Honestly, it’s pretty crazy how much can change in a month and a half… the month and a half I’ve been back in therapy.

I originally left on accident, and then stayed left because I felt guilty for using their resources for so long.

Until I wound up in the psych ward of the closest hospital.

They, of course, insisted on me resuming therapy, and I missed Amelia, so why not.

I forgot just how many benefits good therapy provides.

I remember my psychology professor telling me before I quit college: “Sometimes people want to go to therapy just because they’re lonely. A therapist is like a friend.”

I hate being part of the cliche, but Amelia feels like a good fucking friend.

She’s the only other one who truly knows the depths of trouble I get myself up to. 

The next closest is my roommate, Ella. It might be telling that the two people I’m closest to are also the ones I have the most physical access to. People outside of my vicinity have been put on hold for a little bit while I focus in on what I’m trying to accomplish here.

It’s incredibly healing to tell someone all the dirtiest parts of your soul and have them meet that with understanding and compassion…

...massive, heaping doses of empathy.

And, you get to talk about yourself the whole time. It’s a 45 minute session every week for you to just get everything you need off your chest with a professional who has been trained to understand you and accept you better than you do.

They lead you gently to what they already see: an acceptance for the fact that this is where you are right now.

Perhaps you both feel that getting to a different place for you would lead to a better, happier future - but it’s still okay that this is where you are now.

I still remember one of my first Uber rides.

This was when it was still a little weird for everybody involved to be riding in the back of a stranger’s car like a taxi.

Were you equal in this transaction, or was one your chauffeur? Did it suddenly raise uncomfortably classist questions? What was the etiquette here? Were you supposed to talk?

Nobody knew.

On one of these Uber rides I was still in the, “are we supposed to talk?” phase of my acquaintance with this new reality.

I decided that talking was probably expected of me and I proceeded to ask my driver about her life.

Turns out, this woman was going through it.

So much through it.

I don’t remember all the details, but I remember that she was barely holding on.

She felt like a failure. She felt she had failed her children. She felt she had failed to do anything in her life. She felt she had failed her potential and that her entire life was a let down because of it.

I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know how to make it better.

I looked around frantically.

A single golden crucifix hung on a chain from her dashboard mirror.

“You’re religious, right?” I asked her.

“Very,” she said.

“I’m an atheist, but I was raised religious and I remember a lot of the things I was taught. I think that if I was still religious today, I would see it as: God made me the way he wanted me for a reason. Even the imperfections. There was a reason for them. I’m supposed to have those in me. And, He doesn’t mean for me to be everything I will be right now. This whole entire life we live down here isn’t the whole deal - and we’re not even at the end of that, yet. I think that, if there is a god, then you’re probably exactly where He wants you to be right now and He’s proud of you and knows you’re getting there.”

Much to my terror, she pulled over right there on the spiraling freeway off-ramp.

I, on the other hand, had no god to pray to. Buddha, maybe? Does Buddha take requests? I’m a bad Buddhist, he probably wouldn’t take them from me.

She threw on her hazards just in time for the sudden storm of tears that spilled into her vision.

Her body racked and spasmed for the air needed to let this volcanic burst of emotion release itself from the pressure-cooker of being trapped entirely inside her all this time.

I kept looking behind us at the traffic pulling around the corner at near-freeway speeds, barely swerving to account for us.

Not that I wasn’t concerned about this moment she was having also.

But, one crisis at a time. The physical safety one, first. That’s how we live to cry about it later.

I needed to find a way to get us out of this situation and onto a side street so she could have her meltdown there.

…and it’d be so much cooler if I could tell you that I found that solution.

I did not.

I sat there in frozen terror.

Eventually, she cried herself out enough to wipe away the tears, check behind her, safely pull onto the ramp, and finally pour out into a smaller artery beyond.

“I’m sorry,” she said when she brought the car to a stop again.

“It’s okay,” I whispered. “You’ve been hurting for a long time.”

The next part of this article is titled: “Mental Strategy.”