I remember when I first wrote a letter to my T. I hadn’t done it before because I for some reason hadn’t ever thought of doing it. But I wrote her this letter and in it, I expressed my feelings about my life and situation at the time. I remember when she read it, her eyes got starry and I could tell that she was trying really hard not to cry. I couldn’t understand why she was so affected by it, so I asked her what she found was so moving about it. She told me that it was beautiful. She said that it was beautifully written and it was beautiful that I managed to actually express my feelings. That surprised me because I didn’t find what I wrote to be particularly beautiful and I didn’t realize that I wasn’t opening up to other people at all previously. I guess somewhere along the road, I lost my ability to communicate my feelings to others and I didn’t manage to refind that ability until I started writing again.

When you said “this is beautiful” in your post, you reminded me of something good about this summer: I never lost my ability to express myself. I was worried that being here and not having anyone I felt safe talking to would make me bottle up my feelings again and crawl back inside the shell I made to protect myself from the outside world. But I didn’t. I kept writing and I somehow managed to open up on an online forum which facilitated me to be even more open. I would never have been able to do that last summer. I guess despite all of the bad things I did to myself and the deterioration of my mental state throughout the summer, I still made progress. Well, maybe I didn’t make progress, but I didn’t lose everything I gained. Maybe my T won’t be as disappointed in me as I’m afraid she will be when I see her again.

So thank you.