Mama Bear

Last Wednesday I sat down in my therapist’s office and said, “I’m actually feeling pretty good! I even managed to string a few good days in a row!” And then Levi’s girlfriend of 2 1/2 years broke up with him that afternoon…

Thursday morning I wrote an SOS email to my therapist…”Help! Mama Bear is pacing and huffing. She’s wants to throw her cub up into a nice safe tree and maul somebody”. We talk about my Mama Bear a lot in therapy…so this wasn’t unusual. I went in for an extra therapy session last Friday and got Levi set up with one of my therapist’s colleagues for this week.

I realized as I was talking to my therapist on Friday…trying to get Mama Bear to “stand down” a little bit…that my emotions were so roiling and heightened because my mind wasn’t in the present moment anymore. Seeing my cub in that much pain and feeling helpless to do anything to take it away took me right back in my head to Jason dying. And then my brain was starting to make connections between the two in my head and I was reliving my own initial pain of losing Jason and imagining how Levi was feeling…and let’s just say that Mama Bear was ready to eff somebody up.

Gratefully, my therapist was able to help me talk through all that…help me separate the two events in my head…get Mama Bear to at least breathe and put all 4 of her paws on the ground. She is still on high alert though. It’s hard for her to focus on anything except for the well-being of her cub. If you have a Mama Bear inside, you know what I’m talking about.

I am extremely proud of Levi though. He is really good at seeking out support…either from me…or other people he trusts (shout out to the LT Tennis Desk ladies)…when he needs to talk. While everything sucks right now, I have no doubt that he is going to come out of this experience just fine…and have that much more knowledge about love and relationships to take with him. It’s gonna take awhile for Mama Bear to rest easy though.