problems? Did she just put words on everything Meredith had been feeling these past few years?

"Meredith? How are you feeling right now?" Dr Wyatt asked softly seeing her patient's complete puzzlement.
"I heard you loud and clear, I'm just processing..." Meredith replied in a low voice, "I feel like I'm finally seeing things clearly it's very weird."
"Just so we're clear, that doesn't mean that your therapy can stop."
"I know, I know. I just feel like I have finally made a sort of progress."
"Finally?"
"Well... Yes, to be honest I felt like the first six sessions were just me going over and over again on my worst fears and memories." Meredith bluntly replied.
"I needed to get an idea of who you were and I also needed you to feel comfortable talking to me. You are a very complex patient but I'm figuring you out." Wyatt explained.

Meredith smiled softly. They were finally getting somewhere and she already felt lighter. She would've never thought therapy could be that helpful.

"What's my diagnosis besides severe mommy and daddy issues, fear of commitment and abandonment issues?" Meredith asked on a light tone with a giggle.
"You could almost switch to psych" Dr Wyatt joked, "But Meredith, in all seriousness, I can't just list what I think may be an issue and send you on your way so I'm neither going to confirm that nor deny it."
"That would have been too easy" she groaned
"It would, but you knew it wouldn't be easy, that's why you came, to be better mentally." The therapist replied softly.

The journey was far from over and Meredith knew that when she decided it was finally time for her to go to therapy. During her first session, Dr Wyatt let her talk about anything she wanted and she decided to talk about how her father abandoned her at the age of 5 to create a whole new family and how absent and emotionally abusive her mother was for her entire life.

She mentioned her mother's suicide attempt that she had to witness when she was 5 only on her second session. It was hard for her to relive the fear she felt and the horror her mother made her watch at such a tender age.

Then she went on about the day she held a bomb in her hand inside a body cavity and how she willingly did so. She still didn't know what pushed her to do so but that was another moment of her life where she felt completely alone.