Remus J. Lupin

[entering therapy alone unless bigbadpadfoot decides to join]

What do you see as the biggest problem you and your significant other are facing in your relationship?

You can paint it and try to set it up any way you want it, but I think the biggest problem we face is that I can never be completely honest, with anyone. There are always secrets lurking around. I am not proud of it by any means, and I can chalk it up to the fact that it is something that I cannot control, but I should be able to. I was the one that began this charade, no matter how young I was, so I should be able to stop it, yes?

I think the fact that I am always afraid of what will be seen underneath everything that holds me back. There are so many things I think, and feel, and do that I am not proud of at all. And if all that was exposed, what then? Would it be possible to move past that? So I don't say how I truly feel sometimes, or what I am truly thinking. It's not fair, yet I do it anyway. One would expect that I would at least stop it, or not do it again if it makes me feel this way, but it never seems to matter. I do it anyway. Relationships are supposed to be filled with trust, are they not? That is supposed to be the base of it. Why I do this, and make it more difficult... I don't know. I just...don't know. Maybe one day I will be able to stop it. Maybe one day I will simply be completely honest.

Though, truth be told, I am not confident about that at all.

...heh, that sounds like a load of bollocks.

I want to believe that, how things will be better in time. Really, I do, but right now I simply cannot. Perhaps it's because I've yet to sleep through the night without having some sort of reminder of what happened and it's hard to really keep a positive attitude towards it all.

No, wait, here's me being positive: At least I don't wake up screaming or yelling Crucio anymore, so let's be thankful for small favours, hm?

I'm so angry. I am so unbelievably angry even if anger is the last emotion that I've displayed lately. But even if I don't show it, the way it's running through me is... It is so much more than simply anger. It's rage. I know it is, but it's nothing like what I felt in that basement; this anger is simply lingering. It's waiting. I don't know for what, but it's waiting. I am so furious at Carrow, at Fenrir although I have no idea for what, at myself. I am extremely angry at myself. Maybe that's why that is something that I don't admit; I don't want to hear how I shouldn't be angry at myself. I don't want to hear that it wasn't my fault, that I was under a spell: I WAS being myself. That is the frightening part. That is the part that disgusts me, and I WANT to believe that that was not me but didn't Carrow simply strip away that mask I put up for people? The one that makes me the wizard, and not the beast that is trapped in me?

I just...

I am just so bloody tired. I've stopped flinching or tensing up at just the smallest touch, and looking someone in the eye is also getting a lot easier, so I suppose some things have improved. My voice is back to normal, and I look normal, but... Merlin, I don't feel normal. Whatever normal was in the first place - I just don't feel it. And it has nothing to do with being under the spell then again, what do I know?; I just...

I cannot get rid of that voice in my head telling me that they are better off without me. That I should simply leave, and they will be fine. And while that might be true, I--... I cannot leave them. Now, when I let myself truly contemplate it, it hurts so much worse than how it feels when I wake up after a nightmare. Because at least with those I can manage to wake up, and things aren't normal but they can be eventually; if I were to leave it would be so much different. It would be a reality, and one that I cannot bare to live through. Not when I need them so much. It makes me feel so bloody selfish, that perhaps I really am staying when it's the last thing that they need, but I don't want to think of what or who I would be without them.

I guess I gave myself the answer, didn't I? I need to stay. I need to wait things out. I need to wait until I wake up from those nightmares and it won't feel like the world is toppling on top of me. I just hope, I actually pray that that can really happen. Things were wonderful once. I want to feel that again without feeling tainted, or that anything I do or say can destroy things even more than what I already did.