Referring back to part one: after my initial therapy session with Emily I felt horrendous. A a bit of an unexpected emotional wreck, if I’m honest. Despite this, part of me looked forward to the second session, especially because I had some things that had upset me that I needed to discuss. That in itself was a huge positive to me: knowing that I was already comfortable enough to tell her what I’d seen that week and the emotions it had brought out in me. In fact, just knowing I had this non-judgemental space to voice my complicated feelings brought me relief.

So far, Emily starts off each session by asking me how my week had been, and whether anything significant had happened. This week it had, I had seen something that triggered a plethora of emotions within me that I wasn’t prepared for and with Emily’s help I was able to unpick my reaction, bit by bit. She helped me recognise why I had been triggered, often due to dishonesty, and what this meant for me moving forward.

The reason behind me going to back therapy is based around helping me view relationships as something to be excited about again, not feared or something to be avoided in order to protect myself. A lot of our approach and behaviour towards/in relationships is down to our attachment style. I had mentioned in the previous post about the attachment style quiz I had taken, however, Emily didn’t evaluate this in session number two. I would have to wait to delve into this further as other things took priority this session.

In my first session I spoke about being close to tears, however I was able to hold it back. But in this second session, I couldn’t. And there’s no shame in that. Emily has been teaching me that in order to process a loss of any kind, we need to go through the cycle of emotions that come hand in hand with that. Anger, sadness, bargaining, denial. All of these emotions – until we reach acceptance. That is the end goal. Accepting what has happened, why it’s happened and putting it to bed, if you like. She has also taught me that in order to reach that goal, I can’t keep pushing the emotions down, ignoring them or pretending like I’m not feeling that way. The only way is through, and so crying about something that hurt me was all part of that process.

Coming out of this second session, I felt a lot clearer than I had the first time. I can’t really define why, maybe because I’m getting used to opening up again, or maybe because I’m beginning to try and make sense of my feelings a bit more. God only knows.

All I know is that I walked out of that building, feeling like investing in myself and being proactive in dealing with how I was feeling, was the best decision I’d made in a long time.