It's been a while since I posted consistently posted session notes. I've been working on some stuff these last few months that I didn't feel like I could really share with many people. Last Thursday's session when I gave T her Christmas presents was a session that helped resolve the inner battle/angst that had been going on between my parts. We talked today about how the thoughts after that session was like one to many strikes on the nail in a brick causing the brick to break apart into small pieces, dissolving away the barriers between my parts.

I went into the office and promptly sat on the floor. This was the first time I had sat on the floor since my most recent surgery. She asked if she should sit on the floor and I asked her to please sit near me such that both of us would have our backs against the couch. There was still a good foot or so between us.

We spent most the session talking about a discussion I had with a friend regarding my therapy. It had been an ongoing discussion/disagreement/misunderstanding about my therapy. I had wanted to do this because social interactions and assertiveness are struggles for me. I wanted to look at the discussion with that mindset, had I read things in a reasonable way, were my responses inline with being true to myself while maintaining openness and compassion for the other person's perspective. I had felt really good about the conversation and had felt that I had stayed in open space. We didn't really get to that part of our conversation. We talked about different parts of the discussion and how I interpreted different statements and such.

I wanted to write a reply to my friend about this topic as I believe we are both agreeing with each other in principle but we are using the same word with different meanings. I used the example of... if you saw only the word present... how would you know the context... am I talking about a gift, or the current moment in time. We talked about this a little bit and where I thought this might be happening in the discussion with my friend. In the end, she didn't know how I should go about sharing this concept; she thought I knew my friend better and would be better at determining how to say things (typical T, pass the buck back to me).

As that topic was winding down, we talked about how after I started therapy, I had done lots of research into how talk therapy was to make a difference because I just didn't understand how talking week in and week out would make any changes in me. After that research, I decided that many of the things they talked about needing to be able to tap into - feelings needed to let the child talk and to comfort/parent that child, I didn't remember feeling. I didn't know what they felt like, how to recognize them, or what actions invoked those feelings. I decided at that point to take a very experiential approach to my therapy, part exposure and part regression (T hesitantly used this word because of its negative connotations, I already knew I was doing that). I needed to learn what things felt like... what actions brought out the feelings of feeling loved, cared for, attended to, to trust... to list a few. I needed to know what it feels like to feel loved, cared for... and such because I had no memories of them. I have knowledge of the fact, but no connection to them as feelings. So I pushed myself to do things that would put me in position to experience these things at a visceral, intrinsic, or implicit way/level. The idea was not to judge, dissect, analyze the feelings or moments. To allow them to be, to feel them, recognize them, and to enjoy them. To learn the safety of feeling them. I call these moments, special moments because I never know going in what things will result in what. Last Thursday when I gave T her gifts, we went through the first one and I experienced one emotion, something that is a bigger problem. I gave her the second one and there wasn't much in the way of feelings there. When I gave her the third gift, and she opened it, she exclaimed "Thinking Putty...... Magnetic! Thinking Putty!" That was one of those special moments. A seed that was planted into my bank of experiences that would allow for a new/different neural matrix to be built upon (or something, T had better words for it). You can't script those moments. We talked a bit more here before moving on to next topic.

I asked her what it was that allowed her to say that it would be ok if a part of me always saw a part of her as mommy and loved her as mommy. T talked about how there are all these theories out there and then there are the 2 people in the room that make the relationship. It is because of both of these things that she felt comfortable with answering yes to my question.

Time was up
me: I love you

t: I know

me: I'm happy

t: (pause) I know

me: thank you, really thank you for everything

t: thank you for being you

me: and you for being you, it wouldn't have worked if you weren't

t: same back at you

good byes, happy new years, be safe, see you Tuesday

It was a warm session.