Politics and Therapy

When I started with my therapist in July I was upfront with him that a lot of my life revolves around politics being that my husband is so involved in them and a lot of the time it causes me a lot of anxiety and/or rage and we decided we wouldn't talk about politics a lot since it's therapy and all, but tbh I'm soooo glad my therapist goes to my church so I know he's got about the same ideals as me. technically I wanted to run and hide when I found out he went to my church but I think I finally trust him cause damn I was a freaking chatterbox today. I hadn't seen him in 2 weeks and a lot happened. Lol.

Anyways I had an unfortunate experience involving politics that still makes me want to rage. I was telling my therapist about it and he couldn't really believe it lol and I showed him the tweet I made because of it and he enjoyed it. We did some role playing so maybe next time I won't just think about curb stomping a mother ****er and that was helpful, but then we got into a whole political conversation and he was talking about how what's happening now is like what happened in the 70s and then was like oh yeah we're in therapy. 😂 tbh I could talk about politics a lot because I try to keep up with everything but then it gives me anxiety. Since Charlottesville happened my brain hasn't been able to take much. Haven't been looking at social media or watching the news all that much but my husband still tells me what's going on.

I thought today's session really helped but I know I'm supposed to keep politics out of therapy but it is so damn hard for me. My husband is always going to protests and all he wants in life is a campaign job and he applied to one in Illinois today, so he'd be gone for 6 months. 😱 I try not to be anxious about stuff but is is so hard.

Today was the first time in therapy with this guy that I talked the most. Usually he just talks the whole time cause I'm not sure what to say so I guess I'm making progress. It takes me a while to trust therapists. At least it didn't take 6 months this time. 😂

So it sounds like you were the person who initially set the boundary around politics. So if you find now that discussing politics is okay, then it's okay for that boundary to change. With my current therapist, I initially set the boundary that talking about my mother was off limits. But I found out quickly that my relationship with her is one of my core issues. The only thing I'd say is to try not to let your political discussions supersede whatever it is that you're there to work on.

My therapist and I share similar political views, so it comes up in passing occasionally.

Well my therapist originally said it. He's just not that strict about it. He knows it's a big part of my life and that it's frustrating to me, I think I'm just at a point that I can finally talk in therapy. Meaning saying more than the issue and yeah and ok as he talks about it. Until yesterday therapy was a lot of just learning skills while looking at my shoes cause I was so anxious. We actually had a dialogue yesterday which blows my mind because that hasn't happened in a long time. TBH my brain hasn't been working well since last year and I haven't had many dialogues with anyone even my husband. I figured out what was causing a lot of my issues the past 8 months (taking vitamin D) and my body is slowly healing. I'm just excited I talked that long haha. Maybe now I can be around people again and not just give a blank stare. We even went over a couple minutes and that's never happened to me before in therapy. So wooo. Progress