Post Traumatic Therapy Session Dismay

tolerating the disorder

I made it to my writing class last night. I did not want to go, but I had to go because my story was up for review.

“There’s a story here,” said the silver haired instructor at the end of the discussion of my piece, “but this isn’t it.”

“OUCH!” said the woman sitting across from me as she glanced in my direction.

I laughed and shook my head as I wrote down what he said. It was my day to get whacked. I was keeping careful notes. I came home and drank a glass and a half of wine, posted my blog for the day, Therapy is not for Bliss Ninnies, and went to bed.

This morning I woke up with a headache and intestinal distress. I lay in bed until I could feel the feeling of Bob, my inner helper. Had to make quite an effort to get into it. Neutral, no thoughts, the peaceful feeling, nothing to worry about. Rested there for a minute or two, got up, paid a visit to the bathroom, and made some tea.

My mental house was in some sort of order until my therapist and I began sorting through the closets. My real house reflects the same pattern. Lots of old useless stuff crammed into all of my storage areas, but the main rooms are neat. The only trouble is I’m immobilized by too much to keep track of. Too much to even sort through. It’s overwhelming.

If I’m always trying to manipulate people into liking me, trying to keep the anger hidden in one closet, the neediness in another, the mess stuffed under the bed, trying to approximate normal, there’s very little time or energy left for work or play. It’s too risky to let go of my tight control. Stuff might come falling out of the closets unbidden.

In therapy now I’m letting go of control deliberately, but I was shaking so much at the beginning of the session yesterday it was hard to talk. And I was right to shake. It was a scary session. The scary things I’m facing are not about what went on in the pedophile neighbor, Mr. McCormick’s house, they are about what’s going on in my own house (aka, my mind).

To see one part of myself from the perspective of another part of myself is jarring. This persona I thought was me, going through the world, looks like a farce from another perspective. Curly Girl is the part of me that grew up into adulthood. The ass licker, the people pleaser, the whore. That’s what the angry one said about her. Curly Girl does not see herself that way at all. She sees herself as loveable, kind, helpful, bright and shiney, and hopes everyone else sees her that way too.

It’s not that I’ve never seen this duplicity in myself before. But to let my therapist see it is very painful. I wanted her to think of me as loveable, kind, helpful, bright and shiney. I didn’t want to risk having her stop loving me. But yesterday it felt like she did stop loving me. She began to set limits. She told me she was not going to try to see through my trickery. She told me I am responsible for telling her the truth. She assured me that she will not change her opinion of me. But it feels like she did exactly that yesterday. I did not leave her office feeling loved. Until now I always have.

And yet I know that this IS love. I know this is what I need. I need to empty out these closets. I need to see what I’ve been saving behind those doors for all these years. I need to let someone else see it too. I need to throw away some junk. This is junk I’ve been very attached to. Junk I thought was ME. Do I really need to try to hold onto my therapist’s good opinion of me, the love I’ve felt coming from her, by pulling strings and manipulating which parts of myself I show her on my little puppet stage?

What good would that do?

I have no idea what the end product of this process will look or feel like. I mean, who I’ll be without my closets full of darkness. I hope the closets in my outer house, the basements and attics and storage sheds where I’ve stashed stuff, will all get magically cleaned out in the process! That would be a bonus.

I’ve strengthened my tolerance for embarrassment and discomfort by writing this blog. That same strength is now helping me tolerate a deeper level of digging in therapy, helping me tolerate allowing someone I care about and need, to see me at my worst. Helping me tolerate the mess that has to come into view before any more progress can be made.