I had my session with T today. When I went on Friday, he pointed out to me that I'm often in this place of wanting to talk/not wanting to talk - sort of stuck between - and he can see me make this internal shift to "not gonna talk" and then I change the subject. He asked if I could feel that moment when I shut down - and I really can. Then he asked if I could stay in that in between place a little longer to see what it would feel like. I did, and I talked, one sentence, and immediately my throat closed up, the room was spinning, next thing I knew T was on the couch next to me helping me get grounded, etc., etc. Not good.

But over the weekend, it hit me. I talked, and I DIDN'T die. I survived. Not that I literally thought I would die, but I think on some level, I kind of did.

This morning, before my session, I had this overwhelming urge to draw the floorplan of a room from my past - where this trauma we are talking about took place. I felt like I HAD to do it. So I did, and I brought it to him, and we sat on the couch together and looked at it. It was scary at first - but then it felt so healing - like I wasn't alone in that room anymore.....T was with me.

We managed to talk about the trauma topic for a while today, and I managed to stay present the whole time, which was huge. He asked what I do when the trauma memories come up - and what I do, is usually just have them bouncing around in my head, and it sucks, big time. He suggested I write them down on loose leaf paper and bring them to him. We can talk about them and he'll keep them in a folder in his file cabinet, triple locked, without my name on the folder, so even if someone found them, they wouldn't know it was me. And then, someday, when we feel "done" or ready or whatever, we'll go outside with a metal garbage can and we'll burn them together. The room floorplan I drew was the first thing he put in the folder today. He's going to hold all of this - the fear, the pain, all of it - until we're ready to get rid of it, together.

I feel hopeful for the first time in a long time. Like there's a chance that I'm really going to be able to work through these traumas, and heal. I told T that I felt like I needed to leave something GOOD of myself there, not just this bad stuff, to balance it out, and he said "just bring yourself twice a week, and that's more than enough".

I can't even express how huge this is to me. It feels so good to have this glimmer of hope. I love my T.