I’ve been looking forward to my next art therapy session since last week’s. Once again, a lot comes up and out. I take the same materials as last time: clay, alcohol markers, and chalk pastel. This time, I start with the clay. I squish it onto the paper, forming it into some shape with intention at first but then just ripping it and draping it onto the paper as it is. Creating obstacles for the markers and pastels.

I talk about some trauma stuff. And I’m having the same experience I couldn’t describe last week: I think what it is is allowing me to keep calm, not get upset, while talking about the trauma. And I think that’s the magic. I’m not going down the rabbit hole; instead it’s like I’m pulling stuff OUT of the hole. And yes, the deep, dark hole and its stuff is still there, but there’s something very different about being able to talk about it without it noticeably disregulating me at all.

We talk about me going to see Sweeney Todd this past weekend. How I knew it would be a trigger but I still wanted to go, wanted to be able to enjoy it. In a way, having such a controlled trigger was perfect timing. I share about how for the first time I had the thought I know I will remember for the rest of my life but maybe being reminded doesn’t always have to feel so overwhelming, maybe being triggered won’t always feel as horrible as it often has. Maybe there’s a future where I will know that even if I get triggered, I’ll be okay.

We talk about forming new neural pathways. Learning things I didn’t know before. Like feeling safe. Trusting myself. Letting go. Not overthinking. Ironically, during a really nice conversation with a friend just yesterday, she said the same thing, about learning new ways of being and how the neural pathways just need to be formed and reinforced and they become ways you are.

We talk about feeling a need to remember. How I had to remember everything for the sake of credibility. How in general, I naturally remember certain things really well, and how that can be difficult for people in my life when there is conflict because it’s so hard to argue with me when I am an encyclopedia of what happened and they aren’t, even though we both know that doesn’t automatically mean I’m right and they’re wrong. We talk about how getting down every word perfectly and recording it is literally my job and reinforces this way of thinking. We talk about how for me, remembering is also a coping mechanism to make me feel safe from gaslighting. I’m obsessed with having a firm grasp on reality. Remembering in ways is a compulsion.

She points out how even though I tried to remember everything perfectly, it really wasn’t true that doing so would lead to the outcome I tried to remember it all for. I had asserted it as a fact that I needed to remember for the sake of the lawsuit, but she gently suggests that actually is a bit of magical thinking. Clearly it is because it didn’t work. The undeniable truth of her callout stings. Recognizing that was a lie I was telling myself to feel in some ways safe hurts. But it also feels like it could be freeing.

What would it be like to forget? She asks.

I react. Scary. Scary. I don’t like that.

But oh my god. Remembering everything, needing to explain everything, having to be able to prove it for it to be real, oh god, what a heavy fucking burden.

What would it be like to forget? To let myself forget. To let myself not remember everything all the time. To not have a death grip on reality but to just let it be. She makes the motion of her hands unclenching. That’s what it would feel like. That, and scary.

I spend the rest of the session noticing when I go to overexplain, letting myself say “actually, I’m not sure why, but” instead of trying to remember the background story of what I’m really trying to say, letting myself not remember the context but still get to the point without feeling like I need to apologize for the ambiguity or like what I have to say means less for it.

We talk about panic. About how dealing with my flight phobia helped me so much with all other panic. That learning and internalizing “being afraid doesn’t keep me safe” changed everything for me. I have the sense that is applicable now, but I’m not sure how.

She suggests we take a moment to pause talking and to focus all my attention on the art and that she will check back in with how I’m doing in a few minutes. I do. And I am able to keep my awareness on the art. Even though we were just talking about all this other stuff that I could be ruminating on. I’m creating shapes and colors and figures, and I don’t know why I’m doing any of it but I’m not questioning it, either. I’m not overthinking: a luxury usually reserved for racing. What a beautiful relief. To start to see that I can feel that kind of presence and peace more than the few times a year I’m racing.

I don’t know how exactly to learn to feel this way more, but I see how all of these sessions are helping me practice, creating those neural pathways, training my brain for this. I have practiced escaping the prison of my mind via distractions before, but this is different. This is me being both present in my mind and also not overthinking, not being imprisoned, just being with it, alongside it, neither of us asserting power over the other, neither of us denying the other.

I’m starting to make friends with my mind. I’m realizing that my choices impact not only my life and how it feels but who I am and how I think.

I could cry.