I had a session yesterday. I couldn't get myself focused. I felt unsettled, like I didn't want to be there, didn't know what to talk about, I felt discouraged and overwhelmed. And that was how my session went, mostly. It felt scattered and disjointed, like neither of us could really get going in a clear direction. It wasn't useless. The effort to try to sort stuff out seems to have started to unblock the logjam. I had good non-traveling dreams, all with a German shepherd in them, and I woke this morning feeling clearer. So often, I wake the day after therapy having sorted something in my sleep.

Yesterday, I talked about not knowing who I am because I feel I've lost my compassionate kind self. I'm feeling a giant gap between the compassionate person I think I am and the boundaried person I need to be, like there's a huge chasm between the two and I cannot cross the line to be compassionate because I need to hold the boundary.

I heard myself say: "I don't know who I am in that gap."
(Even typing that is hard. It's a hard place to be.)

This morning when I woke, I suddenly thought, it is not a gap between my compassionate self and my boundaried self. It is a gap between my compassionate wise boundaried self and that old path, my need to rescue, to fix things, to excuse. I don't know who I am in that gap because somewhere without my noticing there has been a foundational shift. (I think that's a good thing. But it feels...empty, I guess.)

And a snippet related to my last session (paraphrased as usual for brevity), near the end, as we talked about my feeling blocked and tired and without space or energy to let go of all the things:
T- Do you remember a long time ago when you told me you were afraid that if you started crying, you'd never stop?
Me- Mm-hmm
T- And then you cried. And you cried a lot, for a long time. You were carrying years, maybe decades worth of hurt.
Me, sighs, nods
T- And then you stopped. That might happen again. You're not processing it now, and something will happen and you will process it all at once. But I don't think it will take as long. You've worked through a lot of your stuff. So you will be processing more recent stuff, and you will stop crying again.

Then at the end she tried to tell me I wasn't the Queen of...something. Fixing Everything, maybe. And I said "Pssh! As if. I totally am. I have the crown at home, all sparkly."