Nitara walked in radiant, with a warm greeting and spoke of her student life, her friends and her hobbies. Then she moved on to explain that she had come for therapy as there were days she felt blank. She zoned out of everything she was doing and withdrew into her own cocoon. 

I asked her if she could remember when this started. This began a conversation about her father. Whenever he called her, she was triggered. She felt like shouting and crying and needed to cut off. 

As we delved deeper, she spoke of verbal and some physical abuse that she had experienced by him. She blamed this on his alcoholism. Now, she felt guilty for not being able to protect her brother from these experiences. Nitara felt that as the elder sibling it was her responsibility to protect him and she had failed him. 

Now she had reached a point where she was fine when she surrounded herself with people,  but alone she felt anxious and would cry a lot. 

I asked what she wanted from her life. The future she saw for herself.  She said she didn’t think of those things.

I asked her what made her happy? She said she was devoid of emotions.

Peeling away the layers of pain she housed, she was on her way to let herself feel again.