Closure

[lupinebear]

I was first sent to a psychologist by a loved one after an unpleasant encounter with an acquaintance of ours. The acquaintance was under a lot of stress, and I don't believe that he was aware that he was taking it out on me. Given the circumstances, I couldn't respond the way I wanted. Instead, to keep things calm and peaceful, I agreed with things I didn't feel I should have agreed with and apologized for things I didn't feel I had done. To further complicate things, the circumstances were such that I couldn't tell anyone what had happened for over a week, so I had to keep everything about it bottled up inside me.

Even though I believe I handled the incident well, I was so troubled by it that I had flashbacks so intense that they kept me from sleeping nights. This surprised me, and I couldn't seem to get them to go away. Once I finally spoke to a psychologist, he told me that I needed "closure". And he had a nifty trick I could use to achieve it even though I couldn't talk about this to the person with whom I needed it with.

I had no idea that you didn't actually need the other person present to finish unfinished business with them! You simply imagine that they're in the room with you, talk to them out loud, and imagine their responses. It sounds ridiculous, but doing that just once ended weeks of not being able to sleep without a prescription-strength sleeping pill.

Honestly, brains need to come with instruction manuals!