#They had this one interaction in the waaaayyy beginning and it changed everything | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

tilagg · 7 years ago

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So, I have a new therapist.

I have an interesting history with therapists. I have a habit of testing them and gauging them and, more often than not, finding reasons they don't work for me and vanishing from the practice completely (after some lie, because confrontation is a no-no, and finding somewhere else because I can’t deal with them KNOWING).

But I found someone a month or so ago and I walked into that first appointment and called myself right out (which, uh, if you know me...is a fun sort of game I like to play in multiple contexts).

“I have a hard time connecting with therapists. I have a pattern of finding reasons I don’t like them and then giving some excuse and never seeing them again.” First visit. There. Now I couldn’t try and pull it without it being obvious.

“And I have a tendency to manipulate sessions so that I’m not using my time wisely,” I explained, recalling how I used sessions with one of my most recent therapists to vent--knowing full-well that I didn’t need to be paying to have someone listen to me complain about minor irk-occurrences.

I told her how the very last therapist I saw told me waaaayyy too much information about her other clients simply to serve as an analogy for concepts that didn’t need them. We once had a conversation about similarities in our professional fields that immediately changed the dynamic from client--professional to peer--peer. It felt unsettling and while I recognized that, I didn’t prevent it from continuing (even if she shouldn’t have let it happen to begin with).

I remember when I told the alluded to about my habit of ditching therapists, and he hinted that it might have a real-world correlation. I thought about it and thought about it, but still didn’t find the link. “But I don’t feel like I have a tendency to abandon friends or people I’m close to?” And then he introduced the idea that maybe the correlation was that I’m quick to give up on myself, instead. Oh. Well. Yeah, that theory has some levity.

I cried on my second visit.

I’ve always used my tears as a gauge, some silly sort of power-play I create in my head. I know I feel comfortable around them when I can allow myself to be that vulnerable. And, yeah, I know that’s a pretty fucking standard thing--I know the silly power-fantasy is my inclination for mind-games having a field day.

But I was still surprised. Huh, that was a lot quicker than I thought it would happen.

This time, it felt like I had called myself out on my own bullshit and it was a testament that I was ready to do the work.

“I want someone who’s going to call me out on my bullshit,” I told her.

I always saw those straightforwardly honest (perhaps a bit more blunt than necessary), stereotypical therapists on tv and could appreciate the raw truths they were able to help their clients understand. It all feels a bit narcissistic and ego-stroking, sure, but whatever: I find my psychological processes interesting. I like untangling the tricky stuff. I love the concept of mind-fuckery in, well, pretty much every context, and it’s rewarding and necessary to engage in self-growth.

I’m surprised with how many connections she’s helped me make so far. I talked about how I realized how severe my social anxiety is after moving out from home and my new home being a place with a much higher chance of STRANGERS visiting. I’ve realized how hyper-aware I am of the level of anxiety I exhibit when it comes to social interaction--feeling socially rejected easily if someone doesn’t respond to me, shutting down, feeling too afraid to reach out again (among other ways).

“I don’t know why I have social anxiety to the extent that I do...I don’t understand where It comes from.”

I relayed how I can look back on my high school experiences and see, now, that I definitely was struggling with social anxiety and didn’t realize it or know how to manage it yet. How it was nothing extreme and didn’t come with extraordinarily extreme consequences, but that I would get anxious in large groups and accommodate by talking more loudly to not have my voice lost in a group of individuals. How I cringe when I think of wanting to make friends with other girls but not really knowing how to transition seeing someone outside of school. “Invite them for a sleepover!” my mom would say. And I did. *cringe*

“I don’t understand where it comes from,” I mused, “my experiences in high school didn’t affect me that much and weren’t severe enough to result in..this?”

And, duh. She brought it back to my parents. How I grew up being hyper-aware of their emotions because they always felt their emotions entitled them to behave freely. How I ended up being the parent so much of the time. How I became used to the cold shoulder as a punishment, or passive-aggressive quips that stung. Learning how to go cold and neutral when nasty remarks where hurled my way, specifically to get a reaction out of me. Being the only calm one, because somebody had to be. Damage control. Eggshells.

It all made fucking sense. Why didn’t I make that obvious connection?

And then--today. Jordan and I weren’t able to hear each other on an issue we had gotten stuck doubling-back-upon in the last few weeks.

I get very anxious when I can tell he’s upset. I immediately become fixated and try to get him to tell me because I just can’t. deal. I’m very much someone that needs to hash everything out until it’s solved and then I can move on. Jordan can much more easily let things go and not get as emotionally invested.

This is something that’s difficult for me to process, as I can’t really relate, and even though he told me that dropping things or not focusing on them is what he needs...being aware of lingering tension makes me really anxious and I have a hard time dropping it and coping.

But, I’ve been working on it, even when my urge is to fix it--both for him and for myself.

We weren’t hearing each other. We were having the same conversation, but we weren’t hearing what was intended.

He communicates that this is just a difference in needs, that I’m someone who thinks talking everything out is the way to move past it, and he’s someone that, on some things (minor, non-me things) needs to move past it by not giving whatever dumb thing (like the rude server that affected him more than I realized) any attention.

And then I finally found the words to express what I had been trying so hard to convey: I don’t need you to conform to talking out every minor annoyance I witness, but when you don’t tell me “the server was rude and it really bothered me” my anxiety kicks in and I feel like I did something wrong. That it felt like he was telling me that I wasn’t allowed to acknowledge that he was upset, and that I couldn’t fucking do that, when REALLY he didn’t understand that it was TORTURE for me, and I had been conditioned to associate someone intentionally suppressing their negative feelings around me as a way to punish me.

Man, that was a good cry.

But I’m glad he could hear me. I’m glad we could hear each other. I’m glad that therapy gave me the ability to express what I was getting at more clearly. He had no idea that him letting something go made my brain race to see what I could have done (even though he has not and would never do that to me). He had no idea that this was an anxiety thing.

Yeah. Therapy is definitely paying off this round. I have a feeling that trend has the potential to continue in really beneficial ways.

#therapy #personal work #guys I feel committed to keeping this blog sfw!#so I have to PRETEND I'M ANGELIC #also I am very sleepy writing this #anddddd last personal post had me crying a bit AND I already cried for real earlier today so my body is ready fo sleep #the alluded to #my family #social anxiety #therapist #jordan #parenting #communication #mental illness #mental health #un-parenting #unparenting #it's always the fucking parents #I don't like to have the awareness that shitty parenting let its mark as a focal point...but it is helpful to know and understand that

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