Yesterday, I had my first session with Sabrina since moving out of my marital home and into my apartment. My paperwork that I handed to her as I entered her office had a big post-it on the front with my new address on it. And with that information out there, we were off to the races.
It was your basic "How are things going? How do you feel about things now? What's your stress level?" kind of conversation. I did talk a bit about how my family has reacted to me trying to talk about my feelings ("Uh-huh. Aaaaand...let's talk about something else.") and how that sort of
validated why I am the way I am. And she pointed out that it also INvalidated my feelings when they reacted that way. And I suppose that is true. When you reach out to someone who is a family member and should be your go-to and the reply is, "What should we have for lunch?" it is rather invalidating.
She broached with me for the first time the idea of taking medication to get over the hump, as my usual social anxiety (mostly surrounding things like making phone calls, such as making appointments and ordering pizza) has been ramped up quite a bit by my current circumstances. But she didn't really want to go that route, as she feels I am already pretty "numb" to my feelings and doesn't want to add to that. So the plan seems to be to learn other ways to manage my anxiety. I think I potentially could be in therapy forever.
I do appreciate that the take-away message I get from her every time I see her is, "You will be okay." It is sometimes hard for me to believe that I will come out the other side of this in a way that involves me being okay. However, I trust her and the process, and I have no reason not to believe her when she says that I will, in fact, be okay. It may take a long time and a lot of therapy, but I have nothing but time now. And a kick ass therapist who is telling me I will be okay. And my only choice, in my mind, is to believe her.
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