(Warning: Sad rant ahead)

Hi Psych central friends,

So I’m in a deep spiral of sadness/ depression at the moment. I saw an extremely triggering picture on social media earlier today—it was an innocent picture of my FIL feeding my new nephew a bottle, but super triggering for me, my inlaws were not at all supportive of when I was nursing my son, so I spent a solid year being isolated to another room when I was breastfeeding. I got as close as I’ve had in my life of having a mental breakdown when my SIL announced she was pregnant, as it was a living breathing reminder of not having my mom around. My mom was physically and verbally abusive my whole childhood and my dad did nothing to stop it; both my parents are still living, but I cut off contact with my mom years ago.

Anyhow. The end of this month will be 4 months of weekly therapy. I am stupidly, amazingly lucky to have found a GREAT therapist, and one who takes my insurance with unlimited sessions and doesn’t cost me a dime. I’m crazy slow to trust and to open up but I’m finally starting to trust my therapist. I keep a journal on my phone, and earlier today I was transferring the entries for the past 4 months into a new app (shout out to the nice person who suggesting the app Journaling!). And I feel like nothing has changed. I’m still in this awful place of hurt, grieving for the childhood lost and the mom I’ll never have. My therapist and I talk about it a lot, how long this grieving stage takes—we both use Judith Herman’s “Trauma and Recovery” quite a bit as a guide. (I highly recommend.)

But what if nothing changes? I’ll never have back what was lost, I deserved a better childhood and adolescence. And right now, I hurt for what I don’t have in my life as an adult, I’ll never have a mom in my adult life or supportive family. (I’m an only child.)

My therapy session isn’t until Thursday. My therapist has never done anything to prohibit out of session contact (he’s offered a few times), but I could never, I would hate to bother him, and I would die of embarrassment.

Anyhow. Anyone have an therapy success stories or little milestones? This therapy thing, it does work, right?

(Thanks for listening friends.)