That First Meeting

It was another scheduled therapy session and I hated it. I hated my therapist and was just done with it all. I had been through so many therapists that I could no longer keep track of how many I had had. I went in and essentially lost my shit. I was crying and yelling that I hated my therapist and I’m confident that everyone in the office thought I was a raging lunatic. I was then put in a room and told to wait. Sidenote that this is to the best of my recollection as I was emotionally unhealthy at the time. I do remember the gist of it though! Anyways, a new therapist was brought in to meet me to see if we would have a connection. I knew in my heart instantly that she was the one for me. I don’t believe this poor woman had any idea what she was in for. She agreed to take me on as a client and I agreed to work with her. That was ten years ago.

I put her through absolute hell in the beginning that’s for sure. I promise that I never did it intentionally, but I was as sick as one could be at that time and truly did not know how to function in life. I was miserable, in a miserable and emotionally abusive relationship and in active addiction. Looking back now I believe I pushed her as hard as I possibly could to see if she; like everyone else in my life, would give up on me and leave. She did not. When we began working together ten years ago, I trusted absolutely no one. I would come to our sessions and think I was an active participant, but truth be told, I was a complete asshole! I would carry on about everything with such emotion and dramatic flair yet of course do nothing about it, none of the things she tried to teach me.

The first inclination that I could trust her came when I made a pathetic suicide attempt and ended up inpatient in the hospital. She came to see me, and I was absolutely floored that she would do that. I continued to push her however, with constant crisis and emotional breakdowns. For the first couple of years, we fired each other quite often but always ended up coming back to work together. Each time she came at me with stronger boundaries and each time I would manage to find a way to once again jeopardize the working relationship. I was pretty gifted in that way, I guess. Every once in a while, I would push it too far and then go into an absolute panic that I had finally done it and our working relationship was over. I could have never survived that back then. It would have killed me.

I began to open up to her about my childhood, my trauma, my ex-husband and my life. I tried to be honest, though often made more out of it than I needed to. The events I shared were true, but I honestly didn’t know how to share them like a rational person, so they came out like nuclear missiles. I think that the tipping point started when I shared my heroin use with her. At that point I think she was just sick of my shit. Instead of doing the work and getting better, I was finding ways to make things worse. The working relationship started to nosedive from my perspective, but I was now at a place where I knew she was the one person who genuinely cared about me, so something had to change. I know I am not remembering everything nor the sequence of events properly, but this is the gist.

At a certain point though sometime after that I slowly began to open up and make some honest efforts in doing the work. I was as stubborn as they come and no matter how right she was about something, I would take weeks to actually let go of my control and take her advice or do the right thing, do the work. Maybe I had begun to trust her, but I certainly did not trust myself. With her help though, I started by setting boundaries with my mother and that was huge. My mother stood at the top of the pyramid of things or people keeping me mentally unwell. I think my therapist knew all the pieces of that pyramid that needed knocked down in order for me to have any chance at a normal, happy and healthy life and over time she helped me knock it down.

Something I had struggled with my entire life and a key factor to my emotional unhappiness was that I had long loved woman and preferred them over men. After a few years working with her, I finally shared it and that was the beginning. She had no judgement, nothing but understanding and support. I felt the weight lifted off of me and for the first time, I could breathe and there was hope. I knew that I would never find that in another therapist, maybe not in another human being and it became clear to me that I had to really start doing the work. Now I’m not going to say that it was done well from there on out because after all, I’m still an asshole. There were a lot of bumps in the road and every now and then a huge pothole. We trudged through however taking pieces of that pyramid down.

The next big hurdle was making my ex-husband move out and being honest about my not loving him and my need to move on with my life and be who I was meant to be. That was a terrible time. He did not take it well and turned some of my children temporarily against me. It was so painful but absolutely what needed to happen in order for me to achieve the life I longed for. We were miserable together and he was a key factor in my increasing addiction to drugs and alcohol. He moved out and over time it got better. I was gaining hope that I could be happy.

For a while after he left there were big ups and downs and a great deal being worked on in therapy. I would take two steps forward and three steps backwards. I got my first job in years but lost it due to my own mistakes and inability to control my anger and emotions. I got another job and was making some progress but now my drinking was at an all-time high. I couldn’t not drink, or I would be physically ill. I was waking up and drinking, drinking on my lunch hour and then from the time I walked in the door until I passed out. My children no longer wanted to be around me, and I was starting to have medical issues because of the amount I was drinking. I was going to die if I didn’t quit, and I knew that. I don’t remember what the last straw was, but I do remember going into therapy and telling her I had a drinking problem and needed help. She of course was not at all surprised and was waiting for me to admit it. I was finally ready to stop with her help. I remember her telling me she was taking vacation to go to Denmark to see family but that she knew I could do it. I of course had little faith in myself and said, “I’ll just drink until you get back.” And that is exactly what I did. When she got back, we made an agreement that I would go to AA but that I could come and see her every day or so that first week. I left work early everyday stating I had some medical treatments I needed, and I headed to my first AA meeting, terrified out of my ever-loving mind.

Six years later I am still sober and have worked a great program. I have a sponsor and a working knowledge of the steps. My life began the day I put the drugs and alcohol down. Six years later and I am still working with her. She has since moved to Denmark, but we make our sessions work with Skype. I can proudly say that the timing was all an absolute gift. Had she moved prior to my knocking down the pyramid, it would have crushed me, and truth be told, it probably would have killed me. I was blessed to be sober and honestly working both my AA and therapy program so that when she delivered the news, I believe I handled it with grace. I was extremely sad; don’t get me wrong, but I understood it and knew I was going to be okay.

Why did she work for me when no other therapist had over decades of trying? I believe I know some of the answer. First of all, she presented as a human being. While maintaining professionalism, allowed me to see her as a person. She connected as a mother, as an ex-wife, as a person with feelings. That mattered to me. If I was never allowed to know those things or see a glimpse of who she was, why would I trust her or anything she had to say? I remember when we very first met thinking I wasn’t 100% sure because she wasn’t much older than me but that turned out to be beneficial for me. We had kids the same age so I could trust her perspectives about things. The MOST important reason that it worked though, was that she genuinely cared about her work with me and the outcome of that work. She NEVER gave up even when she probably wanted to. In doing that, she inadvertently gave to me all I was lacking from childhood and lifetime of people abandoning me. No matter what I did, no matter how awful I was, she didn’t give up. She always treated me with dignity and respect even if sometimes I didn’t deserve it.

I learned from her how to be a human. All that is good in me, all my successes are directly a result of ten years of difficult, sometimes grueling work that she guided me through and stayed by my side as I fought my way through it. She made me believe that I was worthy. Worthy of success, of love, of happiness, of beautiful relationships. I learned that the sky is the limit and only I can stand in the way of greatness. Each one of my six kids will randomly and somewhat frequently state that although they may not know her, they are eternally grateful for her. She helped me to become the mother that my kids needed and deserved. There are, nor will there ever be, words eloquent and grand enough to express my gratitude for a therapist, an amazing woman who helped me gain back not only my life but the life I longed for.

Distance and the busyness of our lives makes having sessions a bit more challenging and sometimes weeks and weeks go by but that’s okay. She is always with me and sometimes I can hear her, I know what she would say. When we are able to have a session, I feel like I can breathe a little deeper, and I’m filled with a sense of renewed hope for more growth. I will always be working to be the best version of me that I can be and I know that there is still so much for me to learn as I often feel that I have only been learning for the last ten years and especially the last six!

If you have not found the right therapist, please don’t be discouraged and please don’t give up! The right one is out there. I believe that with all my heart.