Yesterday was my last session with my amazing therapist, Susie Morgan.  As much as I loved her, I hated therapy just as much, if not more.  Believe me, I know I am very fortunate to have found her and to have had the Victims Compensation Program paying for my therapy.  It was not inexpensive.  By my calculations, it cost approximately $16,000 or so.  I could never have afforded it myself.  I also know that without the therapy I would not be where I am today.

It turns out that by my returning last week to the scene of the crime, the final piece of my journey fell into place.  Susie told me yesterday that when I left her office the previous Monday she never thought I’d be able to actually do it without several more sessions of processing the fear that had such a tight grip on me.  I think it basically came down to me wanting to be finished with therapy, to wanting to finally be able to take back ‘my’ entire island and to knowing inside that I COULD do it.  I told her yesterday that I wished I had done it sooner and she told me that I did it when I was able to.  The truth is I couldn’t have done it before.  I wish I could have, but I simply was not ready.  

The last 403 days (and, yes, I did just count to be sure) have been such a roller coaster ride.  It’s not a ride I ever thought I’d be on and one I hope no one else ever has to take.  Unfortunately, that will probably not be the case.  Everyone is different and traumatic events will not be experienced the same by anyone.  The one thing that is true, though, is that without professional help, you will NOT heal.  Oh sure, you may be able to put the attack, or whatever happened, out of your mind and maybe even fool most people into thinking that you are okay.  You will want to be.  You will want to just put it behind you.  You will want to pretend that it didn’t happen or that it wasn’t so bad.  After all, you survived it, right?  You won’t be okay, though, and no amount of wishing, hoping, even praying will make it so.  It is SO important that you get into therapy.  I worked harder than I ever have in my entire life this last year and that’s why I can be sharing this with you now.  Another thing I know for certain is that you deserve to be more than just okay.  I urge you to do whatever it takes to make that a reality.

One last thing – I mentioned this before in my post about how my face has changed, that my way of describing how I looked different to myself (and to a lesser degree, to others) was that I had lost my ‘shiny.’  Well, yesterday Susie told me, as she was trying not to cry (which, of course, made me cry) that there is now a light in my eyes that she had never seen before.  My shiny is back!