Peter M Howard ::

On a Year of Transformation

31Dec2024 [personal]

In which I am torn apart and rebuilt

In a therapy session three or four months ago — I don’t quite remember what we’d been talking about, probably something about long-buried feelings — my therapist asked what I felt like in that moment.

I felt like my body — my being — was stretched out, cracked open, to be squished back together. I saw myself floating in space, the tear in my centre like a black hole, pulling the light of the universe in. Part of that was a feeling of coming out of darkness and shadows, but it was also about potential — drawing in new influences, opening up to new connections.

And since then I’ve noticed some radical changes. So much of the background noise of my anxiety has reduced from an ongoing roar to a faint static. That reduced cognitive load has freed me up for so much more — for trying new things, making new commitments, meeting new people. I’ve noticed on a few occasions that I’ll be going into something that used to bring me great anxiety, and I’ll briefly feel anxious about not feeling anxious yet, and that little feeling is so much easier to acknowledge and move beyond. And I find myself deciding I want to do something and then actually doing it within days — rather than spending weeks talking things out, or talking myself out of what I want.

And there’s lots of mundane things as well — I’ve started a regular full-time job, I’m spending more time with friends, and I’m able to enjoy a lot more creative things.

Therapy has been a journey, but that one moment feels like a locus, a point around which my transformation hinges. And that vision of the universe is somehow enormous and intimate and it’s utterly magical.

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