There comes a time, in every relationship, when someone says something hurtful or behaves in a way that hurts us. It happens in friendships, with family, co-workers, church relationships and certainly in therapy relationships.
The first time it happened was with my first therapist and I was very surprised. I don't remember the context. I remember the feelings. I felt defensive. I felt angry. I felt labeled.
My way of coping with those emotions was to get up and walk out of the session. I walked out of the office building directly to my car. Once I was in my car I started crying. I was crying because I did not feel listened to, affirmed for the work I was doing and labeled wrong. After all, if my therapist didn't get me, who would?
Those same kinds of issues and feelings repeated themselves with my second and third therapists. Fortunately, it happened at the tail end of my time with the second therapist and near the beginning of the third therapist.
I felt the safest with the third therapist. We'd already established a healthy relating pattern because I was in the outpatient day program. Even though I was incredibly scared to tell her she had hurt me, I took the risk because I knew she would be able to receive it and take ownership of it. That's exactly what she did.
That conversation paved the way for my therapy sessions to go deeper into some unexplored territory that would be crucial to my healing. I trusted her with more of the abuse, details I hadn't shared with anyone. She proved to be completely trustworthy every step of the way.
The therapist I have today is trustworthy and the safety is growing. However, yesterday I plunged into a crater. From the get go I was having cognitive difficulties finding two words to form a sentence. Not far into the session I said I was having trouble with my eating. I was told, "We'll get to that but I want to talk about this first." I was a little upset but decided to see where she was going.
It turns out she wanted to work on some fears I was having, what they were based on and how facts could alleviate them. At first I was able to keep up but then I hit a mental wall. It ended up being frustrating because my brain wasn't working right. I didn't say anything to her which was a mistake. I don't know why I didn't say something. Instead, I watched the clock and played with my water cup.
She continued talking and I stopped listening. She tried to reengage me. I answered her questions but really, I was done. I didn't feel angry or frustrated or really anything. I wast numb. In answering one of her questions I let her know I was done with this session. She asked if we were okay and I said, "Sure." She wasn't convinced.
Sometimes when I'm feeling "gone," there can be a conflict but I don't have much emotion. I've learned to distract myself and sort it out privately. Are we okay? Yes, I don't lie, especially about that.
I put some healthy behaviors into place:
- Before I left, I scheduled my sessions for all of next month. I don't plan on quitting just because there's a little conflict. I used to do that with other therapists. I've learned I have to figure it out so we can talk about it. My therapist is a godly woman who seeks the Holy Spirit's guidance with all her heart. She is not the type of person who purposely hurts people. She wants to know what happened so we can learn from it. Because I know this about her, I have to tell her the truth no matter what feelings get triggered inside of me.
- I decided to write her a letter telling her how the session was from my chair. I'll bring that to my next session so we can talk about it. It's the right thing to do.
- I continue to ask God to give me insight into what was going on with me.
- I ask God to give me courage to talk about feelings that are uncomfortable.
I want my relationship with my therapist, all my relationships, to live in a state of reconciliation. There's no reason why they can't. As long as I commit to keeping my side of the street clean and stay willing to let others tell me the truth about how I've hurt them, all will be good.
