So there’s something I’ve noticed about myself through this transition process from my old T, we’ll call her S, and my new T, L.
I’m in a program where I do groups and therapy and meds. So I knew L before she became my T. I was very attached to S and was heartbroken to find that she was leaving the program. She helped me make more progress in the 11 months I saw her than in the whole time I was in therapy and all of the therapists before her. How she did it, though? Honestly, she acted more like a parent than a T, for the most part. And that’s what worked. The therapeutic environment I’m in allows for very non-traditional therapy, so it worked. When I was spiraling out of control or engaging in a lot of unhealthy or self-destructive behaviors, T would be right on my case. It would start with firm lectures and then sometimes escalate to her actually raising her voice at me. That’s all it would ever take, though, because as soon as she did that, I’d always kinda snap back in line and start using my skills again. The harsh/firm never came without empathy and care. She would never just yell at me and leave me, and as weird as it may sound to a lot of people, she used yelling therapeutically.
So part of me was like “this is definitely just how my relationship works with S, I don’t know if that would ever work with anyone else.” But now I’ve had a couple of sessions with L, and I have been having a hard time with S leaving, so I kinda met a rebellious and self-destructive streak, and as usual I was coming up with excuses and challenging L on everything until she took a much firmer tone with me and I started to kinda wake up and realize what I was doing. L is known in the program to be one of the more gentle Ts, but S told me she was going to tell L to be hard on me. L said last week that she has very high expectations for me and she wanted to make that clear and make it clear that she isn’t all soft and gentle all of the time and she’s not afraid to put me in my place. I kinda felt relieved about that. I am afraid of sliding backwards because I don’t have S to be firm with me when I need it. But maybe this will work out.
My wonder now is why this is the only way therapy will work for me...it’s not like this resembles my upbringing at all. Really no one gave a dang about what I did and didn’t do while I was a kid. Not something I feel comfortable bringing up within L yet because I don’t know her that well (other than as a group leader, it’s very different individually though). Sigh. Maybe I’m just a special case lol. I guess I shouldn’t worry about why something works if it does though, right? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it...
On that note, for anyone that’s seen my other posts, I’m going back to medical school next week! Yay for recovery and moving forward!