The Good Therapist, Part 2

I want to tell you, I say to T, why I need  to work with you. About the reasons I can commit myself fully to this process – with you.

We met a few times several months before we really started working together, but I needed to finish some things, and you encouraged me to do that. I knew I had to go back into the typhoon, fight to stay afloat, see if the captain could get us safely to shore. She couldn’t. I knew that, but I was unable to let go, not yet. When I came to you, bludgeoned and bloody, you sheltered me. You accepted my experience of the events as more important than what actually happened. I mattered – not just details of the trauma.

The Good Therapist, Part 1

There are so many good things, and we talked about them in session. I talked about them. I wanted to tell her. I needed her to stop asking if something was a deal-breaker. If I could work with her human and imperfect self. I didn’t want to hear T’s uncertainty, because uncertainty is a crack. A place to break apart. Yes, I think, I may have a hard time trusting. But I do trust you. I don’t think you are holding out. I don’t think you are sugar-coating or feeding me bullshit. I believe you.

Googling Your Therapist

Looking for your therapist in either cyber or 3D space is all about boundaries. Both your T’s and your own. I’m responsible for my boundaries; T is responsible for hers. In general, I don’t believe it is a problem to search online for information about T – as long as everyone’s boundaries are intact.

When I was looking for a new therapist, I researched each prospect as thoroughly as possible without using a paid source. My insurance company provides name, address, sex, professional license, year and university of graduation and a check-off list of “specialties.” I wanted to know age and while year of graduation could be an indicator if it was many years ago, more recent graduations didn’t necessarily mean the therapist is young. Plus, therapists who had checked off every specialty… well, one can’t specialize in everything. It defies the meaning of the word. I looked for more info on that as well.

"Late" Is Just A Perception

I show up for my session 10 minutes early, so I wait. And wait. And wait. At fifteen minutes past our scheduled time, I've been waiting 25 minutes.

It was just last session I told T I don't like it when she's late. But, I knew she'd be late - she always is. Still, I'd told her, I especially don't like when we start ten minutes after the hour. Yes, I believed she would show up. Yes, I know she said she'd give me my time. But I didn't like it.

So, today I am waiting. She's never been 15 minutes late. I feel myself abandoned, sliding into despair. Angry. Why won't she get here on time? Anxious. Has she forgotten me? Uncertain. Is it the wrong day? The wrong time? I checked the cracks in my mind. No, I am right. T is fucking up, big time.

I start to feel tears forming under my skin. Start to breathe irregularly. I hold my breath.

Again, I think it through. What day is it? Tuesday, I'm pretty sure. What time is my session on Tuesday? My session is at 11:00. Crap. I arrived at 10:20.

 T shows up at 11:05 - "on time."

Hello, she says.
I smile and try to behave like a sane person.

Previous Therapists, Part 1

I found my last therapist (oldT) before I had even left the psychiatrist/therapist (PT) before her. PT was retiring. I’d seen her for six years – which was about how long she was in private practice. It was super-hard to let go. I knew it was coming, due to her age and Parkinson’s, but I wasn’t expecting it when she told me. She informed me just six months after my mother died, and it felt like another crushing blow.

She’d given me two months notice, so we had time to talk about it. But I didn’t. I couldn’t form the words without crying, and I didn’t want to bust out like a blubbering fool. So I avoided it as it related to us and how I felt about it. We talked about logistics. Finding me a new psychiatrist. Finding a new therapist.

The Strait Jacket

“Frankie and Alice” is a movie about a woman (Halle Berry) with Dissociative Identity Disorder.  It’s in limited theaters, and I saw it today. In the course of the “based on real life” story, Frankie ends up in the psych ward with a compassionate and savvy psychiatrist. Berry does a good job portraying the different alters and her switching is subtle yet discernible. In one scene, an alter switches and then freaks out, needing to be restrained due to her violent outburst. They put her in a strait jacket.

That’s what triggered my memory. Despite giving my psych history to numerous therapists and psychiatrists over the past twelve months, I never mentioned it. I didn’t remember. Suddenly, though, watching Frankie get forced into the strait jacket, zapped me into that same scenario. I had been put in a strait jacket. I also had fuzzy memories of being restrained, tied to a bed in that same hospital. Why? What happened that I was so out of control? Then I remembered. I tried to hang myself there. Was that one of the times? Surely, if I fought the staff. But the other? I don’t know.

Remains of a Life

I am struggling.

This is the situation: Mom died two years ago. Her husband (of six years) remained in her home. He died three weeks ago. Now I am tasked with going through her things and getting her house ready to put on the market. There’s only me and my sister, but she lives 900 miles away. I also have to deal with his kids who need to deal with their Dad’s stuff – which isn’t a lot, but which is integrated with everything else in the house. Today I came across some certificates with his name. Last week I found two unopened bottles of Listerine and an erection vacuum pump.

Finding Balance in Life

It has been a month to forget. But I doubt I will.  I suppose my memory might get fuzzy. The details may fade. But the fact that my step-father died and now I must deal with my mother’s house (and stuff) will always be with me.

2014 was supposed to be a fresh start. A year to get back on track after the toxic, life-sucking 2013. But this has been a month of sorrow. A month of binge eating. A month of ice cream. I eat ice cream when I’m depressed. I’ve eaten a lot of ice cream. My Zumba class, good food choices, daily blogging and good therapy were all things, with consistency, that I counted on to keep my life structured, focused. They were going to turn things around for me. Not that they still can’t. But each of these have been disrupted, and I feel off-balance.

A Message via Donald Duck

I’ve only told four people about this. It’s not something I felt I could tell just anyone. But now I’m going to tell you. Maybe you’ll let me know what you think.

I grew up reading Donald Duck comics. I read them, because my father had a subscription as a kid, and he saved all his issues. Everyone in the family read them. We referred to them in the same way people today refer to “that Seinfeld episode.” Carl Barks was the artist who brought Donald to life between 1942 and 1966. I’ve read that Barks didn’t go to college, so he would read National Geographics to give him story ideas. Most of the history I learned as a child was flavored with the adventures of Donald Duck and his nephews, Huey, Dewey and Louie.

Slingshot Progress in Therapy

Sometimes progress doesn’t mean moving forward. Progress, I think, is continuing movement on the path one is destined to walk. And, in my experience, falling into the deepest hole is sometimes the staging ground for incredible growth. Of course, we don’t often recognize that when we’re in the hole. We don’t say, “Oh yeah! I feel so badly, but isn’t it great?” More often it’s, “I feel like crap, and I don’t think I can take much more of this. I just want to quit.” Most of us don’t quit, and it is finally in retrospect that we see growth.

Quiet

The Peeper is quiet. Pondering.

End of Life

I’ve got it third-hand that my step-father has said he is ready to die. Both of the loves of his life are gone. His health is failing. He is 80 years old.

I know I can’t truly grasp his perspective – but I wonder what I’d be thinking, feeling, at the end of a long, full life, resting on the cusp of this world and the next. I see pages of a flip book that incrementally depict my life. I can’t imagine lingering on the tragedies, still trying to figure out the drama. Sitting on that fence, I like to think I’d be celebrating the people I’d loved, and appreciating all the experiences and accomplishments that formed my life.

Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened.  - Dr. Seuss

To Be Here, Now

I have been moving in this direction for a very long time. To be here, now, where I am, is finally making sense. I am starting to Get It.

At any moment, you have a choice, that either leads you closer to your spirit or further away from it. - Thích Nhất Hạnh

Realities of Life

I am trying to be wise and thoughtful, but right now the realities of life are steamrolling me, flattening my lungs and breath and making my heart beat like tapioca.

I don’t know if my step-father is going to die today or tonight or tomorrow. Or if he’ll pull through. He has an appetite and is eating. Even planning for the future by saving his pudding for a snack.

At the moment, all I have are questions and tired tears.

Walking, I am listening to a deeper way. Suddenly all my ancestors are behind me. Be still, they say. Watch and listen. You are the result of the love of thousands.  - Linda Hogan (b. 1947), Native American writer

Life is Fragile, Too

I was just boarding a plane to go visit my sister for a few days when I received the text.  My step-father had been taken back to the hospital, to the ICU. His oxygenation was too low. As I wrangled luggage and found seat 17F, I felt my heart beating like a base drum. Settling into my seat, I looked out the cold window and felt tears welling.

When Mom was put on oxygen two years ago, it was the start of her death march. Learning Ray was on a cpap in the ICU was almost déjà vu. Except it was really happening. The same hospital, the same floor, the same month, the same distress.

Reciprocity In Therapy

We haven’t talked about what you give me, my therapist says. Immediately I think – well, I did just give you a check. Then, almost surprisingly, my next thought is not about my unworthiness or that I have nothing to give or that I could only give bad stuff.  I start to go there, but  without delay I think I would be demeaning her to think that I mean nothing or that I give nothing.

I can think whatever I want about myself, but I don’t do myself any favors by assuming she thinks poorly of me.  She  respects me. I believe she cares about me. I think she appreciates life at a deep level, and I am part of that life. To say that T views me as “just another client” is to call her trite. It’s like I’d be calling her one of those high school girls who gossips in the bathroom and then puts on a friendly face when she walks out.  Two-faced? No, I respect her more than that.

All Charged Up

I believe there is enough static electricity in my hair to power the entire house. Seriously. I have long hair, so that contributes to the voltage. I can’t get out of bed, pet a dog or have a morning kiss without setting off sparks. And when I put on my polyester fleece robe, it’s as if my skin is buzzing with electrons. I know I have a dazzling personality, but geez!

I try to mitigate the harsh dryness of winter with a little bitty vaporizer that holds about a gallon of water. Not too bad if you sit right next to it all day. But it’s cheap and there’s a terrible lime buildup which must be scraped out routinely. Actually, the directions say to clean it every day. Shoot, who’s got patience for that?

Life is Precious

Yesterday my step-sister texted me to say her father had fallen on the basement steps. She was at the hospital and he’d broken his right clavicle and left ankle. Actually, he’d fallen the day before around 5am but didn’t want to “bother” anybody. Twenty-four hours later, he called 911 – though still not his kids.

When Ray and my mother married eight years ago, he sold his house, gave away his belongings and moved in with Mom. Six years later, on their anniversary, my mother died. In her will, the house was left to me and my sister with the stipulation that Ray could live there as long as he wanted. So, technically, he’s been living in my house. Mine and my sister’s. I’m the one who lives five minutes away. My sister, 900 miles. You know how that goes.

We Eat Vegetables

At my house, we eat vegetables. If you’re a dog at my house, there are no ham bones, no chicken knuckles, no greasy meatloaf pans. Just vegetables. So, if you’re a dog at my house, you adapt.

I’ll be standing at the kitchen sink, cleaning produce for a salad, and Sugar will hurry in to supervise. When I remove the green Tupperware from the refrigerator, Sugar is frantic. “Tomatoes,” she cries, “radishes, turnips, and celery. Oh, please, please, pleeeese can I have some? I am so good,” she goes on, “better than the other dogs who are worthless and undeserving. Just one bite of turnip and I will forever be your faithful dog.”  So I dole out blemished bits cut from the roots that we will eat in our salad. And Sugar is faithful.

Stop Comparing: You Are Worthy

It’s time to stop comparing trauma. Stop comparing suffering. Stop comparing parents. It’s time to stop believing that your suffering isn’t bad enough or horrific enough to deserve care and attention. Stop. Just stop.

It doesn’t matter that you weren’t beaten black and blue or raped. It doesn’t matter if there wasn’t any physical manifestation of abuse. It doesn’t matter that you don’t have the worst story to tell.

What matters is you. And how you feel. It’s really true. We are each affected by how we experience the world. Everyone has different sensitivities. Things impact each of us differently. What feels bad to me may not feel that way to you. That doesn’t mean my feelings are less important.