At first, she had taken it in her stride, reveling in the unexpected career change from journalist to published author. She traveled the world and spoke of her inspiring healing journey from emotional and physical abuse at various events. But as time went by, Leah began to struggle with the life changes this had brought, and her elevation to ‘famous-author’ status. Her book remained at number one, and was optioned for a TV-series adaptation. The gossip press preyed on her, speculating over which parts of the book were true, and which parts were fictionalized. Leah made enough money to buy a nice apartment in an upmarket part of town, and a cabin in the mountains of Telemark, too. In spite of all this success, Leah was a nervous, fragile shell of a woman back then, someone who winced when our eyes met or if I asked her a question she didn’t know how to answer. Her sentences would begin with, ‘I’m sorry,’ or, ‘I know this is stupid,’ or, ‘This is so ridiculous, but...’. She didn’t trust herself back then, but she came to trust me, and eventually, herself.

As we began to build our therapeutic relationship, a wide array of underlying problems emerged, squirming in the room between us like worms coiling out of the earth. Leah cut herself, and had been doing it since her early teens. She once pulled up the sleeves of her jumper to reveal row upon row of neat incisions, some fresh and pink, many old and white. She had a highly complicated relationship with food, alternating between binging and starving herself, sometimes for weeks on end and until she’d black out. She suffered from debilitating panic attacks and terrifying compulsive thoughts, sometimes suicidal. She was always quick to reassure me that her suicidal thoughts were without intent, and I would point out that they were just thoughts. At the beginning, Leah spent many sessions just staring emptily into the space between us, and I would let her be, without any prompts at all. Occasionally she’d look up, her startled hazel eyes meeting mine before scanning the room, as though she momentarily had no idea where she was.