After a hurricane comes a rainbow?

It's four sessions until my therapy is over, and I find myself pushing dangerously at the edge of my budding self-confidence. Is it because I want expand the borders of my confidence as much as possible before leaving the safety of my therapeutic relationship? Or because I can still go to her with the fall-out of my latest mistakes?

A little of both.

Each day since the Best Therapy Ever, I've found a way to be authentic with another person, opening myself up to new and deeper connections with myself and with others. Today's bit of authenticity was more risky. I tackled the very reason I referred myself for therapy two years ago.

How do I feel, having sent that letter? Courageous. Proud. But also fragile, vulnerable, scared. It was a simple, honest and apologetic letter, asking for nothing. I hope I'll get nothing in return, but in reality I'm already getting the point of this exercise.

Learning how to let go.

I sent that letter for myself, to give myself the chance to be authentic that I didn't have back then. To take responsibility for my behaviour and my inadequacies. Two years too late? I'm not sure I believe in "too late." That presumes some sort of unrelenting standard. Because of that painful situation, I fell apart so much I finally sought and received the specialist psychotherapy I needed. I feel sad about disappointing and hurting someone, but I've worked tirelessly to do better, to be more, since.

"Maybe those other people don’t want to believe they can change, because they are afraid of what is between This Me and That Me. That person in between is in transition: more incomplete than ever, more hypocritical, more indecisive, and more fragile.

It’s sensible to be afraid. Changing my shape also means changing the shape people have formed around me: more loss, more conflict, but also more opportunities. People will resist me, pulling me back into the drama and games." - Going Back to Go Forward 2

I am in danger of holding on too tightly to how my inadequacies have limited or destroyed all of my relationships over time. My feelings matter, too. This acceptance I have of other people's emotions needs to somehow turn inwards. There will come a day when I need to express how something makes me feel and trust other people to respect that as much as I'm learning how to respect theirs.

It's still too easy to deny my own feelings. Easier still when filled with the emotions of others. I hear my therapist echoing: Take care of Eliza. Do something relaxing. Do something fun.

What was unsaid: Enjoy the sense of achievement. Be comfortable feeling safe. Appreciate what I have. Listen to myself.

Learn to let go.

"I'm sick of this mental self-harming. I'll never take off my super-shield of dissociation unless I stop showering myself with Stigma bullets.

Can we work our way backwards? Maybe treating ourselves with compassion means letting ourselves be crazy." - Stigma, Meet Truth. Truth, Meet Stigma.

This was the turning point. This was right on the money. This is when the Inner Bully lost her bite. This is when I knew I cracked it. I cracked open myself.

What do I want from the last four sessions of therapy ahead?

I want to talk about this journey, the one I've shared from start to finish here. I want to talk about how I felt at each stage, because I wasn't capable of it then. I want my therapist to see all I am and all I've done. I want her to be proud of me. I want her to see the pride in me. I want her to share that feeling, to show me it's worth feeling. I have every right feeling that way. My feelings make sense, and they are worth listening to.

I am worth listening to.