I had a session with my t last Wednesday. I went in really not having anything on my mind. We chit chatted for a bit and talked about my one sleepless night last Monday night. I didn't feel like I was getting manic and I didn't feel like I was getting depressed, but I had to admit to some anxiety about my sister coming for Thanksgiving.

As soon as I started talking about my sister, I started crying. I don't cry very often, so my t pressed me to find out what was going on. I tried to stop my crying, but my t said, "Don't you dare stop talking. You've done enough repressing of your feelings. Get them out." So I kept talking. I kept working the problem.

After a bit, I realized my t was wiping tears from his eyes. While I'm not exactly sure what that was about, I had the feeling that he was just so relieved that I was using what I had learned to work through my thoughts and feelings instead of repressing them like I usually do. We had just been talking about how long I've been in therapy with him (5 years) and how many times I've had to be hospitalized in these 5 years (10 times). I've really fought for my sanity. I was touched by his tears. He's never done that before.

As far as the holiday with my sister goes, it went very well. My t really wanted me to say some things to her. I didn't, but I felt so much better for just having worked through my feelings in session last week.

I've finally gotten to the place where I can work through this stuff productively. As my t says, now I have to figure out how to protect my healthy mind. My history has been that every 3 go 4 months I cycle into depression. I don't want history to keep repeating itself. How am I going to hang on to this? I don't trust it yet.

farmergirl What an intense and moving session, wow! Thank you for sharing. I love that your T was wiping away tears and that your healing obviously means so much to him. I'm also glad you could get all that emotion out with T before you saw your sister for Thanksgiving.

I'm nervous about seeing my family over Christmas. Some things that have been going on lately have really brought up a lot of anger in me, so I'm actually going to allow myself to feel that anger and express it in my session today - I don't do well with anger, so this will be a first for me! But your post is an inspiration to me, so thank you!

I hope you can hold onto this feeling and not fall back into that depression, I know it isn't easy. But your T will help you, and you are strong!

[phoenix47baby]

Dear Chris,

Keep up the great processing. You are doing a fine job!

WOW! Hearing your story has to give a lot of us hope that we can improve too! The tears in your T's eyes says it all, you are doing awesome healing work!

Great breakthough!

Thanks guys. It really is nice to finally feel like I'm on my way through this. It really can get better, but it takes so much work. Keep at it everyone.