Posted by Racer on June 26, 2004, at 14:37:07
In reply to Getting new T., posted by kellyr. on June 25, 2004, at 13:29:30
Kellyr, have you followed my "journey" this year with therapists? The Nightmare Alley trip? I'm on Therapist 4 now. I'm in the middle of a crying jag that started about ten minutes ago, so this is going to be short for now -- I'll try to flesh it out later, though, because I want to give you some of the hope I have right now regarding myself. Believe me, after two sessions with T4, I've actually got enough to spare to give you half of mine. I hope that that fact alone -- so soon after such crises as I've experienced in the last six weeks -- will be that little grain of sand that you can use to start building your pearl.
Once I finally fired T3, which was a terribly traumatic experience for me for a huge number of reasons, I started calming down within days. That told me something important about the objective view of my own situation. Why? Was it because I don't believe in therapy? If that were the case, then why bother finding T4? I *do* believe in therapy, I believe that the meds alone can do a lot for the mood disorder itself. But the Therapy portion is like physical therapy: the cast can stabilize the broken bone long enough for the bone to heal, but the physical therapy is required to restore full and optimal use of the body itself. (Kellyr, did you know that, after being hit by a car and thrown between 70 and 100 feet through an intersection, I was in the hospital for over a month, in traction most of it, with a broken leg, "triple crown" fracture to the pelvis, many internal injuries requiring major abdominal surgery, a fractured skull, and about a dozen minor injuries? Six months in a cast that ran from from my ribs to my toes? The bones healed, of course, but I couldn't walk -- the physical therapy was necessary to make that happen. And you know there were only two painful parts to that? The minor injuries included teeth cracked through to the roots -- so minor, no one had looked until I was recovered enough to eat again, and wouldn't because it hurt so much. A very kind nurse -- after a number of, "You are required to consume this nutritious food" nurses, finally looked carefully into my mouth and found the broken teeth, and finally talked to the doctor about another 'minor' injury: I'd bitten my tongue on impact, and the front third of it was just hanging on. All those mouth wounds were minor injuries, but eating anything hurt worse than words can express. The other painful part was the physical therapy. It was so awful, I remember BEGGING my mother not to make me do it, it hurt so much!
Then, it was the injuries from being hit by a car, now it is depression. The meds are the traction, the cast, the surgical repairs. The psychotherapy is the physical therapy. I know something now that I was too young and too inexperienced to know then: a Good Therapist makes all the difference in the world.
More intimate details of my life, just for you because I think you deserve the best I can give you right now and will tell you things I don't usually share with people easily. That's a sign of how much I care that you find a rope to hold on to while you need it. It's a sign of how much I ccare that you can hold on with me. Please read this and feel that warmth, even if you disagree with anything I say -- this is all only my experience, no larger truth.
I've had two sessions with T4 now. And I now have enough hope to split it evenly down the center and give you half, as a gift to you.
I have been terrified by changing therapists YET AGAIN. It's again a case of, "well, after three nightmares, why would I thnk this will be any better? Telling me it can be is just blowing sunshine someplace it doesn't belong. Now you wanna tell me all about how the Tooth Fairy is real?" I won't lie to you, there is no Tooth Fairy. When a kid loses a tooth, a parent will put the money there under the pillow and take that tooth. You see? I have given you some reason to believe I might be honest about one more thing.
Psychotherapy is just as hard and just as painful as Physical Therapy. (After James Brady was shot in the head during Chapman's attempt on Reagan's life, he called his Physical Therapist a "Physical Terrorist" because the process was so terribly painful. I hold that in mind when I am having trouble.)
Guess what? (I don't know if you ever read my own pathetic pleas for help, my own crisis posts, my own unbearable periods. I don't want to rehash them here, though, because this is about you.) Despite three -- count them, 1, 2, 3 -- really terrible experiences with therapy within a space of less than six months, despite the sick feeling in my stomach at the thought of starting all over, from scratch, when I was holding onto the last, frayed, rotting strands of my own rope, despite my growing conviction that I was the problem and poisoned all attempts to help me and would never find a therapist who would offer so much as a clothesline to add to my decaying rope -- and Kelly? I held off on starting with T4 for several weeks because of those fears, because I was so traumatized I was so convinced that I could not ever hope to be successful in therapy of any sort with any therapist at any time under any circumstances -- got that part? Read it again, to get it solid in understanding how bad I was just then.
First session, I was in "hypervigilant mode" any little motion on her part was sending me deeper within myself, I was watching ever muscle movement in her face to find a reason to bolt out of there and avoid the pain of failure. (Danged hard to do, Kelly, when I wasn't willing to make eyecontact at all, and kept my head turned away most of the time.) By the end of that session, I kept saying, "I don't know how I feel about it. Shut up, leave me alone, let me die in peace, don't keep torturing me, and I JUST DON'T KNOW HOW IT WENT!!!" I didn't use a stop watch for this, but within two hours, I knew I'd go back, and be able to give it a real try, though. I was still terrified, and I called the Clinical Director of that facility to say that I was terrified, and wasn't sure I'd be able to do this. She gave me some great advice though:
"Tell your new therapist that you are that frightened. Use it to start the relationship."
{internal monologue in the interim before second session:} Tell her I'm scared? No way, there's no way she'd ever understand! She'll think I'm making it up. She'll think I don't like her and then she won't like me. She'll think I'm just being ridiculous and am using it as an excuse to avoid working on anything real. I can't tell her, it would give her too much power over me. No way, never -- I just *can't* do that. It wouldn't work, anyway -- she'd start asking me why I was scared, since she was here to help me so there was no reason to be scared.
I'll stop with that, since it went on for over a week, and was all like that. You can imagine, right? Especially with that sense that I have to DO IT NOW!! going on, too?
Second session, I started off saying, "I've been in a major crisis for a lot of reasons this past week, and it scares the [execratory product] out of me to have to start out with you in this state, because I'm afraid it's going to damage the long term relationship, and we won't be able to work together because of it. That really scares me a lot."
Guess what? She asked a question or two about what had brought on the crisis at this point in time, and I told her -- just intellectualizing, no emotions attached -- some of the events that led to this state. She asked a couple of questions, very short ones, that I gave explanations for. The only time she mentioned that starting point: I'm scared of this crisis hurting our changes together -- it was to say, at the end of the session, "I'd like to thank you for telling me about your fears of starting out with something like this, because it would have been in the room with us anyway, and this way I know what it is and don't have to try to dig for it. I think that digging would have been frightening for you, and I'm glad we don't have to do it. Thank you."
Kelly, have you ever had a lousy haircut? Have you ever had a GREAT haircut? Mediocre? That "baby bear" haircut that's not so great you're scared of it, nor so bad you buy a dozen scarves? That haircut that takes just the amount of time you're willing to put into it after washing your hair to look great? The same variation in ability is there in therapists, too. I got three of those "SuperCuts" rejects in a row. I was ready to shave my head rather than try again. (<< metaphorically -- I'm talking about those therapists here)
Two sessions with T4, and I have hope to spare. I hope I've given you that clothesline here to hang onto until I can stop crying enough to send you the stronger rope when I stop. (And have vacuumed -- my aunt will be here in about an hour, and I haven't dressed yet.)
Kelly, can you request a female therapist? Just say that you just aren't that comfortable with a male right now? I've done that, several times, and never had to deal with a man as therapist. It might hurt to ask, but they may apply a soothing balm by saying, "Oh, sure, we've got 30 women available with space. Not a problem!" They may not. But I hope you do ask.
poster:Racer
thread:360303
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/2000/20040626/msgs/360685.html