It’s amazing how we spent the better part of a year in different countries, yet settled back into the old routine so fast that it feels like my boyfriend’s never been away. It doesn’t feel like he’s been here for only 48 hours either, so there are moments when the ten months which passed in between morph into a slightly surreal memory which might as well have been an intense dream. He accompanied me to therapy too yesterday – one more reason to feel catapulted right back to last year’s winter, because he was my regular companion on those trips to the hospital.
After having to cancel on me twice in a row, yesterday’s appointment was only 20 minutes long and not counted as a proper session. The situation at the hospital is rather chaotic at the moment, worse rather than better compared to the last weeks. My therapist usually is very neatly groomed, but this time I noticed that he was not properly shaved, probably because of a lack of time.
My boyfriend and I were waiting in the visitor lounge, talking, when my therapist walked by – he knows this is where I am waiting until it is time to go to his office, and he wanted to tell me that he would be a few minutes late. It made me happy to see my therapist and boyfriend exchange a few sentences – they become a little less abstract to each other this way.
I have a new appointment for early February, the first regular one in over two months: the session in December counted as an informational meeting only. Due to the restricted time frame we had yesterday, we only discussed which kinds of behaviour had a positive influence on my depression indices: the BDI-II score is down to 14 from previously 20. It was only just enough to give a rough overview, but for me it was more important to have the personal contact with my therapist, however brief that may have been. Very early into the meeting, when I was just sitting down, he said: “You are looking well!” And I believed him; he doesn’t make insincere compliments, and I felt happy enough to believe it possible that I was looking good too. Not to forget that the last time I saw him, I was so mentally and physically exhausted that it showed on the outside – so that was a valuable feedback for me that I was back on the right path.
Lugubrious Layara 