For years, I wouldn't talk about my biggest problems in therapy, only the daily, miserable stuff that were symptoms of the big elephants. Then, she helped me to cope with my miserable life by repetition of mindfulness, distress tolerance skills, work on interpersonal skills, and other concrete skills (DBT & CBT).

But after the elephants got recognized at the end of January, therapy has switched, and I'll bring something I need clarification on, like "my mom betrayed me again", "I promised to do something for my daughter that I didn't want to do", "my husband is pressuring me to pick one job over another", stuff like that. Issues I had when I was barely coping, but didn't even come up for discussion.

In between therapy sessions, I'm solving interpersonal problems that would have stumped me back when I was really miserable. In the past, when I only brought my misery, my therapist worked with that, because that's where I was. This post is all me, me, me, which is what therapy is. But, the relationship between me and my therapist is key also. I trust my current one, but I had a psychoanalyst in the past, and the most positive decision I made after 5 years was to terminate the therapy.