Total pages in book: 48
Estimated words: 46398 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 232(@200wpm)___ 186(@250wpm)___ 155(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 46398 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 232(@200wpm)___ 186(@250wpm)___ 155(@300wpm)
Kelly looks at me for a long moment, her lips pressed into a thin line.
“You’re the one who makes decisions about your life now,” I press on. “You decide what you’ll do, no matter how you feel. You have control over your life. You do. I know it doesn’t always feel like that, but you do. You can choose what to do with those feelings.”
“What if I just ignore them? Just choose not to feel them?” She leans slightly into the arm of the chair, pulling her legs up. Her arms wrap around her jeans and the sleeves of her thin sweater fall over her hands. Her blue eyes beg me to lie to her. I can’t do it though. I won’t ever hurt someone like that.
“I’m not sure that’s going to work; it hasn't yet, right?” I answer and her expression crumples. She moves the tissue to the corner of her eyes as I talk. “Acknowledge them—and then make your own decision. Whatever harm you suffered, whatever damage other people did, that’s the end of their power over you. You can decide to move forward however you want.” She reaches for another tissue and the sun sets slightly behind her, darkening the room. I add, “It might take time, and it might be difficult, but you can make those choices. You do have a choice to make, even when it doesn’t feel like it. Even when it feels harder to have a choice.”
She’s silent, absorbing my words.
“So, at work,” she says slowly, “when it comes up again—”
We go through the situations at work that send her spiraling. We talk out different ways to respond and methods for centering herself so she can respond instead of reacting to what happens. We spend the last part of the session making plans for what Kelly can do at work and with her friends and with her family to remind herself that she has control. Not over everyone, but over how she chooses to respond.
Kelly doesn’t like the idea of sitting with panic or grief until those feelings aren’t so intense, but she comes around to it. “There’s no shame in walking away and taking a moment before responding to someone or to a situation.”
“Better than having a breakdown,” she finally admits. “Even if I hate it.”
I offer her a small smile. “Sometimes I hate it, too. Feelings are like that, especially when they’re related to trauma.”
When Kelly heads for the door, she’s standing up straighter and her eyes are dry. Her chin is lifted. She looks far more hopeful than she did when she walked in.
“Thank you,” she says. “Thank you. That really helped.”
“You’re welcome,” I say. “I’ll see you in two weeks.”
I watch her go, feeling hopeful, too.
That feeling doesn’t last very long after Kelly has shut the door behind her and the sound of her car engine has faded.
I’m left with a sinking feeling in my stomach. It’s a very uncomfortable feeling, and one that I know well.
All of those things I told Kelly about how the past can’t control her—I needed to hear those, too. They’re the same things I heard many times before they sunk in.
I guess I forgot. I guess I haven’t been doing as well as I thought. My hands tremble and I busy them by grabbing a tissue from the box on the coffee table.
Tears have gathered in the corners of my eyes without me noticing, and I feel a release in my chest, as if I’ve been trying to tell myself about my own power and my own control, but I wasn’t getting through. Maybe it took telling someone else to hear them again.
The school...the things they did there...I don’t have to let it control me. I can’t be blamed, of course, for the crimes of other people. And for suffering the way I did. I can’t even blame myself for how the feelings come back and how I forget that those days are long gone, and I’ll never be at the mercy of those kinds of people again.
“I can choose,” I tell myself in my empty office. “I can choose what to do. I have power over my life.”
I repeat them a few more times until they seem settled in my head, then wipe away a few tears with a tissue.
As I toss my tissues into the small trash can by my desk, it starts to vibrate.
It’s not actually the desk or the plastic bin vibrating. It’s my phone in one of my desk drawers.
I take a breath and open the drawer. On the screen is my friend Michaela’s name. My chest lightens at the sight of it. I almost let it go to voicemail, but I answer it, praying for a distraction.
“Hi, girl.” I read somewhere that you should smile when you answer the phone because the other person can hear it. I force a smile and keep my voice uplifted. “What’s going on?”