My therapy disconnect…
I could feel my anxiety starting to build before I went to therapy. Then it just seemed to explode afterwards. The session started late, I was on edge and my T seemed off her game a bit. I know this happens, I’m a big girl, I know it was just likely one of those days. It just hit me at a time when I needed to leave the session feeling good—like I succeed at something, not frustrated. I needed to feel connected to someone, even if the connection was about meaningless stuff. Instead the session turn into a “where do we go from here” kind of session; which might have been OK, except in the end it felt like “nowhere” was the answer.
T just seemed to be speaking out loud as she assessed where I was. Unfortunately, she didn’t really seem to have a plan for how to move forward. It was like well we could do x, but x requires that you have y and you really don’t have y. We can do z but, you still struggle with really going there. Anxiety like yours is difficult to treat, bah…bah… bah…We seemed to be jumping back and forth from assessment to symptoms making the whole session kind of jumbled….brainstorming session. At one point she look right at me and asked if I thought my memory of certain events would ever come back. In the tone of this question, I heard frustration. Once I felt that she was frustrated, I had had enough. Maybe she was just trying to get me to connect the dots, but I just couldn’t in the mood I was in.
After the session I sent her an email stating that I felt like a child who had just been quietly told that she as to watch recess from the window, because she hasn’t earned the right to play. I said I felt like she was telling me she is out of options and asked if she was trying to politely tell me I have reached maximum benefit therapy can provide. She replied to this message, by saying, No, she wasn’t trying to tell me that. And that we will continue to work through my reluctance and go slow. She apologized…which is something that she usually doesn’t do. I then sent her a rambling email trying to explain all the mental noise running through my head regarding the session and how I am freaking out about surgery. This message must have been considered really out there because…she did not bother to reply to this one.

Want to stop working so hard and still failing. I want to just earn the right to play the game of life, without always worrying about what others might do to me.