I was CTJMed: Thankful for Good Friends with Hard Messages

Know what a CTJM is? Let me define it by way of an example.

I worked for several years at a public accounting firm. In a public accounting firm, an accountant will maintain the accounting for several clients at a time, as opposed to a private accountant who works for just one company at a time. As you can imagine, because people are involved, you can get any manner of personalities across the clients assigned to you. Most were wonderful, but some were definitely not. We affectionately called the difficult clients 'feral cats', and when we were beyond the point of being able to help them for whatever reason, we'd set up a CTJM. CTJMs are 'Come to Jesus Meetings', wherein we would sit the client down, calmly and rationally explain the issues, and set expectations with them if they want to remain our clients.

(I may or may not of loved making up random acronyms for our office.)

I have been involved in many a CTJM, as the one giving the CTJM. But on Tuesday, I was on the receiving end for the first time. Boy howdy, being CTJMed fucking SUCKS.

(Yeah, I regularly turn homemade acronyms into verbs. It's a writer thing. Think of it as my contribution to the evolution of the English language.)

I have been having a really hard time for the last month to six weeks because of the situationship I was in. (See my last several posts to catch up on the story.) Super depressed, super drinking too much, super not working on my business or looking for a job, super unable to focus or make the simplest of decisions, super spirally in all the bad ways. I was a zombie, and I needed help. Friend R demanded that I seek help immediately. Demand is not the right word, but when you can barely get out of bed, every instruction, even the ones of the gentlest nature, feels like a threat.

So I did. I sent a message to Friends D and M the next day. I'm just going to copy and paste it,

"I am having a really hard time in my personal life with some things. I am very depressed and my anxiety is off the charts. I have zero motivation to do anything, especially working on my business or other avenues of income. …I really could use some help to not stay all day in bed and cry, getting out, and doing things I know will help, reading, writing, etc. Especially help with not drinking b/c I trend that way and that will just make it all so much worse. Accountability. I did see my doctor yesterday and got my meds adjusted, and figured out my insurance for counseling and contacted some therapists this morning. I don't know what that means you might need to do exactly, but I need help. I'm just so scared."

Good times.

And they stepped up. I would message them my plan for the day in the morning, update them as needed throughout the day, and recap at night. They encouraged me to get out of my house daily, exercise, eat, and write the fuck out of the situationship issues. I had good days, bad days, OK days, and days I just said 'fuck it' and stayed in bed. As my meds kicked in and I slept a little more, I got slowly better. But every time issues with the situationship would come up, right back down, crash and burn. Hard.

Monday was one of those days. I was in a bad, bad state. I reach out to everyone, and everyone helped as they could, but I had worn out my welcome. Tuesday, Friend D CTJMed me.

She sat me down and said, and I'm paraphrasing here, "Look. You need to figure your shit out. We cannot keep being your therapists. You will lose us. This person you are involved in this situationship with is psychologically abusing you. You used to be so confident, and now you have zero self esteem. And you spiral fast whenever you hear from them. You need to do A, B, and C. Now. We're going to sit here and I'm going to watch you do them."

insert my deer-in-the-headlights look here

Friend D gave me no choice, looked stoically at me when I raised objections, and brought me back to the task at hand when I tried to fold. We sat there for three hours and did A, B, and C. I felt like a toddler being watched as I picked up my toys after I had thrown them across the room during my tantrum. Oh my fuck, it was truly awful.

Most importantly, we came up with a way to hold me accountable that will really work. If I didn't get it together, she would do X, and I gave her the ability to follow through with X. Goddamn, I DO NOT want her to do X. I am properly motivated for sure.

But it was the push I needed. She came at me from a place of love, smacked me upside the head to get my attention, and told me to knock my shit off. I never want to be in that place again. Never want to be CTJMed ever, ever again. And I sure as fuck don't want to push away the people that mean the most to me in the world being like this. Not in a million billion years do I want to do that to them again.

So I'm getting my shit together. Is it easy? Fuck no. I am going to get my meds adjusted again, I think I found a therapist that will work out, I'm sticking to a schedule that includes 30 minutes of walking a day, and I am looking for a job until my business take off enough to support me.

I am so glad that I have good friends that were there for me when I needed them, even if the message was hard to hear. I can't imagine where I would've gone left to my own devices. It's not a pretty thought. Reigning in this feral cat wasn't easy, but they really came through for me. I am eternally grateful for them.

<3 you D, R, and M

Photo Credit: https://unsplash.com/photos/brown-tabby-cat-lying-on-white-textile-rrbILwoKiTI?utm_content=creditShareLink&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=unsplash