Termination is bull-s#@*

My sickness is lifting some and I am feeling like I have more energy so I decided this was my first priority. I’ve been thinking a lot about termination lately and wondering why I feel so angry about things. I mean I was the one to leave and all but something still strikes me as frustrating or angering and it must not be in reality. I have to check and recheck my brain and wonder if Therapist really did care about me or if she felt the same ways that I did and when I remember the time spent in our sessions processing the leaving, I remember her tears. So she must have felt it.

Ooooh, I got it!!! I have ALWAYS used Therapist as a guide to my own emotions. When I am unsure how to feel or unsure what the feeling I am having is all about I mirror her and this time I cannot! That is why I am having such a difficult time reality checking what actually happened. I should really write more often. Wow, that was kind of a ‘duuuuh’ moment. This is the first time I am doing something without Therapist as my gauge for reaction, I am capable of having my own emotions in the moment but it is difficult to go back and re-examine the reality later because I have a hard time with distortions creeping in trying to convince me not to have certain feelings. It’s so much easier to try and convince myself that Therapist didn’t share the experience because it’s painful to think she did.

What this all boils down to is that I miss her. A lot. We talked last week for our monthly check in (it’s been a whole month???) and I didn’t get out anything that I needed. I choked up and was angry at myself for not being able to express myself. I was sad and hurt that it felt like she was so far away and I was pissed that I can’t have what I want which is in my opinion not that crazy. I interpreted Therapist’s distance as her having moved on, adjusted to life without me and I felt as though I was just standing still. I was angry. I am doubtful that this is the case but when I heard her voice all I wanted to do was sit safely in her office on my little space on the floor and stare at her shoes wishing I was curled up next to her. But no, I was 600 miles away standing in a frigid backyard watching Little E talk to himself about attics. She was in traffic on her way to work and our lives couldn’t be more far apart than they were in that moment. It was lonely and I still feel the ache in my heart.

Younger parts of me have strong reactions about not saying goodbye to her and Therapist offered something for that although I am not sure what that means exactly, it was vague. I thought about jumping on that but then decided I needed to do some serious thinking about that. Like, was I wanting to allow some sort of process because it meant contact with Therapist or was it really for parts of me to have closure? I need to think about how much uproar that could cause and whether or not that is something I am ready to cope with right now. Also, is there anything else that really needs to be said by her or is this my job to take care and reassure parts of me without her help? Most losses you don’t get a proper goodbye so should I just do what I need to do internally?

Another thing, this whole therapeutic relationship termination stuff is bull shit. There I said it. There is no other relationship like the one that happens between client and therapist and if anyone believes that there is a model for termination they should reconsider their credentials. Each therapy relationship is unique, just like friendships or familial relationships. You cannot quantify it. There are a million and one factors that make each termination different, how the hell do you adjust? For instance, termination with a client of 6 months is totally different than a client of 6 years. It’s different based on the struggles you have overcome and the trials you have been through. Termination is completely different for one client if you saw the same therapist for 11 years but only once every couple of months for a divorce issue than a client that saw the same therapist three times a week for year over the loss of a child. Each one is different. How do you determine what is best after the therapy is over? I think so little time is spent on this topic because most people never terminate properly or just never terminate officially. Why is there even a model? Maybe for the asshole therapists out there that don’t have an ounce of common sense but I think it should be up to the therapist and the client to decide without other professionals being judgmental or the therapist having to worry about what ‘ethics’ should be considered. If they are a good therapist they don’t even have to think about ethics, they use them every day.

Ugh. More later I suppose.

Termination Art

There is a conspiracy in my home that is all about never allowing me the time to blog. This must involve a highly intelligent sensor which is programmed to sound an alarm should my feet get anywhere near my computer chair. And God forbid I sit down, a fog horn must go off to alert everyone I may be contemplating touching the keyboard. At least for the moment I am able to sit here. The little one is not feeling well today and is napping so I am really hoping I may get at least another hour of time to myself.

I’ve been asked to share the art project that Therapist and I worked on as part of our termination/closure process. I am happy to share J Although, I will need some time to get around to explaining the meaning. Mostly because I am feeling very protective of it, but I will share eventually.

This is our workspace in her office, smeared with tissues and such This is her finished piece in my room

My process at home looked something like this on a regular basis.

And I never got a finished shot of my piece...but here it is while I was working on it.

Ch Ch Ch Changes

I have to admit that I had originally thought about my time management before I moved to Maryland and imagined that I would have about the same amount of free time that I used to have while I worked but I was very wrong. I find myself stretching to fit so many things in now that prior to my move I had not considered and often find myself too tired to sit at my computer and think about anything. I actually have a social life these days and I am enjoying my time with friends and family more than I ever have. I am excited for the evenings when I see my best friend or have time with my sister and brother in law. I enjoy immensely the time I spend with the little one and I enjoy quiet time doing just nothing. It seems everything is different and more relaxing and wonderful than I could have imagined. Don’t get me wrong, there is still an enormous struggle internally but I must say that this is the life I wanted so badly to have and thank God I moved to Atlanta so that I could heal and be capable of such a lifestyle.

Here is the struggle though; I have often cared for children full time and find that I am most happy when I am working with them but I have not been nearly as emotionally connected and available as I am right now. My nephew is the most beautiful and wonderful child I have ever met and I did not think it was possible to love a person this much. Everything about him is perfect and just as it should be. He is intelligent, comedic, compassionate, caring, nurturing and above all completely innocent. Little E no real sense of fear because never in his life has there been a moment when someone is not there to catch him fall or calm him when he is upset. He believes he is invincible because no one has ever smacked him or allowed him to be seriously harmed. He is what every child is supposed to be. His actions are curious but never all that cautious and when someone is picking him up he trusts them with everything he should. He has never ‘cried it out’ because when he cries someone responds, he knows boundaries and time outs but is rewarded with high fives and M&M’s with his successes far more than his failures. He has confidence and thinks he should always be the center of attention. He is beautiful. He has absolutely everything that I did not have as a child. Although that saddens me for my child parts it is not what causes the ripples in my brain, what does that is far more sinister and frightening.

I look at Little E and compare myself to him at that age. I create images in my head of myself that small having horrible things happen and it turns my stomach round and round until I feel I need to vomit. He is SO small. I was SO small. I noticed something last week, which bothered me greatly, Little E, was playing and I was needing him to stop playing because he needed a diaper change. Of course he did not want to stop, so I walked over to him and gently touched his hand and asked his permission to pick him up for a diaper change. He looked at me and said it was ok. I watched my sister in a similar situation with him and she was too busy and rushed to notice he really was attached to what he was doing and she just picked him up and of course he threw a massive tantrum. I realized in that moment how powerless he was, how powerless I was. No one acknowledged Little E’s feelings about how important his task was and disregarded his feelings on the matter just as I was unable to protest when I was forced into something. He could not fight because he was so small and it’s not like my sister is a big woman…he was just that little and so was I at one point. I wonder if this is what Therapist had been seeing in her mind for so long…and if it is, wow, that would make me pretty angry with my mother too.

I am unsure of why I am finally seeing what being small truly means or finally beginning to grasp the audacity of my mother’s crimes but it is positive I am sure; it just feels really out of control. I still have yet to make an effort in finding a new therapist which I feel is ok for me right now. I am still licking my wounds from my termination with Therapist and I am making sure I take care of myself, I am just choosing to give myself the time I need to process it. I feel very strongly that I do no want to discuss my termination with anyone currently mostly because I want to take care of parts on my own and not go through a whole process with someone new that requires parts of me to protest them. I also do not want to begin screening out of fear that I will feel that no one is good enough or even comes close to Therapist’s caliber. There is also something in me that feels that I should not go to someone else because I worry Therapist will be hurt by this. Obviously Therapist wants the best for me and wants to make sure I am taken care of, but I imagine it would hurt to know who I was working with when she still misses me. I dunno, it’s a process and I am still working on it.

My Person

This is a long one, hang in there.

In response to my abreactive work on Thursday I had not only a cathartic release of a traumatic event but I also gained something so huge I may have difficulty trying to explain it. So I ask for some patience as I try to work this out through my blog.

I feel as though my entire life I have been searching for that one person to love me in a way that I haven’t ever been loved. I have been looking for a parent fill-in or something and it led me to way too many relationships with older females that ended in abandonment or boundary violations. When I was a child this was acted out usually with teachers. I would attach to one in a very desperate way and my entire little life would revolve around their every movement in my life. I would study their physical characteristics and body movements and try to emulate them. I would change everything possible about me to become like them so that they would want me. This ended in so many abandonment’s and scars that still hurt me today. As I got older I found that real people in my life would continue this pattern and I latched on to unreal people like TV stars or musicians. I would imagine that they would one-day rescue me or that one of their songs was meant for me. I gave my love to them psychically and received nothing in return but it was safe for me.

Once I was a teenager I needed more, and I turned my attachments back to teachers and then therapists which each time ended in them feeling smothered. None of them were healthy enough or educated enough to understand what was going on with me. They grew to resent my nurturance seeking and inevitably referred me or dismissed me elsewhere.  I have always felt that if I could find just one person that could love me the way I needed that I would survive and this was my survival strategy. Unfortunately my idea of getting people to love me was very distorted and extremely hurtful to me. I had no idea what it meant to be myself and I thought I had to be in crisis to receive attention and love. I imagined that if I was sick or small or hurt that I would be vulnerable enough for someone to care. People perceived this as manipulation and they became angry and resentful of me. Honestly, from my experience how could one expect much else from my interpretation of how relationships work? People ‘cared’ for me when I was sick or hurt like in hospitals or Drs offices. I had received more nurturance and care the month or two I was in children’s hospital more than anywhere else. Something had to be wrong to be loved.

I hit a turning point when I was 17 years old. I had been working with a therapist for about four years when she determined that I was too sick for anyone to care for. She said my diagnosis was incurable and she couldn’t work with me anymore. I fell to pieces and raged for a long time. I believed that my ‘illness’ meant no one could love me and that was the problem from the beginning. I resolved to stop trying, to stop looking for anyone to nurture me and I turned to punishing myself in ways that are unimaginable to me now. I lost my mind in some ways, living without a purpose or without care. Time began to turn into a long and knotted string with nothing of importance really existing. I threw myself into dangerous situations to try and trigger emotion only to find I was terribly numb, but I thought it meant I wasn’t human.

After a strange turn of random events I found myself sitting in a therapists office. She was young, had a lot of energy and took a strong and strange liking to me. I despised her for it and internally my world collapsed, in turn the mess my life had become had turned to ruins. She admitted me to a psych hospital, which is where I met Therapist. The admitting therapist terminated with me when she was accepted into the FBI. Here I was, a frayed blonde girl that acted half the time like I got it, and the next like a spoiled and defiant child. I had no clue what was going on around me and all I could do was try to keep just my nose above water. I think at this point I was so depressed that I given up on the idea that I as loveable and had deduced that I was at best, tolerable. I don’t remember a lot from the earlier years of my therapy with Therapist. What I remember is the fighting that we did on a weekly basis, the nights I spent feeling tortured on whether or not to call her because I was on a ledge and my general ambivalence about the relationship.

I’m not sure how Therapist saw me when we began and even for a year or two into the relationship. I should ask her. When we began our work together I was only willing to admit to any provider that I was working with that my father had abused me and my cousins had too. I refused to admit the horrors that I was experiencing still with my mother because it was so dangerous to my psyche to disrupt my dissociation. Therapist stayed with me, plugging away with a lot of defiance from me and she went above and beyond to find words that I would connect to. Eventually I found safety in her presence and I opened up enough to tell her about my mom. I don’t remember that day at all and I wish that I did. I doubt it was me that confided in her but all the same…it was a huge step. Our relationship progressed after that slowly and I think when I moved down here to Georgia it reached a point in which we established a rhythm and I began to really internalize her caring.

So when Therapist did the abreactive work with that young part the other day I realized I found ‘my person’. The person I have been searching for my entire life, the person I so desperately needed to help me heal and the ‘parent’ I have wanted so badly. I was relaxed from the amount of emotion spewed forth from the work Chase (the part of me talking in therapy) had done, but when I came forward Therapist was close to me and still holding my hand. I should have freaked out but instead I just felt loved and cared for. I saw her eyes for real for the first time and I didn’t realize they were that brown. I actually saw her whole face and while it seemed foreign it was still safely familiar to me. Maybe it wasn’t that I just saw her, I think I not only saw her but I was connected to what that meant. I have no idea what her reaction really was and I hope it was positive and that it did not freak her out too much. I sat there and tolerated it while at the same time experiencing the sadness that I will be leaving her soon.

I will have to say that this is the most sadness I have ever felt and I am HAPPY to be feeling it. I am so glad I am connected to the grief that I am choosing to lose a person that I passionately care for. The realness lets me know I am alive, that I am human and I am so glad to be a part of her life and to have her a part of mine. I am overjoyed that I found ‘my person’ and even though this is ending she will always be ‘my person’ and there will not be a true end to our connection.

Abreaction

(written Friday)

“Abreaction therapy is a form of psychotherapy in which abreaction is used to assist a patient suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder by re-living the experience in a controlled environment.”

And oh my gosh is it ever cathartic! Yesterday I did my first ever abreaction work and honestly I can say that I have never experienced something quite so intense but beautiful in it’s ability to heal. Afterwards I felt a sense of relief that I don’t think I have ever felt, my arms and legs felt loose and my mind was in a state of calm and comfort. Therapist was more amazing than I could have imagined, she was right there with me and held my hand.

Did you hear that ladies and gentlemen? Therapist held my hand!!!!! She held it and it was ok and I am ok. This was a HUGE thing as Therapist and I have the smallest amount of physical contact I can imagine. The most has only ever been a finger touch. (except for when she has gone hands on but it’s not like I really remember that) She held it and rub my hand with her thumb and gently spoke to me and I felt so safe and rescued. Not rescued in a pathological way but for once I felt her there in the depths with me, holding me in my fear and hurt and loved me while I struggled.

I am so thankful that I was able to do my first piece with her. She earned that space in my life and it will always be hers. It is tough experiencing something so healing and knowing that I will be leaving her soon. At the same time, she holds and will always hold the most important part of my journey. More on that another time.

I don’t know what I wanted to accomplish with this post except to encourage everyone. This work can hurt like hell but the moment I had yesterday proved it is ALL worth it.