I'm still feeling pretty good and T can tell. He said again this week at our session, it is OK to smile! (I guess I try to hold it in.)

I have spent so much time in therapy being reflective, searching for motivations and meanings behind my "stuckness" in life, and searching for ways to solve my problems. Now I have actually solved some of them and more of them will be dropping off my map in the coming months. So T is turning the conversation to the future. What will replace the problems in my life? I have focused so much energy on the problems and my misery. How about focusing energy on the positive stuff I want to take the place of the problems? That all sounds good, but it's somehow hard for me. Doesn't it seem like that would be easier than dealing with awful problems? Like maybe it should even be fun? But instead, I am threatened by it. I am not used to spending time on positive things for myself. It feels almost sinful to allow myself to plan out good stuff for myself. I don't know how to do it. T asks about my hopes and dreams for myself. Not for my daughters or others, but for myself. Like career, relationships, hobbies, spirituality, something. Just something! But I don't know how to do this. He has suggested something along these lines a few times in our year together, but I always deflect him and change the subject. Before, I felt, I can't do that, I need to solve my problems first. But I can't keep using that excuse. And I think T rightly sees a vacuum coming in my life, when a lot of the bad is gone, but there is nothing to fill it. Maybe he's trying to head off depression at the pass.

We have been together a year now, and I mentioned this to T. He can't believe it has been a year, and neither can I. He says, "you're still like a new client to me." How so? He says it is still fresh, and we are both still learning. Then he says, "I love being here with you. I love spending time with you here." And that is so very very positive and warm that I can't handle it and dissociate. I know there were some other great parts to this part of the conversation, but I just went bye bye. It was like the flood of positive emotions when he said that was just too great, and I departed in order to hold it together. That is strange to me, because I have dissociated in session before when something was too painful for me to tolerate, but never when something was too good. I think, in its own way, something too good can be very painful. Does that make sense? Has anyone else had this happen? It is actually really annoying to me because I would like to have this memory.

We also talked about depression, as it has been on my mind a lot. I keep posting about it in different forums here on PC. I've been thinking about how depression would not be such a prevalent human behavior unless it had some intrinsic advantage and value that allowed it to be selected for evolutionarily. I'm coming to see that depression has served a function in my life. It makes me feel better about having been depressed--I was responding to life circumstances as I was supposed to, as thousands and thousands of years of evolution have said I should respond. I talked about behavioral studies on rats with which T was not familiar, but he really enjoyed this conversation and interjected his insights here and there. My depression helped me conserve energy and resources in a hopeless situation, saving them for better days ahead, which, I think, is now. I don't need to be depressed anymore. T says being depressed allowed me to stay in the marriage. I hadn't thought of it that way. There was a lot of value to staying together, especially for our kids. I am finding meaning where I did not expect it.

This was a strange session. T is on vacation next week, so 2 weeks between sessions for me. I am OK with it. I need a lot of time to process and get used to the scary idea that I am supposed turn my energy outward.