#last session we did a what nerds candy are you in a dnd party personality quiz

[shaaaaaaar]

my therapist and i spend a whole lot of our sessions vibing together like we’re at a stitch and bitch. we talk about stuff going on involving my mental health and most of the time it’ll eventually become me talking about stuff outside of mental health.

sometimes my conversation is very related to my own therapy. she lets me talk about my feelings on writing and how i want to use writing to help people talk about complex feelings. sometimes its on my sexuality, my gender, and my identity as a whole and my process of discovering myself. that kinda stuff

other times it has jack shit to do with whats going on in therapy. ill talk about whats happened in my dnd campaign (which she now asks about every week), random stories about my friends, a piece of media im into, dumb stuff going on in the world, whatever pops up in my head. she’ll sometimes be the one to get us into one of our casual conversations and we both get very into these topics

to a lesser extent my psychiatrist does this too, though it doesnt feel as natural for me yet. he’ll spend most of our meetings asking me about random shit like what i’ve been watching and what ive been doing, how do i feel about the current weather/holiday, anything im excited for, that stuff. last time i spent a large amount of our session talking about a netflix documentary on jimmy savile. he found it pretty interesting.

with my psychiatrist it has a far more noticeably clinical purpose, but i think its primarily to get a better feel for how im doing beyond the connections im consciously making, as well as to help prompt her work as a therapist. my rambling will often be given comments on how well im using my coping mechanisms as well as how i’ve been doing a great job with life.

of course its also because my therapist is genuinely interested in what i have to say and she enjoys it

and it helps. it actually gets me to realize im doing better than i often think i am, not to mention it gets me to be my goofballs self rather than caught up in feeling broken. i’ll do something and think about how proud my therapist will be during it, and sometimes that thought even helps inform my choices. its been so much more effective for me than the purely clinical “lets go over coping strategies” kind of therapy because suddenly i’m connecting these things we’re talking about to my own life.

like when i was in a psych ward for a week none of the group therapy sessions we did helped me at all because i felt insanely disconnected and it felt like “wow this is the same time ive talked about before”, and then ill go into my personal therapy and talk about the same things i talked about there and BAM its clicking.

anyway, i appreciate her a whole lot

i saw this post earlier about therapists and it reminded me of my old therapist paul, who in my opinion is one of the greatest men alive and who did not put up with my bullshit for even one second

anyway i go in to see paul one week in the summer of 2016, and i’m doing my usual bullshit which consists of me talking shit about myself, and paul is staring at me, and then he cuts me off and says that he’s got a new tool for helping people recognize when they’re using negative language, and gets up and goes over to his desk

and i’m like alright hit me with that sweet sweet self-help article my man, because i’m a linguistic learner and whenever paul’s like here i have a tool for you to use it’s pretty much always an article or a book or something

paul opens a drawer, takes something out, and turns back around. i stare.

i say, paul.

is that a nerf gun.

yeah, says paul.

i say, are you gonna shoot me with a nerf gun in this professional setting.

he happily informs me that that’s really up to me, isn’t it. and sits back down. and gestures, like, go ahead, what were you saying?

and i squint suspiciously and start back up about how i’m having too much anxiety to leave the house to run errands, like it was a miracle to even get here, like i’ve forgone getting groceries for the past week and that’s so stupid, what a stupid issue, i’m an idiot, how could i–

a foam dart hits me in the leg.

i go, hey! because my therapist just shot me in the leg. paul blinks at me placidly and raises an eyebrow. i squint again.

i say, slowly, it’s– not a stupid issue, i’m not stupid, but it’s frustrating me and i don’t want it to be a problem i’m having.

no dart this time. okay. sweet.

so the rest of the hour passes with me intermittently getting nailed with tiny foam darts and then swearing and then fixing my language and, wouldn’t you know it, i start liking myself a little more by the end of the session, which is mildly infuriating because paul can tell and he’s very smug about it 

anyway i leave his office and the lady having the next appointment walks in and i hear what’s all over the floor? and paul very seriously says cognitive behavioral therapy tools.