Saw T right as I came in go into his room. Was relieved to know that he'd be around, for some reason I'm always scared that he won't show up, even though that has never happened so far.

He got me after a few minutes. I grabbed the newest part of my journal and handed it to him. He looked through it, mentioned how he usually reads it in parts, commented on how it's a lot to read in one go (it was about 9 pages) and then asked his usual intro question.

I said that I'd been to my old high school on Tuesday. Met with a former teacher, spent some time walking around the building.
He asked me how it went, especially meeting my teacher, he wanted to know what we talked about. I said it was mostly just casual topics, like what I did in college, what my hobbies are now, stuff like that.
I said one thing that kind of bugged me was a comment he made almost at the end, on how I had been the one responsible for getting some bullies kicked out of school. I was bothered by that because that's not how I remember it, I remember repeatedly reporting them and nothing was done until a second child also filled a report.

But I didn't let my teacher know that I was bothered. Then I mentioned to T how something else had been irritating too, one of the bullies was allowed to stay in school and later on was in another class taught by that teacher. He told me how well-behaved that guy was after a few years and some other things along those lines. T asked why I was annoyed by that. I replied that for those guys, they got a slap on the wrist, were allowed to continue their lives and all they had to do was be more polite and everyone compliments them. Meanwhile the people who they bullied still have to deal with the trauma and will probably always have some sort of mistrust for other human beings.

Then I started to cry. T was quiet for a while. Then he asked what I tried to achieve with this behavior. I said safety. He said that it's doing the opposite, that it might drive people away from me and he elaborated on how he was feeling at the moment.

He said that he thinks my mind interferes too much during these times. That sometimes the mind is useful and good, like when doing scientific research. But sometimes it's better to ignore it. He mentioned that it might be time for me to change my strategy to get safety and asked whether I agreed. I nodded, but then I said I didn't know how to do it.

He answered that it's hard to explain, but that for now it's enough to just understand that it's maybe time to find a new strategy. Then he tried to get me to do mindfulness and instructed me to concentrate on my breathing.

It helped to calm me down some, but from time to time I still had crying fits. We didn't talk much, I think once or twice he asked me what I was thinking about and he checked in with me sometimes to see whether I still manage to focus on my breathing. At some point I started to cry more again and he said 'you have to try in order for it to work'. I got angry because I felt like I was trying, it felt invalidating.

Then he helped me some more by doing deep breathing with me. After time was up and I had gathered my stuff, he asked whether I could write about our session and bring those notes to my next session. I said okay, though I was (and still am) very confused about why he'd want to read that.

Comments are okay if anyone feels they have something to say.