Today, there’s a momentary pause while I try to find the words to do justice to something important, but also difficult to talk about. It feels as though the walls around me have closed in, suffocating the space, the air stifled by a heaviness. On Tuesday, my current therapy will come to an end. Eighteen months have passed, far from uneventful, but deeply significant. Mixed emotions consume most of my thoughts. The rational part of me always knew an end would come, yet there’s something about therapy that creates an illusion of timelessness. A space that feels almost TARDIS like, where time bends quietly in the background.

Compiling these last eighteen months would be impossible; so much has transpired. But now, I need to write my gratitude, because my avoidant nature makes expressing it directly feel far scarier than setting it down in words. Sitting in that therapy room for my final session will be harder than any before. Harder, even, than the work itself.

Most of all, I want to express my gratitude. Over the last twenty years, I’ve engaged in numerous stints of therapy with different therapists. Each has been wonderful in their own way, but this time has been the most enlightening and thorough of all. My therapist is, without question, gifted in her work. She has worked me harder than any before, with an attention to detail that reached into places I never thought could be seen. She gave me something rare, a safe space. And to feel safe, for me, is no small thing. It’s a testament to how comfortable she made me feel.

Trust. Something I’ve struggled with all my life;  began to take shape in that room. For the first time, I could be completely honest about who I am, what I am, and all the pain I carry, knowing it would be met with respect and care. My biggest downfall in previous therapies was my inability to trust fully the well intentioned person sitting opposite me. I’d always withhold the most painful parts, desperate not to appear as destroyed as I felt inside.

My inner thoughts have always scared me; saying them out loud has never come easily. If she had let me sit in silence for fifty minutes, I would have.  Content to let the session slip away without speaking. But she never allowed me to “just sit.” She invited me, gently and persistently, to voice the thoughts that hid in the corners of my silence. Together we unraveled so much unspoken pain and torment that had ruled my mind for so long.

The end of therapy is making me sad. Is this normal? I’ve never felt such a pull of emotion at an ending before. They say people come into your life for a time, to help unravel and touch your world in ways that stay forever. And now, it must end. She has been a safety net, and from next week that will be gone. I’ll have to rely on the tools she’s helped me build, to hold myself steady through the storms. But I know that the absence of that reassuring, hypothetical hand on my shoulder, the silent reminder that I’m not alone, will be the hardest part.

This week, the tears have come without warning. Mid walk, mid song, mid thought. It’s the knowing that therapy ends next week; that quiet fear of goodbye creeping in. For so long, those sessions have been my still point; a place where I could fall apart safely, and slowly learn how to put myself back together.

Now, as the ending draws near, I find myself grieving the space, the rhythm, and the person who sat with me through it all. She’s offered such steady guidance and warmth, and I have a real fondness for her, not only for how she’s helped me heal, but for who she is. A genuinely lovely person who met me exactly where I was, time after time.

I need to survive the final fifty minute session.

I need to sit through it without falling apart; to hide the ache that comes with the conclusion of something that has opened so many doors to parts of myself I never knew how to see before.

I tell myself I need to be dignified in my demise. To hold the emotion quietly, even as my chest tightens and my eyes betray me. Because how do you say goodbye to someone who helped you find your voice, when all you want to do is stay silent and stay a little longer.