Shelby,

It is good that you are able to feel and see your emotions through at this stage. Seems that you are taking your own advice on this, the only way is through it! You’re not fighting it anymore and now your mind and soul are giving you some time off from feeling the constant misery – that is amazing!

Your therapist honestly never fails to inspire me in ways. There are many things you mentioned here and I’m like that makes total sense! I am probably trying to protect myself from the pain also – by avoiding any kind of conversation with anyone or anything about the trauma, including my family.

The trauma has made me take on a shut down approach as means of coping and it is affecting all aspects of my life. It is something I have discussed with my therapist and apparently is a very real thing, it is an instinct that kicks in to protect us from excruciating pain. You hear of many stories of trauma survivors where they actually confess that their brains have completely blocked out the trauma or any details around it, again, that is your brain protecting you. Fortunately or unfortunately I remember everything very clearly, I have just gotten extremely good at blocking it out. And if a situation arises which triggers reminders, or my gut feels I am going to get hurt I go into complete shut down mode.

Perhaps the reason why I am able to go through it in therapy is because I feel safe? Because there are no trigger warnings or fear, I know this person is there to help me. I’m hoping that with continuous therapy I will learn better, more fulfilling coping mechanisms, ones which will help me deal in all situations in life rather than avoid situations so not to get burned.

I have no doubt that the date will be hard for me. It is most definitely something that I will never ever forget and will take with me to my grave. But with time I hope to learn to live with it and not let it take over my life. I am however hoping that it won’t be as bad as I am preparing for. Nevertheless, best to prepare for the absolute worst.

I just want to say again, Shelby, only a few weeks ago you were frustrated and the lack of progress in your recovery but you do not realise just how much progress you have actually made. You are able to be rational with yourself, you are able not to act on impulse, in fact, like you said ‘if I don’t feel like contacting him this week, so be it’.. You’re accepting your feelings. You’re accepting that although somewhere in your mind you have that nagging voice I WANT TO BE WITH HIM you actually don’t particularly want or need to speak to him at present moment. It isn’t a necessity. That is huge. You’re looking inwards for answers rather than trying to find them out there in the world and coming to conclusions such as ‘I want to be stronger’. I feel as though the last few weeks have been an absolute breakthrough for you and I am SO happy to hear!