[naia]

Do you think it is possible to start over with a T? To change directions even when you've worked together a while, have serious things going on?

I woke up feeling like I wanted to look forward not backward, to try to move toward the future instead of looking at the past, what has already happened and can't be changed.

I took some time out to read, found this quote in by a poet: "Only one step and my deep misery would be beatitude." I'm not sure what it means really, but it hit me somewhere inside.

I guess the Buddhist/Taoist leanings I used to have tell me that in suffering there is an end to suffering, things change, the only constant is change.

Therapy is supposed to be about change, but why do we try to change the past? Seems obvious, but now it's really clear how impossible that is. I mean the past forms us and has to be covered to some extent, but it doesn't have to take up all the time and energy.

I'm going to try to bring this up in therapy and see what happens.

[caseygirl]

Originally Posted by naia

Do you think it is possible to start over with a T? To change directions even when you've worked together a while, have serious things going on?

I did, worked with my therapist for over 5 years and thought I'd covered the PTSD issues enough so I could carry on and use the tools that she gave me. I took about a four-month break but kept thinking of the anger I felt about "the originator" to the abuse. My life hadn't really changed, I still had horrible migraines in which I researched (could tie in with PTSD) and haunting flashbacks of the past. Also, I was sexually abused by a neighbor and emotionally abused by my narcissistic mother who showed little empathy and constantly criticizing me. I began questioning, which was worse, the sexual or emotional abuse? and began therapy once again to delve into this.

Making the choice to go back has been a wise one, working on discovering if this is the catalyst in all of my lifetime hurt and pain.

Yes I think this is possible, therapy is about change after all.

[naia]

I did what I planned, to emphasize positive, future things. We had a great time together. He was able to show a smart, funny side that for personal reasons he often hides.

He did stop, I think wondering about the change in tone, try to check in. I told him I was doing it on purpose. He was cool with that and continued the banter back and forth.

Later he said it was really cool to think aloud with me, that I had "Big Heart, Big Mind," a buddhist term. True I've been too generous, but in a selfish world, I'm not sure that this is such a bad thing.

There is still very heavy stuff, but the change was so wonderful, for both of us. We are back on the same page. And I feel the respect for just being who I am, and returned that respect.

He just texted "Amen" not because he is Christian, but that is his code word for "yes, right on, enough said."

My therapist business card:

The most creative power given to the human spirit is the power to heal the wounds of a past we cannot change. ~ Lewis B Smedes