Seven days inside my head

Seven days ago:

I sent my counsellor some excerpts from my journal. As soon as I hit 'send' I thought, "Sh*t. What have I done?"

I knew it was a mistake.

Six days ago:

I re-read what I sent my counsellor. I then emailed her and said I thought I might be coming down with something and probably wouldn't be able to make it to my session next week. (She knows me well enough now to ignore this...)

I thought it was a mistake.

Five days ago:
I re-read what I sent to my counsellor. I opened my journal and read some entries I didn't send her. I flicked back through the journal and noted how many entries were really quite similar to what I'd sent. They go back a long way.

I was willing to entertain the idea that maybe it wasn't a mistake.

Four days ago:
I re-read what I sent to my counsellor. I remembered previous counselling sessions where I'd left feeling annoyed with myself because I'd tried to talk about what was going on inside me but just couldn't get the words out.

I began to think it wasn't a mistake.

Three days ago:
I re-read what I sent to my counsellor. I remembered previous counselling sessions where I took my journal with me but left it in my bag because I didn't have the courage to read it aloud.

I thought it wasn't a mistake.

Two days ago:
I re-read what I sent to my counsellor. I tried to imagine what my next counselling session would be like. I wrote in my journal, "I still expect it to be hard to talk about these things, but I'm glad [counsellor] has those journal entries."

I knew it wasn't a mistake.

Yesterday:
I re-read what I sent to my counsellor. I thought again about the sessions where the words were stuck inside me. I felt like a huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders.

I knew that a bigger mistake would have been to keep those journal entries to myself.

Today:
I re-read what I sent my counsellor. My counsellor read some of it back to me. We talked. I was right... it was hard. These things go deep and talking about them will be hard for a long time. But... that's okay.

It was not a mistake. I did the right thing. I'm glad I did.
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