Sometimes, his therapy sessions were… nice? They were nice, in weeks that had been good to him - Steven would recap those weeks with much gusto to Dr. A, who would congratulate him on his good week, and it created a sort of feedback loop of positivity.
He could talk about the new songs he was learning on his guitar, about how he’d gotten back into the habit of cooking proper food, about how he’d borrowed some old study guides from Connie in an attempt at - something? He had a lot of good things to talk about, and so much as they didn’t attempt to do any “deep diving” of sorts it was perfectly, totally fine that he was in therapy, that he could spend an hour talking about himself, just himself, to someone else.
- and, and it wasn’t like those “deep dives” were always a disaster, either! When he’d walk into the office in the right mindset (productive, like in the days when he was running Little Homeschool properly, efficient and full of confidence), they could sit down and talk about the past, unpack a little of what he felt about his mom, about the Diamonds, about everything that had happened to him since becoming a Gem proper (or even before), and he’d leave feeling - cleaned? Raw, certainly, but with a preciseness that left him still functional.
Those days Steven looked forward to a little less, but he didn’t dread them, per se.
The days he dreaded weren’t as rare as he would’ve liked, but after a few months of seeing his therapist, there were still sessions that left him - not worse off, certainly, but just painfully aware of how short one measly hour could be. Those sessions, he left red-faced (or pink-faced a few times, and he’d have to sit in the Dondai for up to a half hour trying to will himself to just calm, calm down, he was fine now, he just needed to get home and he couldn’t drive like that -) and teary-eyed, and feeling like a husk, hollowed-out with all the precision of a machete into his heart.
What he did after those sessions varied, but whatever he did always had that tinge of guilt to it - and oh, he was supposed to work on that too, that feeling of shame he had over feeling less than stellar! But sometimes he’d drive over to the beach furthest from the Temple and would sit, staring out at the waves diving in and out of the sand, for hours; sometimes he’d go up to the hillside near where he had trained with Jasper and would just scream.
Most times, though, he would just find himself at home, would slug himself up the stairs, close the blinds, and just - lay there. Would not do anything, just listening to the rushing of blood in his ears and the sounds of silence around him.
He talked to Dr. A about that, expecting (hoping?) for a full reprimanding, but instead she had shrugged at him. “Many people find what you’re going through in these sessions to be heavy work, Steven,” she had said softly, “and heavy work requires its own set of recovery. While you should be careful about isolating yourself too much, it’s okay to take a breather, too.”
She had pulled out some worksheets for him then, too, given him some tips on how to handle his coming down whatever it was (trauma) that had him so worked up in the first place. And he had shrugged at her, glanced them over and shoved them into his bag, murmuring with embarrassment that he would consider it.
…and yet, after that session itself had gone south, and he found himself up in his room, the words from the sheet came back to him - contact with others, it had recommended.
He knew that Connie’s study break wasn’t for another 43 minutes, but he found himself calling her anyways - and oh, he had to swallow down the guilt that came with that, of course - and as it connected, as the glow from the screen lit up his face in the darkened room, as he muttered out a hoarse greeting to her concerned face…
… maybe, he thought, he could do this.
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