“That’s a big step. Choosing to come on your own means you’re ready to explore things from your perspective, without trying to protect or manage someone else’s feelings at the same time.”
I swallowed ‘cause the truth of that hit me a lil’ harder than I expected.
“I’m not goin’ to lie,,” I said, pushin’ my hair behind my ear, “I’m nervous as hell right now. I’m not really used to talkin’ about myself like that.”
“That’s completely okay,” she smiled. “We’re not in a rush. You control the pace of everything here.”
Somethin’ about how calm she was made the seat under me feel a lil’ softer.
She started with general questions about where I lived, my job, if I had support and basic stuff that didn’t pull too hard.Then she eased into deeper territory without me even feelin’ the transition.
“Tell me a bit about your childhood,” she said gently.
I shifted on the couch and looked around the room again ‘cause I didn’t plan on cryin’ in front of no stranger today.
“My mama died when I was nine,” I said. My voice came out low. “She got hit by a car and died right there in the street. I ain’t really know what to do with none of that, so… I just kept goin’.”
She nodded. “That must have been incredibly painful.”
“It was,” I said, even though my throat felt tight. “After she died I had to stay with my grandma. She was good to me, but I still felt like a guest in my own life sometimes, if that makes sense.”
“It does,” she said softly. “Losing your mother so young can create a lifelong feeling of instability, even when the adults around you do their best.”
I stared at a spot on the wall ‘cause that felt too real.
“Do you feel like that sense of instability followed you into adulthood?” she asked.
“I think it did,” I said after a second. “I learned to shut down when things got too heavy. I learned to just disappear inside myself until things stopped hurtin’.”
She nodded slowly, listenin’.
Then her voice got even softer. “You mentioned in your intake form that you’ve dealt with some significant trauma growing up. Would you like to share anything about that today?”
My stomach twisted ‘cause I knew what she was talkin’ about.
“My uncles,” I finally whispered. “When I was younger. They did stuff to me they had no business doin’. And I didn’t even know how wrong it was until I got older.”
She didn’t rush me. She didn’t look shocked, and she ain’t make no face that made me feel like I was dirty or broken.
“I’m so sorry that happened to you,” she said. “Children often respond to trauma by freezing or shutting down. When that becomes a pattern, it can follow them into adult relationships, especially when they encounter conflict or intensity.”
I swallowed because somethin’ about that explanation sat a lil’ too close to home.
She continued, “When you say you shut down with your husband, it’s not because you don’t care. It’s because your body learned early on that shutting down is how you stay safe.”
I blinked slow.
“And you mentioned your husband’s struggles,” she said carefully. “It sounds like you’ve been carrying the weight of his emotional world while ignoring your own.”
“I love him,” I whispered. “I’m not gon’ lie. I just… I don’t know.”
“It’s not wrong to love your husband,” she said. “The issue is that you’ve been trying to survive your marriage instead of living in it.”
I let out a breath ‘cause that was exactly how it felt.
“When someone spends their childhood surviving other people’s moods, they learn to measure their worth by how quiet and easy they can be. They learn to love in a way that costs them their voice. You were not protected as a child, so you trained yourself to take up as little space as possible. You learned that if you needed nothing, no one could punish you.”
My chest warmed with somethin’ heavy because she was not sayin’ anything I would have ever said out loud, but it felt true in a way that scared me.
