excerpt from Learning Trust (autobiography)

I returned to Ann Arbor with my Dad shortly after school started. My friends were happy to see me, but I quickly distanced myself from them. Even when they helped my Dad and I move all of my stuff into Ed’s and my apartment, I wouldn’t accept their invitation to have dinner at the house next door where seven of them would be staying for the year. This autumn, just as in the hospital, I would keep to myself.
I hid out in our bedroom a lot, studying or meditating, especially when Ed had company over. When he played his stereo in the living room, I listened furtively from my place at the bedroom desk, secretly gleeful to be hearing new music from bands like REM and Talking Heads. This was a treat I wouldn’t allow myself to openly partake of. My emotions around music were just too strong.
Still monitoring my feelings and thoughts, attempting to quash anger, greed, passion and pride, I was seeing a therapist who was working to teach me to let go of this stranglehold on my inner life.
Colin was a wonderful presence, and I developed a strong bond with him. I didn’t understand this at the time, but he was “re-parenting” me, validating and re-educating those parts of me that had been abandoned, neglected or squelched in my childhood. His exhortations to “let it flow”, to jump into the stream of my life and inhabit it with a light heart were wearing down my rigidity and resistance. I was beginning to let down my guard and allow the thoughts and feelings that naturally arose to be as they were.
His gentle, playful yet firm way was like a salve to my aching soul. I felt great after I left his office, and the “buzz” would last throughout the week.
Still, I was having a hard time with the depression. Despite my progress, it was going in slow motion so that I had to watch myself thaw out, witnessing the initial feelings of longing to change that had to precede an actual change.
I remember that Thanksgiving, I bought a vegetarian sandwich in a pita from the corner store. I ate it while I sat on the carpet in our bedroom. Ed and my other friends ate a full Thanksgiving dinner out in our living room. I wrestled with the desire to take my sandwich out of the room and eat with them. But I stayed. I felt alone, depressed and frustrated while solace and friendship were just a room away.