I have reconnected with the one I had before! We had our first session last week and it went really well. I was so worried about contacting her because she left counseling completely when she left the place I was going last year. But then 6 months later, I found her again and she was back at it somewhere else, but only doing telehealth. I really do like the therapist that’s leaving now, but she let me dominate the pace and topics of our sessions without asking a ton of questions.
This old but new again therapist got me through so much in the beginning. It was my first real experience with in-person therapy that wasn’t with a military therapist and she asked me the HARD questions. When I told her that my parents told me growing up that I was irresponsible, inconsiderate, rude, and a difficult person to be around, she didn’t just nod and smile. She asked me “Do you believe those things are true about you?”
I sat there stunned, staring at her in silence as tears filled my eyes. No one had ever asked me that before. She asked so many questions like this, that I had no answers for because no one had ever asked. “I did, I mean I do, but I know I am not those things. It’s just hard to unbelieve something that the authorities in your childhood told you were true.” She nodded and asked me what I thought I was, if it wasn’t those things. More tears but no real answers. I told her I’d need to think about that.
For my first year and a half of therapy, we worked endlessly on these hard questions. I cried a lot, she kept asking hard questions and pushing me to explore things just one more step and one more step beyond that. It was hard work. For about six weeks I was going every week and we were unpacking way more than I could handle alone. I spent the next two days in a therapy hangover, crying and trying to process everything that was boiling out of me like a too-full pot of pasta.
We talked about that a few months later, when she had moved on to this new place. She was regretful that she had opened up too much too fast. I told her it was ok, because I was sitting on the other side of all that now. And I really was. We had several great visits at that new place and then she told me she was leaving. I felt lost and heartbroken. What do I do now? At first I told her that I was fine and didn’t want to do therapy for awhile. Then I came home, thought better of it, and asked her for a referral for someone else at the location. And she gave me someone awesome, with the best vibe and the most understanding eyes I’ve ever seen.
And this second therapist made my name official. She wanted to call me that right from the beginning. I was excited about that. She gave me the opportunity to talk lots of things out that were holding me back without doing any of the digging I had been doing for the past year and a half. I could trust her to not leave me. Until I couldn’t.
I was horrified at first, and I cried. But I remembered that my new therapist was back. Maybe I could go back to her. Maybe I could try out a new person. Maybe, maybe, maybe. It felt hopeless for a few weeks. I met her replacement and I did not like him. There was something about him that didn’t give me positive vibes. I am lucky and privileged to be able to find someone else so quickly in this area because there is a shortage of qualified mental health providers here.
It’s time for me to go back to working hard and not necessarily digging, but stepping up processing the actual traumas I have endured. My new old therapist is now EMDR trained and has a couple additional ideas on how to work through these things. I am excited for the healing that I am sure will follow the hard work we will do.
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