Thursday Therapy: Sometimes You Just Need a Break

Therapy this week was more like a chat with a friend than therapy. I wondered, oh a little more than halfway through, if this was a good use of therapy time. I’m still not sure, but I think it wasn’t all so awfully bad to be a little more low key than the intense heart wrenching sessions we’ve had lately.

Anyway, we started out with my questions about how I handled N’s recent line of questioning (as detailed in last week’s TT post). Freud said I handled it not so badly and gave me a few suggestions of how to respond in the future to similar things. One suggestion was to add to what I said some inquiry as to how N is feeling about things and trying to draw out what it is that motivated his asking so that I might be able to address the feelings behind the questions. For example, if N is worried about whether or not W will continue to live with us and what that might mean for N if I kick W out again then I could address those worries.

Also, I did report a success to Freud, one that I’ll admit I’m pretty darned proud of. A few days ago W and I were discussing the meds I’m on for my depression (there was some confusion with the refill of the prescription between me, the pharmacy and doctor so I ended up going a few days without them), and I mentioned that I felt that I really needed them because they make me a whole lot more able to deal with life. He replied that he didn’t think there was anything wrong with me, that I was just fine without the meds. Instead of kowtowing to W and just shutting up like I used to do this time I spoke up for myself. I told him, not shouted but just said in measured tones, that I don’t appreciate him discounting the things I say. I told him that just because I may be able to hold things together on the outside to present to the world a façade of “okayness” doesn’t mean that’s how I feel on the inside. I went on to say that I would appreciate it if he would respect the things I say and believe them rather than arguing with me about them. He actually then apologized to me, a real apology too not just “I’m sorry you feel that way” (his standard apology) but “I’m sorry. I won’t do that to you again.” (Not that I believe he really won’t because he probably will, but at least he was apologizing for what he himself did and not how I felt about it so that’s progress.)

Maybe I just felt negative about therapy this week because it wasn’t hard, wasn’t ugly, caused no tears, and I didn’t leave with a mental laundry list of all the things I need to work on. Maybe I’m just not used to celebrating, or even acknowledging, my own successes. Maybe it’s okay that sometimes therapy, and life, doesn’t have to wallow in the misery, the bad, the stuff that needs fixing. Maybe it’s okay to just sometimes say “Yay me!”

Yay me!