Three months into therapy I had a week so good I thought I was done. Genuinely done. The heavy thing I had been carrying felt lighter. I was sleeping. I was present. I thought: I fixed it.
Two weeks later I fell apart in a supermarket because they did not have the brand of biscuits I wanted. Full ugly cry. In the biscuit aisle.
I called my therapist the next morning certain I had broken something. That all the progress had disappeared. That I was back at square one.
She said: "That's not regression. That's what healing actually looks like. One good week doesn't remove years of patterns — it just gives you a glimpse of what's possible. The work is learning to hold both."
Healing is not a line that goes up. It is a spiral. You come back around to the same places, but each time — if you're doing the work — you come back with a little more understanding and a little more tool.
The bad day after seven good days does not cancel the seven good days. It is part of the same process.
Be patient with yourself. The spiral is progress too.
Two weeks later I fell apart in a supermarket because they did not have the brand of biscuits I wanted. Full ugly cry. In the biscuit aisle.
I called my therapist the next morning certain I had broken something. That all the progress had disappeared. That I was back at square one.
She said: "That's not regression. That's what healing actually looks like. One good week doesn't remove years of patterns — it just gives you a glimpse of what's possible. The work is learning to hold both."
Healing is not a line that goes up. It is a spiral. You come back around to the same places, but each time — if you're doing the work — you come back with a little more understanding and a little more tool.
The bad day after seven good days does not cancel the seven good days. It is part of the same process.
Be patient with yourself. The spiral is progress too.
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