Connections I Didn’t See Coming

Today my therapist made a connection that I had never come to on my own, and it did two things at the same time. Honestly, it did a lot.

Up until this point, I had assumed that my previous therapist terminated the way she did to intentionally hurt me, that she must have hated me.

My therapist linked that belief back to my trauma memory of being intentionally hurt.

I was caught off guard.

I think it took me 20–30 seconds just to take a breath. A lot went on after she said that, things I don’t really have words for yet, but something shifted.

It also shredded a layer of shame.

I think that’s because now I have a link to why I assumed that. And now that I have a link, I can work on it. It feels like something I can actually change.

What’s wild to me is how I couldn’t make that connection myself. All these years analyzing everything, and that never once crossed my mind.

But now, for the first time in a while, I feel a sense of hope.

I know it’s going to be hard work. I know I won’t get it right all at once. But before this, I felt hopeless.

And now I feel like I am holding the beginning of a thread and I feel gratitude for that.