Today I was woken up by my ever so kind husband. He went into work early so at 6 am he did me the favor of waking me up. For whatever reason, when he is not there I tend to sleep in and won’t wake up. Luckily he woke me up, as I was getting ready (taking my time) I realized DANG! I had my Therapy appointment today. I rushed to get myself and my son ready, dropped him off at his aunts and put the pedal to the medal. (Totally stuck with the speed limits)
I got there with 10 minutes to spare. Phew! What a relief. Today was my first appointment with Dr.Emilee (name has been changed due to privacy reasons) There I am eager to meet my new therapist. I decided to switch therapist for a few reasons. I had been seeing my old therapist for a few months now, but it felt like I was not connecting. I felt like what she would say, I wasn’t grabbing onto it. She was a wonderful person, but it just wasn’t for me. I felt like I was doing the talking (which is what you do in Therapy) but I wasn’t getting anything back. No tips, no tricks, no nothing. Mind you, it may have been my just shutting everything out because point blank, there was NO connection.
Dr.Emilee finally calls me in to her office. I notice she has gameboards, toys, puzzles. It reminded me of therapy as a child. You would go into this room, sit at a table play whatever you wanted, as long as you were talking. I went to therapy as a child due to court order. My grandma had adopted us so they ordered mandatory therapy sessions to make sure we were doing “well”. I sit down in her office, and she proceeds.
We talked about my fears and how silly they were. We went into detail about how you should live in the present and not focus on the past or the future. She let me know we only had ONE moment that we would never get it back. I have to say her words did sink in. I understood what she meant , it’s what I’ve wanted all along. Peace! I want to feel at ease and not feel always on edge, or feel like something will go wrong.
We then got into the great question “Do you know of any family history of mental illness” I told her I did not. Due to the fact that I didn’t grow up with my “biological” family. She then proceeded to say well it sounds to me like your mom had either Schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. I didn’t understand HOW she got to the conclusion? All I had said was my biological mother had about 10 children with different fathers. I also mentioned how she had called CPS on my sister about 8 years ago (when he had tried to build a relationship with her) but that was because of family drama. Of course hearing her say that, I felt my anxiety SHOOT up.
A million thoughts went through my mind, what if you have Schizophrenia? What if she passed it to you. What if you lose your family over this. Suddenly a great therapy session has left me worse than I was before. I know its irrational to think she can make that kind of a call based on the information I gave her. But somehow my brain is sending these warnings as if it has already happened. So now, I am trying to think positive. I am convincing myself, its OK. If you have it, so do many others. It will all be OK.
It’s such a shame my therapy session was going so good then it did a complete 180 on me. How can someone’s words affect me like this and send me into a state of panic. So now I have one more thing to worry about, great.
Just a little quick recap of my session today. Please feel free to comment if you have had anything similar happen to you , or even just your thoughts and comments about this. Anything can help.