I did good work!

I felt the connection w/my T right away at the beginning of my session today. That is always nice, because sometimes you just never know.

We talked about Other Stuff for the first half hour or so, then she said, ok, are you ready? And I kind of frowned but nodded my head. I don't WANT to do it, I hate doing it, but yes...I'm ready. I knew what she meant, and she knew I knew: ready for trauma work. Ready to rip open that pandora's box again, and muck around in there for a bit, and then try to put the lid back on.

She said "start where you want to start" and I just looked at her and said "I don't WANT to start" and we both laughed a little.

Then we spent about a half hour messing around in the past. I tried SO HARD to stay present and not hold my breath or hide behind my hands or just go away in my head. T noticed, she even said, this is the longest that you've been able to tell your story without putting your hands up or checking out!

I did end up hiding behind my hands, a little. Did quite a bit of breath-holding, too, but all in all I feel like I did some good, hard work and we had enough time at the end to get it pretty much contained for another week. I think. So far so good?

All that angst I had over thinking we were going to get to the hardest part of the story today, and we didn't get there anyway. I realized as I was driving home that I am choosing to not spend the week ahead being SURE we will hit it next week, because you just never know. If it's the right time, it will be okay. If it's not the right time, I won't say it.

I just feel good right now. It's nice to get home from therapy and not feel destroyed, sometimes.

(((((((((((((zoo)))))))))))))

You are doing SUCH good work I am so proud of you

(((((Zoo)))))

Congrats on a connected session.

Good for you, Zoo! I think you are right not to focus too much on committing to tell a certain part of the story. If you end up talking about something, it's because it needs to be talked about--so maybe other parts of your story need to come before that part.

(((((((((((((Zoo ))))))))))))))) You did very well.

I think this is hard for me because I'm very analytical and logical and I want things to be ordered and fit into little boxes. Might be part of an OCD thing, actually. So I have a very hard time thinking in a less linear way. When it comes to telling my story, I feel like it has to be a chronological narrative that makes sense and has a beginning, middle and end. Which of course is not how these things work (things like emotions, memories, etc). So, I struggle with it.

I feel sometimes like my T wants me to tell the story in that A->B->C fashion, but in thinking about it I can see that's me, not her. She will say to me, like she did today, "start wherever" and I can't do that. How do you not start at the beginning? It doesn't compute.

Very good Zoo!!

awsome zooey!!!i think it is a great idea not to worry about if you are going to get to the really hard stuff next week .you are right i bet when you are ready it will happen.i think you are so strong opening up the way you do already.it has got to be so hard.

Zoo - thanks for this post, this is what I need to tell my T next time I see her and now I know how to say it.

I am SO glad your session want the way it did, and not the way you were fearing it might.