Waiting Room Jitters

yea...the waiting room sux. My t is in an office with several other mental health prof's. The waiting area is small with about 8 chairs crammed into it, so if its full you have no personal space if you sit down. No receptionist, everyone just waits for their t or pdoc to come get them. My t is ALWAYS late, so I time it so I get in about 5 min after my schedule appt. I always have my mp3 blasting the stones, or chili peppers or oasis or something rocking into my ears. (calm stuff makes me nervous...it has to be loud to block out intrusive thoughts). I get grossed out by everything...the magazines a million people have touched, the chairs that a million people have sat on, the doorhandle a million people have touched...etc. (not ocd, just germ-aware).

Pdoc is different. His office is much more open. Again there are several practitioners, but all the offices are around one very large waiting area with comfy chairs. Pdoc is always very prompt...so waiting is never more than a couple of minutes.

My therapist has a large waiting room but does the same as yours, appointments back-to-back and never late. I have terrible phobia of being late, so I am always there way early. I don't mind waiting but I am surprised that my face does not spell LEAVE ME ALONE. I really do not want to talk when waiting, and you are right, some people are very chipper. I find it terribly difficult that my therapist also has couple of patients who will stare at the door where one will exit after sessions. It's awful to step back into the waiting room where someone is intently eyeballing you the whole way to the coat rack. If that's you, please leave me alone!

I get these too! I hate to wait for anything and will regularly show up a few minutes late instead of a few minutes early. It's different before therapy though; more like a butterflies/looking forward to it feeling. Sort of annoying but I quite like that extra jolt of adrenaline (otherwise talking about yourself in a sleepy office can feel less than inspiring).

What an interesting topic! My former therapist had her own practice and a small waiting room. My therapist almost always scheduled her clients with a 15 to 30 min. lag between clients. The entire time I saw her I only ran into another client twice (very uncomfortable because I never knew where to look as they walked out with my T and said their good byes LOL). My T let me know that if her door was open when I arrived that meant that I could walk right in and settle in the therapy office directly across from her office. Unfortunately, I'm one of those people who can't just walk into someone's office. I'd always take a seat in her waiting room and wait for her to come out and invite me in. Just one of my quirks.

I never ran into anyone I knew. I think that would make me uncomfortable. I have no problem referring people to her. I loved doing that and I referred a lot of friends and colleagues to her. I thought she was an excellent T and I loved when people came back and told me how much they appreciated the referral and loved working with her.

She's probably doing paperwork in between clients, and wants to finish up her sentence or paragraph or filling out the form, or whatever. I think they are not just sitting in between clients doing nothing. In the really exhausted days of my past, when I would arrive to therapy before T was ready, I would sit in the waiting room, close my eyes, and try to sleep. (My T has a private waiting room, so I am the only one in it.) Sometimes I did fall asleep--so nice to get a few extra minutes. On more than one occasion, T would open the door to take me in and I would totally startle because I was awakened so abruptly.

I have also read or looked through just about every book in T's waiting room since I've been seeing him for several years now. I used to write down what page I was on so I could resume the book easily at the right place the next time. We have used what I have seen in those books as fodder for therapy on more than one occasion.

I love this image! I also like how you interpreted the squares in your T's quilts. I think you are handling your jitters really well. Dance on!

I love this too!

I think I'm going to have to schedule discussions with T about the overwhelming anticipatory nervousness before session. My God!!

I relate!

Let me know how this goes! Maybe she will have some helpful advice for all of us on PC!

No time today to discuss waiting room jitters - there were much more important things to cover.

Lol. There's alway next time...