I was heard. I was understood.

I sit down with my therapist every other week. She starts off asking how I’m feeling, how everything is going, etc. She then asks if there’s anything I want on our agenda for the day.

I’ve only seen her three times now. I sit down with her for an hour. Sometimes, that hour feels like days.

I’ve had it now where one session I didn’t want to add anything, but this last time I did. There were just things going on in life I wanted her help navigating through.

I still haven’t divulged my trauma, as she calls it. I’ll be honest; I’m not ready to share. We opened the door to it this last session, and I can say with certainty, I didn’t realize how fresh it still was in my memory, how much it still hurts and how deep I had buried it.

Realization. I’ve made a lot of them since seeking therapy.

I’ve come to really appreciate what I’m learning, though many times it hurts to know I’ve not done enough to make life easier for those around me and myself.

I’ve been pretty quick to anger recently. I always blamed it on my “kimchi temper,” and my family and I joke about it often. I just thought I had a short fuse.

In some ways, I, admittedly, do have a short fuse.

In many other ways, I stopped thinking rationally and reacted emotionally.

I’ve spent more time recently thinking about situations instead of flying off the handle. It has been really difficult. I’m still not very good at it, but damn it, I’m trying.

I have also realized I don’t have a large support system. Sure, I have my family and my husband, but that’s really only four people. Quite frankly, too, I didn’t tell them much of what I was struggling with. I didn’t want to bother them with my problems.

It just wasn’t worth it to me to have others bear some of my problems with me when many times, I feel I deserve to feel this way.

These last few weeks, I’ve learned that’s really not the case. My friends and family want to be there to help me navigate through life, figure out these feelings and move past them.

“I’m just happy you talked to me about it,” Justin said to me last week. I told him about how I was hurting after a situation I was going through had rattled me.

God, the relief I felt hearing that. It was like all the weight came off my shoulders.

I sometimes feel what I say doesn’t totally get absorbed by the people I’m telling my problems to, that I’m getting a very rehearsed, “thoughts and prayers,” response. It doesn’t mean they aren’t listening. My therapist says it’s how I perceive it due to feeling like a burden.

This time, though, I didn’t feel that.

I texted my sister about some anxiety I was experiencing a few days before that. She walked me through it. She showed me how to accept it, internalize it and move on.

For the first - and second - time in a very long time, I was heard. I was felt.

Most importantly, I was understood.

I had realized both Cassandra and Justin cared. I never doubted that they did, but this time, it all felt different.

I felt like my problems weren’t a burden. Instead, it was welcomed.

Since then, I’ve opened up to a couple of people I trust. There are some people I want to wait to tell everything, but there are a couple who I’ve told things not everyone knows.

Every time, the response is the same. They want to help.

I’m now working on trusting others, growing my circle of support and realizing I’m not a burden.