Posted by DaisyM on May 18, 2004, at 16:13:12
I asked this question in Open last night and received good feedback from the group.
"Have you ever felt this overwhelming sense of urgency surrounding therapy, that had nothing to do with the need to see your therapist?"
GG said, in her best therapist voice, "Say more about that," which I loved, because that is what MY Therapist always says. So here is more...
Last Wednesday I had a therapy session right after the retreat. I knew I'd need to process stuff and so we set it up that way. It was a good session, I rattled on, etc. I have a standing appointment on Thursday. Thursday morning I called and left a message that I wasn't coming because I was so busy at work. My Therapist called me back to check this out and ended up talking me into to coming in. I admitted that, yes, I was avoiding him. We talked about how scary it was to recognize that I needed him when I was over the top anxious and I missed him and was happy to see him when I got back. And I had let my guard down, a lot. So drawing back, pulling away felt a lot safer. We also talked about that fact that this week is my 1 year "anniversary" in therapy. And I thought I'd be done by now. And I'm not even close. And my fears about him getting fed up, or bored, or frustrated with such little progress were really huge and overwhelming. He told me AGAIN he wasn't going anywhere. That he would say it a million times but words are just words and I needed to allow myself to feel him with me. And let myself just "be" in therapy, not keep peeking around the corner for the end. It was an intense conversation but I left feeling better.
But Friday I got hit with this intense urgency. Anxiety that felt like me trying to get away from me. I was driving too fast, gripping the steering wheel too hard, playing the music too loud. It wasn't about needing my Therapist. I didn't even think about calling him, actually. The feeling came and went all weekend.
Yesterday was unbearable. I was anxious all day. And this sense of "not enough time!" was huge. We tried to work on it in therapy yesterday. We talked again about this anniversary marker. And we talked about whose need for progress was it, his or mine? He also pointed out that I've just come off of two months of work overload and maybe having some "free time" feels like I need to use this window to really work in therapy. There are subjects I've been avoiding and he knows this. In fact, he said since I'm anxious already maybe we should push into the topic of sex. (I identified that I knew we needed to talk more about it a while back but I also said it was going to be hard for me so he was going to have to bring it up.) I felt near tears most of the session and kept batting away his attempts to take me down to a deeper level and give a voice to the anxiety. Maybe I'm afraid of what is just below the surface. I've had a few more flashbacks and memory intrusions again.
When he checked in today, My Therapist said he had been thinking about the urgency and the timing of it. He wonders if I don't feel like I'm running out of time with my husband, running out of time for me to find a way to "fix it." Which of course I know I can't do. But there have been several blows again over the past weeks, including the sudden and unexpected death of my middle son's best friend's dad. My Therapist reminded me that I don't take people leaving me very well (you think?!) and maybe this is playing over and over again in my unconscious. So he said, "I know you know, but I'm telling you anyway, I'm still here for you. You aren't done with therapy, even if it has been a year. And I'm not done being your therapist." He then made a joke that he wants us to write a paper about Therapist-permanence as a therapeutic developmental milestone, similar to object-permanence for children.
The group last night suggested that maybe the urgency is internal. That something is about to break free. That I'm changing in some fundamental way. I said then, and still hope today, that it is a butterfly coming out this time. I'm sick of being a worm!
Thoughts? Things that help settle the urgency down? (Besides Open which REALLY helped last night...thanks guys!)
poster:DaisyM
thread:348279
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20040512/msgs/348279.html