Therapist in Therapy

This is a blog about a veteran, learning to become a therapist and his experiences in his own personal therapy.

[therapistintherapy]

So, I’m starting to blog again.  Working in a treatment facility while I finish school.  Can’t sleep much lately.  Can’t afford therapy at this time.  We will see where that leads.

[therapistintherapy]

How do I love something more than myself?

[therapistintherapy]

Relapse

Today feels like I am relapsing into old thought patterns.  Some days feel like too much.

[therapistintherapy]

Do you think your own personal experiences help you be a better therapist or are your experiences a more of a barrier? I'm sorry if you've mentioned this in your blog I have yet to read most.

I missed this before, but I'd like to answer it at this time. I feel like I have an advantage over therapists that haven't had therapy themselves, but I also feel like I'm vulnerable in some ways too.I believe that understanding in a real primal way what I felt like in therapy helps me understand the difficulty of beings client. I'll respond more to this later, because I recognize I have a lot of stuff coming up and need to organize my mind more.

[therapistintherapy]

The Process of Recovery

Although the feelings came back for a while, they subsided, albeit slowly.  I feel much better now, but I am still listening to some metal music, which tells me that something is still going on in my head.  I'm not sure if I want to meet with my therapist or keep working it out on my own.  I guess I have to decide if I can work through it on my own first, then I can make a better decision.

I emailed her the day I write about in my previous post: "#94 Much of the time I feel as if I have done something wrong or evil.  

True or    >False<

Thanks"

Her response made my eyes break out in a sweat;

"I’m so proud. Feeling tearful from the happiness I feel for you."

It was a strange dichotomy to both feel like it isn't some crap wrong with me and have a shitty feeling come over me again.  I wonder if the feeling is just a feeling of stigma or some lingering memory of feelings from before.  It's hard to tell the difference, but at least it's subsiding now.

I will not give up.

[therapistintherapy]

Knocked down, getting back up

So in my class my instructor was talking about doing an assessment and said PTSD, then looked at me while continuing to talk.

It really knocked me down and I stewed in it all day.  I'm feeling better today, but I'm also surprised how much that affected me.  I thought I was done feeling shitty about that, but I guess it's possible to get sack checked sometimes by it.

[therapistintherapy]

The beginning of recovery, Part 2

So I sit here today feeling like the black wash is coming over me again.  It is palpable.  If others could feel my emotions and thoughts they would complain about the thick cottony air around me and the oil slick covering everything, slowly, like a bad horror movie of the 50's.  Back to recovery week:

I felt great after the 'pop' happened.  I listened to bubble gum pop music and sang along.  My future seemed bright without guilt of things done/not done in Africa during my deployment.  I truly do feel better about that stuff.  I don't know why or what happened with that chair work, but I know it was strong enough that I am good to go today, at least on that issue of defectiveness.  I no longer feel like there is some thing about me that made me unable to do the things I thought I should or not do the things I thought I shouldn't.

Then, in that first session after the chair event, my therapist said something to me that crushed me for a second.  I had to think about if this might come back.  Relapse of PTSD or depression had been a phantom in the back of my head, but I hadn't admitted it aloud to myself yet.  Here she was making me face the possibility of relapse.  She told me the cool part was that now I had experienced this different place, I would never be stuck there again, but something deep inside doesn't/didn't believe her...didn't want to believe her.  Sadness.  Since then I have felt great, until today.  I almost made it a whole month feeling great, minus a couple of hiccup days with relationship stuff that had little to do with my PTSD or feeling defective.  Today it is sinking in.  When I look back I can see that this week I have been relapsing in small measures the whole time.  It started with getting cut off when I was running late on Monday for therapy.  I got really pissed.  Then some douche bag stopped on a 45 MPH road to let someone out of a parking lot when only he and I were on it.  I mean, this guy literally decided that whoever this person was in the parking lot was more important than I was, even though they could have gotten out 3 second later if he'd have kept going (and I behind him).  Instead, he let the person out and slowed me down by 30 seconds while I waited. It's not that I really needed that 30 second period of road time, in retrospect, I would have still caught the red light that I got stuck behind.  I still would have arrived at my appointment after 3.  It was just how callously this guy selected to break the law and treat someone else better than me, without knowing anything about either of us (presumably).  People not following traffic laws and letting them work is a pet peeve of me and a great excuse to descend into relapse thinking.  I looked for every bit of disrespect, abandonment and disregard that came my way the next two days and today, when I woke up, I was in a foul mood and degenerating quickly.  Relapse sucks, but this is not like what I imagine relapse for stuff before would be like.

This feels new.  I feel less like I am a monster in hiding and more like I am that little abandoned and abused child, still being ignored.  I know it's not true.  My wife asked me to talk about it when she got home this morning from work and I refused.  People are asking me to lunch and dinner and I am dodging.  It's like throwing off defectiveness is letting abandonment take it's place.  I feel like this is my next big challenge, but I don't know how to handle it and my therapist hit it home Monday at the end of our session.  She pointed out that it was the end of the semester and we needed to think about termination.  It shot through me like lightning.  I thought, "How can you bail on me now?"  I had so many thoughts and I said none of them.

We had spent the session processing this feeling I give others that I don't need them.  I give off this aura that I am self sufficient.  She admitted that she even felt like sometimes she just listened and felt helpless to do anything for me.   She said she felt like I talked about my struggles with pride and about how I overcame them.  I immediately had the thought, "But I do need you when I get stuck!  I use you to unstick myself on the things I can't figure out."  It hurt to think about using her.  She is so kind and caring, I blurted out that I was having a lot of thoughts and I felt like a dick for the ones I had.

She asked me to tell her what they were, so I cleaned it up and told her so.  I said, "I can figure out most things and work through them.  I just need you to listen and help me when I get stuck.  You have done that really well."  But I still felt the pangs of thinking I used her, so I admitted my first thought was, "I use you when I get stuck."  She had no apparent reaction, but then when termination came up, I felt like I had driven her away and fucked up.  I realize now that I keep people at arm's length, unless I am holding them up.  I suffer in silence and proudly endure.  I wear the badge of the pain, but I don't try to recover.  I recover when I am poked and prodded by her, my wife or my daughter (who doesn't know when she is prodding me, but that's a whole other topic). I feel like this is getting too long, but I don't feel like I can separate all this time between my last post into multiple posts, because it is one experience.  I asked my friends to play games at my place the last two weekends and I wonder now if it was more because I wanted to see if they would abandon me or if I really just wanted to be around Amanda and Selena more.  I am doubting everyone and everything.  This sucks.  I want to call my therapist and cry out to her.  I want to bail on my four clients today.

What I am going to do is harden my heart, put on my therapist mask and go to work.  I will be good.  My clients will feel better.  I will get worse.  I can make it to Monday, but this weekend is going to suck.  I'm going to try and be social on more than 2-3 occasions, so maybe that will pop me out for a bit, but I feel like I am just more likely to see abandonment everywhere.  Did I mention one of my best friends ever is moving away this summer and I'll probably never get to see him again?  I'll be his best man at his wedding, but then I am going to fail to keep in touch.  I will want to, but I am not good at it.  I hope I can do something different, but I don't trust myself to do something different.

[therapistintherapy]

How do I follow up this thing that's happened

I must admit, I want to talk more about my recovery from the awful blight that stuck to me for so long, but I am at a loss for how to describe the rest.  I will try in the morning.

[therapistintherapy]

WTF did you do to me?

So therapy this week was weird.  By weird I mean that I had a hard time thinking about what I wanted to work on.  I never had a difficulty thinking of something to talk about.  In fact, I usually try to think of ways to avoid the thing I needed to talk about.  That thing, the core issue, was...well...gone. I have spent the last 20 years feeling guilty and shameful for actions I took or didn't take in Somalia during firefights, when children were shot by tower guards, people were turned away by the post hospital that needed care and a woman screaming that we shouldn't leave the big bags of food in her village because people would come kill the villagers and take the food.  I carried that self loathing for 20 fucking years.  I didn't say out loud all the things I wanted to say in the empty chair process with my therapist, but I had the conversations in my head.  I worked through all the different ways I could tell myself it wasn't my fault or I had to do those things that I was ashamed of or couldn't do them.

The out loud conversation happened slowly with lots of tears, fighting to keep walls down and went like this:  

In Soldier's Chair looking at the Shaman's chair "He (soldier self) just needs to be forgiven."

In the Shaman's chair looking at the Soldier's chair:  After a long period of fighting back tears unsuccessfully and having a long series of internal conversations "I forgive you"  Long period of crying and snotting "You had no power to do anything else"  More crying and snotting "You try to uphold a code of honor a cartoon character couldn't"

I felt like something broke and crying was big.  I couldn't talk much after that and my therapist didn't say much.  I think she got that I was having 20 years of crying in 10 minutes.  It felt less like lava this time and more like warm rain in summer.  My face was cooling from the heat of embarrassment, but also was kept appropriately warm. Over the next couple of days I felt pretty raw and odd.  After 3-4 days I felt like there was a POP! in my thoughts or psyche.  It is hard to describe, but one might say it was like my head coming out of my ass type of a pop feeling.  After that I walked around not having that black spot in my chest/heart/mind/soul.  It was weird, like a purification. To be continued...

[therapistintherapy]

Not sure what is going on

So I have basically been without that big ass guilty feeling since my empty chair work with my therapist.  It feels like something is missing.  I'm not the old broken ass soldier that can never be normal again.  I don't know what to do with this, but I am just riding the wave.  I'll talk to my therapist about this tomorrow.  Am I done with therapy?  Why do I feel so much peace now?

[therapistintherapy]

Sad to have to say it, but...

It's okay to be trans.  I don't understand people that get all upset about a person changing their body to be more like their insides.  I mean, don't they get haircuts?  Trim their nails?  Get tattooed?  Get pierced?  Get teeth cleaned, filled, capped, replaced, spaced, separated and crowned? If we are perfectly okay with how God made us, why do you do all those things to your body?  Why not grow your hair out, let your nails grow, or teeth rot? Oh yeah, because God gave us the ability to change our body to match what's inside.  My tattoos all represent something important to me.  They are part of who I am and who I was at that time.  

When a trans person transitions, it's no different.  They are just becoming who they are inside.  They are changing their body to match their insides.

Don't be a douche.  Love people.  Support people being who they are (as long as it isn't hurting someone else and all the consensual caveats that go with that). Support trans people or as I like to say it, Support people.

[therapistintherapy]

What the hell happened?

I've spent the last week trying to figure out the answer to that question.  I have lived 20 years with the guilt and shame of what happened in Somalia on my back.  I felt like it was just who I was.  There was no redemption.  I was unforgivable.  All of that has changed.  I don't feel guilty about that now.  I feel like I am just another soldier that did their job.

I want to understand it, but I know it is just part of the magic of experiential work.  I love it.  I wish I understood the process, but I didn't even get to think it in my head, it just happened.  This has been my identity for so long I don't know what that means about me.  I keep wanting to mourn my guilty soldier persona, but I can't.  I don't even feel connected to him anymore.

What the Foxtrot?

[therapistintherapy]

Chair work - A Soldier and a Shaman walk into a bar

This is a transcript of my digital recording I made right after session.  I'd like to state that my memory of this is not perfect and in fact there are spots I can't remember, probably because of the dissociation that happened. "First thing she did was ask me  how I was doing.  I told her I was anxious all week about doing chair work.  She asked me why.  I told her because I was afraid.  She asked me what about.  I talked a little bit about being unknown.  Being flooded with a lot of images.  memories of shit.  I hate this part. But I stuck with it.  She asked me about talking with the warrior, the soldier, shaman or witch doctor, who needed to talk, but I don't think I really ever said, but she sort of figured out the soldier and the shaman.  She asked me what the soldier would look like and I could only think of myself as a young mane in my old uniform.  Those old chocolate chip BDUs.  So skinny and innocent.  Hopeful. Doe eyed.  Childlike.  Hmmm.  I could only think that I wasn't in proper uniform. It's a very effective way to put you in the mindset of whatever it is that you are asking to talk about.  By thinking about the uniform.  The fact that I wasn't in the proper uniform.  In my imagination it put me in that Soldier frame of mind.  She asked me what hte shaman looked like.  I said jeans and a tshirt.  I said I would probably wear that to work if they would let me.  But I know they won't.  I wear the shitty clothes they make us wear.  Khakis and dress shirts and button ups.  blah blah blah.  Shit that doesn't really have any effect of the people you are trying to help heal.  Unless of course that's what they need to see you as professional.  Maybe that has some merit.  Hm...

She asked me where the soldier would sit.  Actually she asked me first where the warrior would sit.  I had a really hard time answering that question because anywhere I could sit  I would have problems with being visible from the ground.  There was no safe tactical position.  So I told her I'm not sure he would sit.  I'm not sure he would sit anyway.  The hypervigilant fighter, might lay down behind sandbags or squat in a firing position, but no sit.  She asked me where the soldier would sit and I told her, 'Where ever we told him to."  She asked me where the Shaman would sit.  I was quiet for a minute and I started to think about the conversations the two would have.  About how the soldier would say he just needs to be forgiven and the shaman would tell him he was forgiven.  But both men would know it was hollow, because the soldier couldn't be forgiven by the shaman.  He has to be forgiven by himself.  So what I realized was going on was that I would have to attack my own code of honor.  (Long pause)  

She talked to me for a minute and very sneakily got me to say the soldier needed to be forgiven for that shit. ( my chest hurt here)

It really felt like a separate part and that's kind of scary.  She asked me if I could ask for that.  If I could say I need to be forgiven.  I just kept seeing that kid that was shot and that lady screaming in the village and the people pouring off the truck and those guys over and over and over.  I remember that feeling of fear under that humvee.  I remember hearing all those gunshots and feeling helpless.  It was awful.  And in the middle of all that she asked me if I could go sit in the other chair and be the shaman.

I told him it wasn't his fault.  I just had so many of those memories flashing through my head.  (at this point I say mumbly things and I am dissociated, but only for a minute).

My memory gets all jumbled during that part.  So she stuck with me.   (long pause)  I told him all the things we need to do.  I told him he wasn't responsible for all that shit.  He was powerless to stop it and that his code of honor was impossible for even a cartoon character to uphold.

But it felt hollow.  I want to believe it.  I want to believe in redemption for myself.  But I am the ambusher.  I am the watcher of the dead.  I signed the death warrants.  I understand why people get grim reaper tattoos and it is ironic that my child went as the grim reaper for halloween.

This is what we are.  We reap souls.  I could see panic in her eyes.  My shit was getting lost and she knew I needed to and she wanted to save me.  She wanted to maintain the time and I was floundering a lot.  I spent a lot of that time just sitting there holding back the tears and losing my shit.  There is a part of me that just wants to lose my shit.  Can't do that.

She asked me if knowing her or trusting her was good enough for how I still felt about that.  I told her I would let her carry a 60 with me.

I told her this is a sideways compliment because the 60 was a bitch of a weapon to carry and you had to have lots of ammo.  I didn't tell her that it also meant I trusted her to have my 6.

She asked me what I needed and was I dissociating.  I was pretty dissociated at parts.  She asked me what I would do and I told her I would listen to some angry music in my car while I waited for a friend to go eat with.  I didn't have anywhere to go for an hour.  I didn't want to forget anything.  I told her the cruelest thing is that I can't forget any of those faces, but I forget my wallet or phone all the time and have to go back in to get it. Talk to you later man, hope you feel better."

[therapistintherapy]

Chair

I did it.  I recorded my thoughts after.  I'll post them sometime in the next couple of days.  Putting myself back together for now.  Best. Therapist. Ever.  So proud to work with her.

[therapistintherapy]

Chair time. Ready. Set. Go? Go.

Okay, so I have decided to man up and do this thing.  I've sent her an email to ask her if there is anything I need to do to prepare myself and let her know how anxious I've been all week.  I am going to go for a run this morning to get myself distracted and relaxed a little bit.  Then I am going to do some research writing and hope it is difficult enough to keep my attention off of doing the chair work today.  My hands won't quit shaking when I am writing this.

whenwillthisbeover?  I'm ready to get better.

[therapistintherapy]

What if you did the chair work on your own at home and then processed with your therapist afterwards? Maybe that would be easier?

I would not feel comfortable trying to do this work without someone there to keep me safe.  Working in trauma alone is dangerous, especially since I have dissociated on several occasions.

[therapistintherapy]

Chair Work, I'm feeling this today: IN THIS MOMENT - Blood (OFFICIAL VIDEO)

I'm not ready.  I don't feel ready.  I feel like that is a war raging inside between the Warrior and Shaman and I can't stand it.  I'm all out of sorts and I have too much shit to do for me to be spending time this scattered.  My medication isn't helping me focus at all, but I know it's not the ADHD, it's the anxiety.  My best friend really encouraged me to try this chair work, but I just can't feel ready.  Will I ever feel ready? Uggg.