A step back from therapy. A step forward.

Since writing my last piece, I have thought more about this fear that has come after my success. Is the fear founded on reality? Or is it based on a remembrance of what was but may not necessarily be anymore?

Two nights ago, I was able to tell my therapist that I felt strong and wise. It is one thing to say these words; quite another to say them and truly own their meaning. I did not cringe when I told her this. I did not look down. I did not feel that I was forcing myself to say something others have said about me.

But why am I able to say this now, after decades of believing myself to be a weak, emotional basket-case, who would never truly come out from under all the abuse and trauma to amount to much of anything? After years of trying to heal, never really knowing what being healed really looked like, how can you have any confidence that things will get better?

Why now? Because I took a break from what had always been. After almost two decades of therapy, I came to a point where I just needed to stop. The first 15 years of those two decades were filled with therapy that held me back more than helped, due to bias and lack of training. Couple that with the fact that I was tremendously over medicated for 10 of those years, I was going nowhere.

Five years ago, I began seeing a therapist who specialized in treatment of abuse and trauma. It was the first time I had ever really felt understood and accepted. It was the first time a glimmer of hope that I could heal appeared. She used parts work, internal family systems, brainspotting, EMDR – all modalities meant to help different parts of self, heal. She referred me to another therapist in order to learn the skills associated with DBT (Dialectic Behavioral Therapy). I also began seeing an art therapist last year to help work through the emotions that arose from the trauma work.

Over time, those emotions that had been pushed down, either by me or the over-medicated depression, began to surface. These therapists helped me work through my fear of these emotions – more a fear of being overwhelmed by them because I was never taught that emotions were okay, much less how to work through them. They helped me work through the abuse and trauma that were the source of those emotions.

At some point last year, I began to feel like I was spinning my wheels. It seemed as though, with every session, there was no progress, only repetition. I began feeling angry. I was tired of therapy. I was tired of trying to heal. The anger and weariness coincided with a time in my work where it was going to be very difficult to maintain the schedule of appointments for therapy, so I decided to use that time to just take a break from the more intense therapy for a few months. Rather than completely “go it alone”, I still saw the art therapist, but for more traditional therapy. I had no idea what this decision would lead to.

While nothing at work changed in regard to my position, the duties morphed into more of a training role. Beginning in November, I began teaching classes for a team who had been hired to help us through our busiest time of year (which we are in right now). I had two coworkers, in my same position, who were helping. We had worked for months before, developing the training and preparing for the team. We decided I would lead the class. They did not know what they were getting into. Quite frankly, neither did I.

My two coworkers said they had never met “this Katie” before. I was having so much fun leading that class. I was energetic, confident, fun. I had always enjoyed helping people train and develop, but I had never had an opportunity like this. It was amazing.

After the training classes, the team moved out to the floor and I was to be the team lead while they were with us. The supervisors were on the other side of the building, much removed from the day-to-day workings of the team. I became the “supervisor”. Again, I had never had an opportunity like that. It has been amazing.

Now, after these three amazing months, here I am, at a point where I can tell my therapist that I feel strong and wise. Without cringing or looking down. I have had to really look at how I am right now because my emotions are very calm and have been for some time. My concern has been that I have been pushing them down again from all the busyness and long hours at work. The building fear that they will burst forth and overwhelm me again, taking me back so many years. But then, I have stepped back from that fear to think about the fact that, as my husband has told me, I am a different person and in a different place from “so many years” ago.

When I do step back, I look at who and where I am now. I think about the “who and where” from before. After so many years spent “healing”, was I ever aware of what the end result of all that work would look like? My understanding was that the emotional waves would never go away, I would just learn to work with and through them. Did I ever imagine the emotions could be calm on a daily basis? Not gone, just calm.

Put simply, no.

This fear that has come after the success I have experienced is a fear of what was. A fear of what could be because it was. If I give credence to this fear, I do not allow for the fact that I am different. I have grown and learned. The emotions have been allowed to flow and so have calmed from the dam that burst over the last few years.

Am I healed? I do not know that I can really answer that.

Do I still need therapy? Possibly. At times.

You can not put a finite end to a process that is so intricate and deeply woven throughout so many years of a person’s life.

I feel strong and wise. I am confident. I see a future with more possibility than I have ever seen before.

And now begins a new process, one that I never thought would happen. I am beginning the process of ending therapy. Again, this is a decision that I made and spoke without cringing or looking down when I let my therapist know. It is a process that I know can be as long or short as I need it to be. It is an ending that I know does not have to be if I find I need to continue. I know that if, in this process, I need to delay the end, this will not mean that there will not be an end. Again, I am not putting a finite end to this process.

The mere fact that I can say it is time to begin this process is a feat in and of itself. I am going to hold on to that and keep moving forward.