Widow's Voice

Return to Therapy

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Tomorrow I will be returning to therapy after several months “off”. It feels like good timing, but I wonder how it will be different this time around. I started going to therapy shortly after Boris was hospitalized for suicidal ideation for the first time, in June 2017. We also saw a couples therapist for several months. After Boris died, I continued with the same person I was seeing for individual therapy, and I began EMDR and brain spotting with a different therapist. On top of that, after about a year, I attended a therapist-led support group for suicide loss. It was a lot of therapy! After a while, I saw my therapist less frequently, and after about 3 years, I stopped EMDR/brain spotting. Last summer, I began to feel like my monthly therapy sessions were feeling stagnant and I was not getting as much from it as before. I continued to go to see if things changed, but they did not. A friend told me it was normal to “break up” with your therapist and she suggested that it was time to move on from this person I’d been seeing for four years. But, that felt really difficult for me for many reasons. Sometime last fall, my therapist asked me at the end of a session if I wanted to take a break. So, I said yes. Since then, I have not reached out and she has not either. It felt like it was a mutual break-up which was much easier than I expected.

Fast-forward to more recent weeks and months, I have been feeling like I need to return to therapy. I have been feeling more tired and blue lately and feeling pretty “stuck” in life. After searching for several weeks, I think I found someone who might be a good fit.

I wonder what it will be like to tell my entire story to someone new in a therapy setting. To tell someone about Boris–about his life and his death and what it has meant to me and how I experienced it. Because my last therapist was working with me before Boris died and was there with me in the immediate aftermath, this will definitely feel different. This person is meeting me 4 years post-loss. I know I am different now and I hope that this new perspective will be helpful and healing. I am somewhat nervous about re-telling stories and re-living experiences because it has been a while since I have talked about it in this way. This is a new experience in my grief and I know it is ultimately positive, but I will admit it feels like it is going to be really hard.

I am writing to reflect on this because I hope to share more about this experience of returning to therapy and seeing a new therapist in future posts.

About Victoria Helmly

My love story began in 2005 and though my love is no longer physically here with me, our story has not ended. I met Boris when we were 14, but it was not until our junior and senior year of high school that we became more than friends (he was my first kiss!). We went to the same college and although our relationship was a bit rocky through our early 20s, we made it through. He was my person. Our relationship grew stronger as we matured and learned about one another more as adults. I was certain that he was my forever. We talked about the future a lot and we knew we would get married, but we did not want to rush—he was still finishing graduate school and I was just starting my first full-time job. We did not realize how little time we had left together.

In the summer of 2017, Boris was hospitalized three times for active suicidal ideation. This was a heartbreaking, exhausting, and life-changing experience. After 10 months of therapy, medication, and support groups, Boris died by suicide on April 7, 2018. My life now has two parts: the one before April 7, 2018 and the one after. My very best friend, my person was now gone.

If you were to ask how I am doing now, 2.5 years later, I would say I am okay. I am living. My world continues to spin, and I continue to move forward. However, I still carry deep sorrow and loneliness. I have struggled with PTSD, anxiety, and depression. Sometimes I still cannot believe that he is actually gone. I still feel him with me, and I know that I will never stop loving and missing him.

I am currently in school for my Ph.D. and live just outside of Atlanta with our cat, Kitty Cat (Boris is responsible for the creative name). I work as a graduate research assistant currently, but I worked for three years with our State Unit on Aging prior to going back to school. I love movies, my friends and family, long walks, and traveling.