A Reiki Story

I know sometimes it is hard to see if alternative health methods work. Sometimes alternative health methods can take time for the results to appear. Sometimes it can be slow. Sometimes it can be dramatic. I wanted to tell a Reiki story about something that happened to me last year.

We need to go back a bit in time for me to explain. About six years ago I was in a therapy program called DBT, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy.

Therapists and a clinic both refused to see me, even though at the time I was very functional and had never been in-patient, was not addictive in any unhealthy behaviors, was not suicidal and was not cutting or doing any other dangerous behaviors in my life. I was multiple and I was a ritual abuse survivor and so I could not find a competent, experienced therapist at the time who would take me as a client, unless I went to DBT first.

The therapist that I saw was supposedly competent in my abuse history. My insurance company referred me to her.  

She knew that I was a survivor of mother daughter sexual abuse and ritual abuse. She knew that I was multiple. She and my insurance company claimed that she had had many clients with those abuse histories and that she was a good therapist for me to see.

The therapist also ran the once a week DBT class. As a college student in my last semester of college at the time, I did not think that she was a good teacher. In college professors you pretty much see the good, the bad, and the ugly. She was the ugly.

She emotionally abused clients during class time. She would repeat things that they had said in a way that was not kind. She would often change her tone of voice when responding, to sound snide. If someone said something that happened to them, she would imply they weren’t telling the whole story, the whole truth. She did this to me one time in class, I was struck silent. I lived this kind of life as a defenseless child. I was not interested in voluntarily going through this as an adult. I felt stuck there.

She would not call me back in a timely manner. When I told her certain skills were not working for me, and instead were in fact triggering panic attacks, and that I needed other ideas or skills instead of those particular skills, she would tell me there were plenty, but she did not give me any, though I repeatedly requested them for weeks.

During session she was not kind to me. She would often look around the room rather than focus on me during sessions. She would lean back in her chair and act like she was taking a break. She would repeatedly point around her office to little catch phrases and repeat them ad nauseum like they were the cure to what ailed me.

However, every time that I saw her in individual sessions and I brought up, even in the most vaguest way and only in passing the reality of my abuse issues, she would change the subject, shut me down, and start repeating her stupid catch phrases over and over, none of which were helpful, accepting or healing in any way.

When I would bring up mother daughter sexual abuse, she would look like a deer in the headlights, leaking fear, she would immediately stop me. Yes, it was that obvious.

Finally someone who had been emotionally abusive to me showed up in the class. I told the therapist in detail about this person being hurtful and abusive to me.

There is a rule in DBT class that says that clients cannot have secret or private interactions or relationships with one another, as that was something that created an unhealthy dynamic. The therapist kept saying that I would have to attend class with her. Instead I stayed home. It took them three weeks to decide that they would follow the rule and she would have to be in another class. During that phone conversation the therapist yelled at me. I hung up, called their messaging service and left the message that I quit.

What happened from this experience is that I/we shut down emotionally. I could not cry anymore. Tears had always come easily for me and they were healing. I valued that part of my healing process.

After her I was so shut down. I thought that crying was a waste of time. Of the few times that I was able to cry, it was not healing in any way, shape, or, form, as it had been in the past. Slowly the issue got better. I could cry, but it was not very healing. I could cry but it was something that I scolded myself for doing, something that I thought was a complete and utter waste of my time.

I talked about all of this, with several therapists. I talked about this with others. I posted about this online to other survivors. It never got any better.

About a year ago, after a Reiki class, three Reiki Master/Teachers listened. I think that would have been healing just by itself. They listened to my story. They let me get it all out. They let me cry. They let me talk and say how I felt and what a block this was in my life. They accepted. They did not judge. They never told me what to think. They never told me what to do.

Instead what they did for forty-five minutes while I talked was sit with me, put hands on me and hands towards me and send me Reiki healing. I talked. I cried. And it was healing tears.

That night I went home and cried. The next day as well. Now I could cry again. It still took me a few months to get over the ridiculous notion that I was not worthy of tears, that it was stupid, and not helpful at all.

Since then I cry when I have to. I cry when I need to. And it is always healing. That is my Reiki story.