New Therapist

I started therapy again, two weeks ago. It took a while to get an appointment and I had to keep cancelling it because of the chaos of the abusive tenant below me. Being unable to think or form sentences makes it difficult to do the intake session and the treatment plan session.

Finally the day came when I did indeed go to my first and second appointments. I hadn’t gotten enough sleep, not for weeks and weeks, actually not for months and months, but I was feeling that I was going to be able to get through the appointments, and I did.

I will be seeing her every two weeks. Initially my reaction was that I wanted to go once a week, but since my health issues are interfering with things in my life quite a bit right now, and there are other groups and activities that I am interested in as well.  Since the clinic I am going to is through the county, and they are accepting the amount of money they will get from Medicare and not being co-pay billing me, I think I am probably getting a great deal. I am really beyond happy about not having to pay anything out-of-pocket.

There is a therapy support group for women that I can go to as well, which should be good if I can manage to do that. As well there is another non-profit that has another women’s support group that meets twice a month and has other activities that I am interested in. I was a member there several years ago, but it expired. First I have to get to another intake appointment there, which is on a walk-in basis twice a week, so I am hoping to get that done within the next couple of weeks as well.

I like her. And we talked about my major issues and my goals and what I want in therapy and what my goals and treatment plan will be. When we started talking about treatment goals and filling in the treatment plan, she asked me to speak about that. I told her first I wanted to say something, I said I think it is more important for me to say what does not work for me and what really derails me from staying focused and how I need help in staying on task during therapy, and what does and does not work from a therapist and the kinds of feedback I am looking for.

I said because I easily get derailed and can go on and on about tangents it is important not to be asked how I am doing and how my week was. I have done a lot of therapy and I am trying to not waste my time in therapy with issues that are on-going, but that are issues that I am trying to address from the start of the issues, rather than the most recent reincarnation of the issues.

I said that I try to bring a short list of things that have happened and/or issues that I want to start addressing in session, that I really want to mention during session. I told her that other therapists have not been amenable to letting me work from a list, rather than encouraging me to ramble a lot. I told her that I really need a therapist to help me stay on task and to stop me from being distracted. I told her that I realize that is a technique that therapists use, to let a client do stream of consciousness conversing, but for me, and after so much therapy, I don’t need to talk about my week or problems or my family to get to what I need to work on and am willing and need to work on the hard stuff, especially the core issues, from the time period they were created in.

We talked a lot about that, she seemed responsive and that was great.

I talked to her about being a survivor of mother-daughter sexual abuse. And she was incredibly good at handling that, though I realize that a therapist should be okay with dealing and addressing mother-daughter sexual abuse, but that has not been my experience. I talked about the stigma of that being reinforced by therapists not being willing to let me discuss that and that instead what I really need is to be able to release the stigma of being sexually abused by a mother.

I told her that other therapists have steered me away from being able to discuss that and that hurts me and does not help me to heal. I told her that I have in fact brought up the topic of mdsa during sessions and had therapists change the subject abruptly and rudely. I told her that I do not want to see a therapist who cannot cope with that, who cannot deal with that, who cannot hear me speak about it and who cannot support me in healing as I go through this.

I told her that I don’t want to discuss specific memories, but more of mdsa in general, it’s aftereffects, it’s differences, and it’s similarities to other child sexual abuse. I told her that over the years, since remembering the mother-daughter sexual abuse, I have had many interactions with other mdsa survivors and many friendships online and that it has been very supportive and healing to me. I told that still I feel the need to work on this in therapy. She took it all in, with no bad reaction. She was pretty great, actually. So I am looking forward to having someone who is on my side through this healing process, someone that I can actually talk about this with.

Therapy Ends, Again

Well another therapist from the non-profit is leaving. She called me to let me know that she was going to be leaving there. It was not at all surprising to me. On the phone message she asked if I would like to do a farewell session. I don’t want to. I won’t be.

I tried to be positive and upbeat through the process of acquiring a new therapist, but that didn’t positively affect/effect the outcome. I’m okay with that. You can’t make someone be what you need them to be and when it is a bad fit and it can’t be fixed to a healing level, it is for the best to walk away from it.

Just two weeks before she had assured me during session that she, “was not going to abandon me and that she was going to continue to see me for therapy.” Right away I knew what was going to happen.

That assured me that she was going to be leaving and abandoning me. When anyone uses the words abandon or abandonment that has meant that they are leaving, based on my adult life experiences. So I was prepared for her announcement of leaving. And not at all shocked.

I had only seen her over the time frame of about two months. I liked her when I first met her and she showed some promise, but that was not realized in our sessions. It turned out to be very upsetting and triggering, but that is for another day and another post, hopefully when I am up for sharing about all of that. So there was not any bonding and I am not upset by her departure.

I/we are very upset by and about Jon Stewart leaving his television show, someone we love and are bonded to, and not at all by the therapist’s departure. When the previous therapist was leaving, a scant four or five months ago, we were not upset about that either, but rather quite upset at the thought of losing our connections and bonding to the women’s center and our “Advocate” there.

I’m not sure right now what I will do. For the time being, I am planning on not making any decisions until the apartment complex rehab is completely done and after I have gotten some more rest and recovery time from that. I am thinking about re-joining a self-esteem support group during this time period. I really enjoyed it and it really helped me and I think it will have similar results again.

Saw My New Therapist

I saw my new therapist recently for my first session. It went great, I thought. I really like her.

I like her energy/vibe. It’s not the same as my other therapist, not that there’s anything wrong with that. My other therapist’s vibe came from a very calm, restful place. It gave me the space to do so much grieving work while in the therapy room with her. My new therapist’s energy/vibe is calm, but also more engaged in a intense give-and-take sort of way. I like it a lot. I like her a lot too. It’s intense. And it’s a lot of work, but I think that is a good thing.

We talked a lot about where I came from, trauma-wise, where I have healed, and what areas I have been focusing on and what I want to do in therapy with her. I’ve written about that a lot on the blog. I will write more about the areas of therapy I am going to try to work on, here on the blog, because blogging is a huge part of my healing process.

I talked about the grieving healing work that I was able to do with L, my previous therapist. I’ve really only talked about that a little and each time that I do, I cry. I think once I talk about it some more and am able to process some more of that, I won’t cry anymore. I’ve only really talked about it five times and except for this time in therapy, it was just to mention it. It’s not that I am sad about my therapist moving on and starting her own practice. At least I don’t think that I am in denial about that.

It’s really just the grief, I think, that just needs some more time to leak out of me and talking about all the work and saying how much it has meant to me, that I did it, and honoring that work, and honoring Lauren and her role as my therapist and support/healer is a complex thing for me. But I don’t feel any sadness about her leaving.

I’m not grieving about my life anymore. I did that. Everything in my life has changed because of that. I had a lot of grief to feel and process over my childhood, the trauma and abuse that I endured and how that has continued to affect my life. A huge amount of weight has been dealt with and been moved off of me.

I think it will take some more time of talking about it, and writing about it, and then perhaps I will feel sad about my therapist starting her own practice and leaving the place where I was going to for therapy, but really I don’t feel sad and I don’t miss her or think of her, and for me that is not odd.

It’s that some part of me will always be changed because she held my hand, metaphorically, while I walked that grieving path. And no one else had been willing to be that for me in therapy, in the past and for me this was and is a huge thing, a huge healing thing. In honoring that with my new therapist, tears were leaking out, about the grieving and how important that was for me to do. But I really don’t have any tears about my therapist leaving.

I think that I had one therapist for two years who was what I needed and I have another therapist now, and I think she is what I need right now. But I also think that both of them could have modified to be a good fit for me wherever I was at. I guess that is the thing, when you find the right therapist, they can be different kinds of things for you during the therapy hour or over time. I never had that before. I never had a good therapist before and now I am starting on an adventure and a journey with a new therapist and it seems very right and very good. I like that. I like that I have an adventure and a journey in therapy that I can share here.

Therapy Ends

I have three more sessions/weeks with my therapist. L is the first good therapist that I have ever seen, even though I have seen lots of therapists. I have done a huge amount of healing because of her and through the time that we have been together as client and therapist.

Right now I don’t feel sad, though I might feel that eventually. For right now, I feel grateful. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about all the work and healing that has gone on because of her and with her and the kind of person she is and the type of therapist she is. So I guess I have been doing a lot of reviewing of our therapy for the last two months. So I’m very grateful and really proud of the work that I have done.

I would prefer to follow her to her new business, but alternately financially and logistically I can’t, so that is that. I’m trying to be okay with that, but really I am disturbed by my on-going financial, transportation, health, and mobility issues, as usual. I don’t think that there is any more to say about that, especially since I have been saying a lot about that lo these many years.

On the other hand, I will be able to meet and see the other therapist at the same place that I have been going to. It is a location that I know, an area that I am familiar with and can navigate and a non-profit that I have a strong attachment to.

Therapy Tomorrow

I have therapy tomorrow and I have lots to talk to her about, that is for sure. I had a very upsetting incident in a store this past week, one that I don’t think that I can talk about on my public blog.

I’ve got a huge ball of anger inside of me from this incident and I keep talking about what happened, over and over, many times while alone. I think that is good.  I just have to feel it and continue to process it. I am doing okay. It is just going to take some time to work this through so that it doesn’t stay inside of me for any longer than it has to.

Thinking of you all and sending yous all our love. Good and healing thoughts to yous.

 

 

Told Therapist About DID

I told my therapist recently about being multiple. She seemed unfazed. I think she had a pretty good idea that I was. I think it was something she got in the paperwork from my short-term crisis counselor, but I hadn’t brought it up until recently and she had not asked me about it, which was nice. My life was in too much upheaval when I first started seeing her, I was still at the women’s shelter, she is the therapist at the shelter, and I was concerned that it remain private there. I didn’t want anyone talking about it in case other clients overheard and it was something that other clients used to mistreat me further.

So I wanted to keep my stuff private and out of any discussions while I was at the women’s shelter.

It was at the end of a session recently and that was good, because I was concerned that she would start grilling me about us and make me uncomfortable and make me feel unsure about seeing her again. But fortunately she is smart and capable and competent and made me feel okay about being who I am. She always does that.