Just after Father’s Day in June of 2013, I started seeing a psychologist. Nearly eight years later, I was told by her that it is time for termination of therapy, that I had graduated, and I don’t need to see her anymore. How does one process that information?
When I started seeing my therapist. I was sleeping in my car during the week and struggling through an emotionally crippling, abusive marriage. Today, I am married to a different woman. She is amazingly supportive. We own our own home. I have good healthy relationships with all three of my sons. I have reconnected with family and friends that I abandoned in the fifteen years prior to starting to get mentally healthy. I have made so many new friends and connections in a community where I am accepted. That is a lot of growth.
The idea of ending my therapy was, honestly, terrifying. With the exception of the three maternity leave breaks that my therapist has taken in these nigh eight years, I have had my weekly session as something to look forward to, something to help me level out the chaos in my mind and emotions. Am I ready to walk away from that? Am I strong enough?
I suppose I should look at this as an accomplishment. This professional, who has known me at some of the lowest points in my life, thinks that I am doing really well. Well enough that I can handle whatever comes at me in a healthy manner. That seems like I should be proud and confident.
It feels very much like taking a step onto to a rope bridge high above a ravine. If you just put one foot in front of the other and hold on to the sides, you will make it across. Having a therapist has been like having a trail guide up the mountain to get to this point teaching me what I need to know about the bridge and how to get across, and now I am expected to cross this bridge on my own. Doesn’t she know I am afraid of heights????
After years of severe depression and anxiety, does this mean I am cured. No. I am not that naïve. It means that I have the tools to help myself when those emotions and aspects of myself become more prevalent. It means that I have grown stronger and built the right kind of stability and support systems in my life to help me cross that bridge without my therapist.
Writing this post has helped me to wrap my head around this idea. It hasn’t help to lessen my apprehension. I am still nervous, but I know that if I feel that I need her I could always call and make an appointment to have a session. (See this is the kind of managing anxiety tools she has been talking about. She may be on to something.)
There are a lot of things going on in my personal life that are challenging. Some are even exciting. Yet, this woman told me that she has never seen me so stable and secure in myself.
I have spent a lot of time thinking about how the way that I process stress and my emotions has evolved over the last eight plus years. I wanted to share two examples of things that I am proud of.
In my previous relationship, trust was nonexistent from my partner. I was the primary income earner, and for nine years, my job was a three hour bus ride away from home. Yes, three hours each way. In the fourteen hours a day, that I spent away making a living, I was stressed to the gills thinking about when I would get home, and what condition my wife’s emotions would be.
From the time I left the house until I got home, I was constantly trying to manage her mood remotely by giving her positive feedback and attempting to assuage her ever present paranoia. The abject terror that overwhelmed me if I was late was immeasurable. If I had to work late, the suspicion and anger that I would have to endure was so oppressive that I did everything that I could to avoid that. God forbid there was a traffic accident or bad weather that delayed my trip home. I would literally run home once I was off the bus in some bizarre attempt to make up the lost minutes due to the delay.
Recently, I needed to go to a remote work site about forty minutes from home to perform a task. As I was leaving the job, after a successful effort, I felt a lightness in my step that I had not had in my past relationship. I knew that I could get home whenever the time allowed, and if I wanted to make a stop, I could. My wife and children would be okay, and dinner would get handled. I would not need to defend every second that deviated from the original time expectations. The freedom and lack of stress was invigorating, and the momentary recognition of how far I had come was unexpected and liberating.
The second realization that I wanted to share involves how my outlook and actions reflect self care more and more. After I ended the abusive marriage with my ex-wife, she continued to be a part of my life. We share three children and two were still young. Therefore the vitriol you would expect from someone who is dysregulated from reality regularly was unloaded on me. Most often via SMS text messages. The novellas that I received were full of accusations that were delivered in passive/aggressive tones and justified by her faux martyr syndrome delusions. I dreaded these text messages.
In order to alert myself that the text bomb had arrived, I set the SMS notification sound for my ex to be an ominous church bell. I would immediately stiffen with anticipation when I heard that dreadful bong. I would pray that it was some piece of innocuous information, but more often than not, it was some threat or slight that I was a bad father and making my children’s lives horrible, by not complying with her irrational and illogical demands. I lived in fear of that bell.
I recognize now all the power to control my emotions that I gave to her. I set the notification apart to identify it. I also chose a sound that signified a dark foreboding mood. These are things that I did. I allowed her to hold that power over me. Today, there is no distinguisher for my ex’s messages. Since my sons decided to live with me instead of her, we no longer have much to talk about, and she has blocked my phone from hers, but if she did text me, I would hope that I would react with the knowledge that she does not own my emotions. I am able to separate her irrationality from my life and know that I do not need to feed or correct her dysregulation.
These are just two instances of the emotional growth and healing that achieved while working with my therapist. I am not cured, nor perfect, but I am better. I am better equipped to identify my emotional triggers and analyze the roots of my behavior patterns and make healthy adjustments.
This post has been written over several weeks, and I have indeed ended my regular therapy with my therapist. The last appointment was sad and I cried, because I will miss her. I am forever thankful to her for guiding my healing journey. As we near the end of Mental Health Awareness month, I want to encourage anyone who has thought about needing therapy to seek out whatever resources are available to them. If you do the work, it does get better.
For anyone who needs it, Nami.org is a great starting place for mental health resources.
Alas! and Hurrah! 