Therapy

Part 1

Hello everyone.  Welcome to this story.  Some parts of it are very intense and look at serious mental health challenges.  I will put extra warnings on chapters that include very intense depictions of various things, but just know that throughout the whole thing, mental health and dealing with mental health disorders is a big theme so if that is triggering in any way, please, do not read this story.  Now, for anyone I haven't scared off, enjoy this first chapter.  It is not super intense, but it does touch lightly on anxiety and just general negative self-esteem.  

________________________________________________________________________________It was her first therapy session with Dr. Lewis. Well, unless you count the one right after Rigo died, but that had been mandatory. Maya was heading into this therapy session voluntarily. After everything had come to a head with her dad and she had gone and begged Carina to take her back, Maya decided she needed therapy.

She actually decided that before she begged Carina to take her back because she knew it wasn't fair to her girlfriend to ask her to forgive her if she wasn't willing to do the work to make sure she didn't blow up their relationship again. Carina was in full support of Maya going to see a therapist, confiding in the firefighter that she herself had been in therapy for the past 5 months with everything going on with her brother.

Maya called Dr. Lewis on her way to apologize to Carina and got an appointment for a few days later. Dr. Lewis agreed to come to the station before her shifts.

This first session though, Maya asked to have on her day off. They were going to use Sullivan's office because the captain from C shift needed the Captain's office because it was his shift. Maya didn't know how this was going to go so she wanted to do it when she would have a lot of time to process it.

Carina walked her to the station that morning, mostly because all Maya wanted to do was run and never stop, but she knew she needed this.

"You can do this Bella," Carina said, kissing her cheek as they walked into the station.

Dr. Lewis was standing near the desk, waiting for Maya.

"Captain Bishop," the therapist said, "Ready?"

"Do you want me to wait?" Carina asked as Maya took a deep breath.

"No," Maya said, shaking her head, "No. Go catch up on your charting. I'll text you when I'm done."

"Alright," Carina said, leaning down and giving Maya a quick kiss before leaving.

"Who was that?" Dr. Lewis asked as they walked upstairs and into Sullivan's office, Maya closing all the blinds because she did not want anyone at the station to see what was going on.

"My girlfriend," Maya said, sitting down in one of Sullivan's chairs as Dr. Lewis sat down behind the desk, "Dr. Carina Deluca."

"How long have you two been together?" Dr. Lewis asked, taking out her notebook.

"It's kinda complicated," Maya said, suddenly finding her hands very interesting.

"Complicated is why we are here," Dr. Lewis said.

"Well, we were together for about three months," Maya said.

"Were?" Dr. Lewis said, cocking an eyebrow, "I thought you just said she is your girlfriend."

"Yeah," Maya said, nodding, "She is again now. But about two weeks ago, we had a big fight about my dad and whether or not he was abusive which I was in denial about and I ran out like I always do and I came here because this is basically my second home and I slept with Jack who is my ex-boyfriend in my office which I'm sure you already know because I know he's been seeing you and then I went home and she was still there because she is a saint and waited there all day on her day off when she could have been doing anything else and I was so mad at her and myself and my dad and the universe that I yelled at her and told her I had just slept with Jack and I broke us."