Therapy Happens
2002-07-10 @ 1:14 p.m.
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I just spent $110 for the self-indulgent privilege of crying on someone else's sofa. Oddly enough, my therapist says I need to get better at crying in front of the people who love me (wouldn't that put her out of business?). She pointed out to me that crying alone isn't very healing, that I need to be comforted. I never really thought of crying as potentially healing. It's just something that happens, that you can't help doing sometimes.
She also suggested that perhaps I shouldn't be surprised that, as a survivor of childhood sexual abuse by my father, if I call my lover Daddy in the context of an open sexual relationship it might trigger some old issues. Well, okay, when you put it that way.
I haven't seen my therapist in a couple of years, but we have a long term relationship. I started seeing her in a support group setting about twenty years ago. After the group split up, I continued to see her individually. Since she is an expensive indulgence and I've never had a lot of money, I've always worried about fitting her into my budget; even when the group sessions were only $25 a week. I've stopped seeing her several times, sometimes because I simply couldn't afford it for a while and sometimes because I felt whole enough and healthy enough (and well enough supported by a loving family of women) to cut the cord. But something always seems to come up that sends me back. After twenty years, off and on, I am now able to reassure myself that my sanity is worth the money. But I still can't always let myself be comforted by people who love me and don't charge me by the hour.
Sometimes when I see her I leave feeling better, lightened of a tremendous load. Sometimes I feel worse because we've hit on something that goes really deeply into the sadness of my core. Today I left thinking about the fact that once more I have had the first of many visits yet to come. I have a devil to exorcise, and the only thing we were able to accomplish today was to begin to name it. After twenty years of therapy (more really, since she isn't the first therapist I went to), don't I qualify for some kind of speeded-up process? As I explained to her today through tears and gasped breath, I just want to find the string that connects my current experience with my past trauma, cut it and walk away. Is that really so hard? Apparently it is.
I'm making appointments one at a time from week to week instead of setting up a regular weekly or biweekly schedule. I want to feel like I can just walk away when I want to. But frankly, that doesn't look like it will happen soon.
One thing was encouraging, however. She asked me to think about when and how my relationship with my father ended. You see, before the abuse started, he was the center of my world. He was the person I looked up to and trusted more than anyone in the world, and I was his right hand girl. I was the person he paid the most attention to. I was his special girl. So when he started doing things to me that made me uncomfortable, I overlooked it. I simply ignored the fact that it didn't feel right because he was my Daddy, my protector, my world, my god. At what point did I allow myself to realize he'd betrayed me? When did I feel our "perfect relationship" end? Did I walk away or did he? And what really hurt the most; the abuse or losing him altogether?
The encouraging part is that we seem to be dealing with the ending of my relationship with my father. Does that mean that when I get this worked out I'm done? That I don't ever have to think about the son of a bitch again? Somehow I just don't think so.
I may be the only one at the Rancho updating, so I should reassure our readers that life at the Rancho goes on happily. We are still all deeply in love with each other. My therapy issues are not an indicator that there are any problems here beyond my personal issues. Recent triggers can only be counted with gratitude for taking me a few more steps into potential long term mental health. I still have the most wonderful support group anyone could ask for. And I still inhabit the sexiest compound any suburban neighborhood would envy.
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