For me, part of it was having someone who understood and could point out patterns of thought and relationship that I wasn’t able to identify from my individual experiences. She heard my trees and was able to tell me about the forest.

In my case there was also a lot of intentional and unintentional gaslighting going on in my life. I really needed someone to hear my experiences and let me know I could trust my own experience and thinking. Sometimes I’d hear things come out of my own mouth and think—whoa that doesn’t make sense. Just the act of articulating them to another person helped me realize how irrational things had gotten.