I was thinking about that first time I really felt heard.

I was in college and really struggling with depression and things I had no understanding of such as flashbacks and dissociation. I didn't have names for what I was experiencing and really felt like I was losing my mind.

I was involved with the Methodist center on campus, and the campus minister was astute enough to see me as someone struggling. I hadn't said anything to him, but he was observant. One day he came to me and just laid open the invitation to talk if I ever needed to. It took months for me to get up the courage to actually go to him and talk, but eventually I did.

He heard me. He heard me and immediately put me in touch with the man who would become my first therapist . . . who also heard me.

It was such a relief to just be heard -- to have a voice that could finally be heard. And the hearing turned into helping and healing and empowerment over time and many, many sessions over the next several decades with several different really excellent therapists.

Be heard was that first step in healing for me, and without ever being heard I know I would not have survived. I am ever grateful for those particular people in my life who chose to go into the business of hearing.

[Skeezyks]

Thanks for sharing this uplifting experience, lolagrace. I enjoyed reading it!

[Bipolar Warrior]

This reminds me of the first time I was really seen by someone.

I showed up late for my singing lesson one day, during my first year of university, and I thought I had managed to look reasonably put together, but my singing teacher took one look at me and said, "Sit down. Tell me what's going on." So I told her how I was feeling, and she said she could tell I was depressed and then told me to go see a doctor first thing Monday (this was Friday afternoon). She saw me, and then really listened. She said she had struggled with depression her whole adult life, so she knew how to spot it in someone else.

I'm not sure I'd still be here today if not for her. As I grew up with undiagnosed bipolar disorder, I had no sense of normalcy. I thought swinging from hyper to sad to angry was normal, and I thought feeling like I wanted to die was normal, too. I had to be told by someone else, at 22, that it wasn't normal at all. For years I had been beating myself up for being so "bad at life". I looked at other people and wondered how they seemed to manage everything so much better, whereas I just fell apart all the time, being either tired and drained with no will to live, or losing control and screaming at people who didn't deserve it.

My singing teacher is the reason why I'm relatively stable today. She's the reason I have gotten to a place where I can go to therapy every week, which I have been doing for nearly three years now. These people, who see and listen, are such treasures in life, they make the world a much better place. I'm glad you found someone like that when you needed it the most, and that you survived.