Carrie twiddled her thumbs, anxiously sitting in the waiting room. Her leg shook nervously.
"Carrie?"
Carrie looked up, seeing her therapist at the door. She smiled softly, grabbing her purse and standing up.
"It's so good to see you." Kelly smiled. She immediately noticed Carrie's black eye. She could see that Carrie had tried to cover it with makeup, but it was still very bruised and swollen. "It's been a while."
"It's good to see you too." Carrie hugged her tightly. She followed Kelly down the hall and into her office.
"So," Kelly sighed, sitting down and clasping her hands together. She looked at Carrie sympathetically. She hadn't seen Carrie in 4 years, so she knew that things must not be good. "How are things?"
Carrie frowned. Sitting on the dark blue couch again brought back a lot of emotions. She'd spent a lot of time on that couch.
For years, Carrie went to Kelly weekly. She'd slowly moved to every other week, once a month, and finally quit seeing her regularly two years into her and Mike's marriage.
Kelly had gotten her through everything. She'd been there through all of her and Mike's firsts and had been the one to convince her she was okay over and over again before each major step in their relationship. Without Kelly, Carrie probably would have talked herself out of marrying Mike.
Kelly knew more than anyone else about Carrie. Carrie had left her entire heart on that couch and truly believed she wouldn't have made it to where she was today without Kelly.
"Sam broke into my house Monday night, tried to kidnap Madeline, and raped me." Carrie said. "And I uh, I just don't even know what to feel."
"Oh my." Kelly gasped unintentionally. "Um,
Why don't you start by walking me through what happened? Take your time."
Carrie took a deep breath. She began to explain what had happened four nights ago from start to finish.
"Wow." Kelly sighed. "Carrie I'm so so sorry. I can't believe that happened."
"It all just happened so fast. I mean, I haven't even hardly thought of him in years. That afternoon Madeline had asked me if I'd talked to him since we'd left and if I ever wondered where he was now. I told her that I hoped I never did because I didn't know how I would react. And then 6 hours later I was face to face with him and he had my daughter in his hands."
"How's Madeline handling things?"
"Good, I think." Carrie said. "She was pretty shaken up the first day, but we've talked a lot and she seems to be doing fine. She's been kind of clingy to me, but that's understandable. I asked her if she felt like she wanted to go to therapy, and she said she was okay. She said she'd rather just put it behind her and forget that it happened."
"That's good." Kelly grinned.
"She didn't know him, she was only 3. She vaguely remembers the night we left, if she even actually remembers it at all. She doesn't have any emotional attachment to him, there aren't any feelings or memories that came up like they did for me. She can put it past her a lot easier than I can."
"Yeah, that makes perfect sense."
"I don't even think it's the physical aspect of what happened that's bothering me. It's the emotions that came with it. The feelings of being helpless against him, of him having control over me. Hearing him call me a worthless bitch again. I can't get those thoughts out of my head. Being with Mike has made me realize how truly horrible and toxic he was, and now my head is spinning with all of those thoughts and I feel like I'm trapped back under him."
"Those feelings will go away with time. Just like they did before, they will again-even easier this time."
"I just want to let it go and not think about it anymore. I mean, I went through so much worse. I don't know why this is bothering so much. It was nothing compared to some of the things he did to me." Carrie felt a lump begin to grow in her throat as she fought back tears.
"It's because you've gotten used to such a better normal. At the time, you didn't know anything better, but now you do, and so it makes it that much harder to go back to it. It's perfectly okay for this to be harder than you expected. Don't feel weak because you can't brush it off."
"I know." Carrie sniffled. "It's just so hard. I didn't think I'd ever see him again."
For the rest of their session, Carrie talked about the different feelings and emotions she had and Kelly listened, giving a little bit of advice when needed. She knew that Carrie didn't need advice, she hadn't come for answers. She just needed to talk out her feelings. She needed to speak everything that was going on in her head to someone that was emotionally unattached. This was how she'd always worked through her thoughts.
This was how she got through the hard days.
