(((((((((((Zoo)))))))))))

Remember that it doesn't have to be all or nothing. You can take a break for a session and see how it feels, and then go back to the trauma stuff. You can do the trauma stuff for a session and then try a break. Whatever you decide to try doesn't have to be forever.

I know when I was doing my trauma stuff, it was trial and error. It still is, sometimes. Sometimes the trauma stuff pushes at me and I choose not to talk about it and it's okay. Sometimes it keeps pushing and I need to call T, or talk about it at my next session. There's no "right" way to do it, you know?

I did start to learn, after a while, that if something was pushing at me really really hard - if I was having lots of flashbacks or nightmares, or if my mind was caught in some kind of painful thought loop that I couldn't stop - I needed to talk about it. T told me that bringing things out of the darkness and into the light helps make them more manageable, and in a lot of ways, that was true. Not just the stories about what happened to me, but the stories I told myself that went with them (I'm dirty, I'm bad, it was my fault, I deserved it, etc.)

Can you just let Monday happen however it happens? You don't have to decide right now what to talk about. Can you watch a movie or read Ann Lamott or knit something new and complicated?

I just remembered that one thing that helped me sometimes was writing things down. sometimes if I could get it out on paper, it helped me let it go for a little bit. I think I held on so tightly to the things in my head that they ended up kind of haunting me. Sometimes, I could write it down and get some relief for a little bit.

Be gentle with you, zoo. You are working hard