It's been awhile since I posted. After four and a half misterable months, it seems as though the depression has finally lifted. I believe this is due to a combination of many factors-- a really important one being that I have taken a month off from work and have been working four days per week at my internship. I cannot even begin to tell you what it is like for me to be able to (temporarily) ditch the job that I hate and be able to really experience what it is like to be a therapist full-time. It is truly my passion. However, I do realize that next month I will have to go back to my job and cut back my internship to two days per week again. Even this is termporary though, as I will be graduating soon and will be able to get a better job. T and I are working on preparing me so that I don't slip back into a depression once I have to return to my job.

In the meantime, things have naturally been returning. I have been reading again, thinking about the next poem I am going to work on, cleaning, going out, and putting proper focus on my studies. It is like I am rediscovering life. There is also a lot of anxiety, though, as my depression is cyclic and I am focused on when it is going to return.

I had a wonderful session with T yesterday. I had called him the day before just because I felt like it. There was no crisis, there was nothing imperative I had to tell him. I called because, as I said to him, "I just felt like talking to you." In session, he reinforced how this was absolutely okay and an excellent positive resource for me.

He started out the session by telling me that I looked nice. That made me melt because as we get to know each other more, I see that he becomes more comfortable commenting on certain things. In the first year of our therapy together, he would NEVER comment on my physical appearance.

We spent the entire session with a focus on positivity. We used the EMDR clicking machine thingy to process positive events and memories.

T highlighted my strengths. It was extremely meaningful for me to hear him tell me what a strong therapist he thinks I am, and will grow to be. I admire him so much as a clinican from a professional point of view, and to hear him say that to me, as my therapist, and as a professional, meant the world to me.

During this session, I was trying to process the positive connection between us during the EMDR technique and he reminded me, "I care about you. I think about you outside of session."

Another thing that struck me was the way in which he knows me-- how he focuses on parts of me that no one ever has before. He was talking in particular about the way in which I have always interpreting music and emotion as colors and shapes in my mind-- and that is how I end up writing my poetry or producing art. This was always a natural way for me to think and yesterday T told me, "You have a gift." and we talked about ways in which I can use this in therapy because it is how I am most comfortable expressing myself.

Since I am off Tuesdays, I asked for an additional session this Tuesday. At first he said he wasn't able to do it and then after a few minutes, he changed his mind and said I could come in the late afternoon. :-)

We are starting the official EMDR process next Saturday. I am nervous and excited. Until now we have only done small EMDR techniques to help me process positive experiences. We are going to begin actual EMDR to bring up and process things from the past. T said, "It's like five years on the couch condensed into weeks." I asked him if he had done EMDR before and he said, "I would never use something that I hadn't tried myself and found that it worked."

Then he gave me yet another relaxation CD, only he gave me this one because he knows it's by my favorite relaxation CD person and it really works for me.