I Can’t Afford Therapy

But my hearts breaks anyway.

Sep 22, 2025

My Mother Broke My Heart First

Not some boy with unwashed hands and confusing kisses, not a friend who grew jealous of my glow, not even the man who said I was “too intense” and then begged for my softness like it was communion wine. No.
She was the first. The blueprint.
The original heartbreaker with coconut oil hands and a mouth full of disappointment.

And still, I go back.
Hungry. Wounded. Reaching like a child who still thinks the flame might choose not to burn her this time.

Let me begin with a confession, since that’s the only kind of therapy I can currently afford:
I cried over a woman who gave birth to me but never truly held me.
Not once. Not like a cinematic tear down a dewy cheek.
I mean sobbed. Guttural. Involuntary.
The kind of crying that wracks the body like grief, like mourning someone who’s still alive and still cruel.

The kind of crying that scares you — because it doesn’t stop when you tell it to.

The hurt wasn’t elegant. It didn’t sit quietly beneath my ribs.
It screamed. It collapsed me.
It took my breath and gave me nothing in return.

And then, because I’m a woman trained in both performance and politeness,
I wiped my face, put on lip gloss, and went to work like I hadn’t just drowned in my own bedroom.

They say heartbreak isn’t fatal.
Which is cute. Because mine almost was.

You see, I live in a world where grief is considered a luxury.
Where emotional pain is something you’re allowed to feel after you’ve paid rent, nursed your mother, balanced your boss’s ego, and smiled through the silence that follows maternal disapproval.

We all want to be healed, but healing costs money.

And I? I cannot afford therapy. Not the real kind.
Not the three-sessions-a-week, dig-up-your-childhood, hold-you-while-you-shatter kind.

I can barely afford decent WiFi to stream the podcasts that keep me company in the dark.

So I come here instead — to the page, to strangers, to the ache.
This is my therapy now: writing like I’m making out with my own damage.

Heartbreak As Research. Grief As Methodology.

I’m tired of pretending heartbreak is a metaphor. It’s not. It’s a fucking diagnosis.

My chest hurts. My jaw clenches.
My sleep is haunted by the absence of a woman I can’t call when I’m sick, because she hasn’t nurtured me in years.

I cried the other night while folding laundry —
because she would’ve told me I was doing it wrong.
I cried when I wore something beautiful —
because I imagined the look she’d give me if she saw.
Not disgusted. Not proud. Just… disappointed.

And no, she never hit me… Not in the beginning.
Not in the fairy-tale way I was taught to define abuse.
But she did… Eventually.
Open palm to the cheek.
Fingernails like punctuation marks across my face.
Once, twice, enough times that my reflection started flinching before she touched me.

But let’s be clear: That wasn’t the part that hurt the most.
The bruises faded. The silence didn’t. It was the way she weaponized absence. The way she’d withdraw, emotionally, spiritually, like a queen denying court access. And there I was… A little girl in pigtails and panic,
trying to earn affection like it was a prize for best performance.

I learned early that I had to be pleasant to be tolerated.
Pretty to be protected.
Perfect to be seen.

And still… I tried…
Even as an adult. Even now.
I tried to talk to her like a woman.
Tried to explain what her most recent betrayal did to me —
how it cracked something I didn’t even know was still holding on.

And she looked at me.
Dry-eyed.
Immovable.

“That’s how I am,” she said.
“Shouldn’t you get used to it?”

Get used to it.
Like she’s a weather pattern.
Like heartbreak is seasonal and I’m supposed to carry an umbrella made of denial.

Please.
Someone enlighten me.
How the fuck do you get used to being gutted by the person who gave you your name?

Every time I go back to her, I feel like a girl rehearsing for a mother who’s already left the room.

She didn’t hold me. She didn’t even try.
And still, somehow, she owns my attention like it’s owed.
She’s not the origin of my ache, but she became its perfect shape —
a placeholder for every unmet need I’ve ever been too proud to say out loud.

There is no couch. There is no clipboard.
Just me, obsessively analyzing a relationship like it’s my thesis and I’m defending it to a jury of imaginary therapists, all of them shaped like her.

Because this? This is how I cope.
I become a researcher of my own romantic ruins — maternal edition.

Who was I when I first realized she wouldn’t save me?
What childhood wound did she leave wide open?
What power did I hand over, quietly, in the name of being a good daughter?

When I can’t afford a therapist, I become my own.
Which is equal parts heroic and horrific.
I spiral, but with citations.

When I’m Too Broke To Be Broken

So what do I do? I patch the wound with Pinterest quotes and overpriced candles.
I turn to Reddit threads like modern oracles.
I whisper my anguish into anonymous comment sections, hoping someone out there will translate it into truth.

And I cry.
Not performatively. Not prettily.
But in those feral, breathless sobs that make your ears ring.
I cry while doing dishes. While journaling.
While pretending I’m too busy to notice she still hasn’t called.

I listen to music that understands me better than my mother ever tried to.
To podcasts that sound like therapy I don’t have to pay for.
And I write — not beautifully, not neatly, but like someone performing surgery on herself in the dark.

Because if I don’t, I’ll break in ways I can’t write myself out of.

But I Still Want To Heal

Because if I don’t, I’ll break in ways I can’t write myself out of.

But I Still Want To Heal

Even with no insurance, no stability, and no one mothering me back —
I want to heal.

I want to stop confusing pain for purpose.
I want to mother myself without resentment.
I want to love people without becoming their apology to someone else.

I want my heart to break and still believe in softness.
I want to feel chosen, even if no one is watching.
I want to be so whole it feels dangerous.

And I will be.
Not today. Not cleanly.
But in fragments.
In playlists.
In writing that’s both a lifeline and a leash.
In silent moments where I name the ache but refuse to let it own me.