Therapy with Nuns
Ok. It was actually only one nun.
Once when I lamented the wasted time spent with another therapist years ago, Ian told me that a therapist can only take you as far as he or she has been. This explained a lot about my first time in therapy. She was newly graduated from therapy school and an ex-nun, assigned to me by the county when I sought counseling for depression in my early twenties. You get what you pay for and I was broke so I sat in a tiny office constructed of thin, temporary walls talking about dating and sex with a nun. After the nun experience, I was wary of therapy and except for a six-session stint in my thirties (also unsuccessful and disappointing), I never tried therapy again until my husband died.
So my point is, you have to be careful when selecting a therapist or have luck and a referral on your side as I did. You also have to make sure that you and the therapist are a good fit. You could find a great therapist with the best credentials and a good track record and just not mesh. Meshing is important because, in this relationship, it is all about TRUST.
First off, I am trusting him to get it right. The cost of misdiagnosis to a person who suffers with serious depression, anxiety, mania, or OCD, for instance, cannot be accurately measured except in number of years of life lost. I’m not talking about death here necessarily, but it includes suicide as well as the pain and damage heaped on family and friends.
I’m trusting him to be brilliantly smart because he’s not only going to have to figure out what’s going on in my head at a time when I am least able or even willing to help him do it, but he must decipher — accurately — all the relationships in my life that impact me and vice versa based on scattered bits of information; incoherent, circular, convoluted stories told only from my point of view; random musings and rants.
He must be willing to tell me how it is. Ok, maybe not like the Drill Sargent therapist in the Geico commercial a few years back, but, a tad more gently. I want him to be honest with me. Call me on my stuff. Lay it on the line when necessary. Not all therapists do this. They are afraid they might scare their clientele off, but also know that most people can only take hard truth in small increments.
He must unearth deep hurts that I prefer to leave buried to fester and insanely defend because it is just too painful to do otherwise. He must lead me through the pain in spite of my protests because he knows that healing and good health lie on the other side and he genuinely wants me to get there.
I want him to know what’s best. If left to my own devices I will minimize, rationalize, cover up or deny my problems or, conversely, wallow in them silently thinking that no one notices. I will sink into a depression and sleep for 18 hours a day for days. I will lie awake running numbers and letters in my head in an endless loop, a remnant of childhood, until it literally hurts and I either drift off to sleep or force myself to get up to change up the energy. I will hurt myself. I will play with my medication that provides a bottom floor for my moods. At this point, I’ve lost perspective and can no longer trust myself to know what’s best for me.
I need him to persevere and not give up on me when I’m willful and uncooperative, snarky, reticent, sarcastic, angry or a total downer. Although I try to leave this behavior at the door, sometimes I just can’t help myself and sometimes I’m not even aware of it until he points it out or I catch a glimpse of my sorry self in the mirror. At times, it has only been the force of his personality and the fact that I believe he cares about me that keeps me going back, that keeps me trying. Otherwise, it isn’t worth the effort when all I want to do is give up. It is a big job.
I’m lucky. A friend referred me to Ian and it was a good fit from the beginning even though I really wasn’t myself, at least not my best self. Most days, I’m still looking for my best self, but I have hope.
For those of you contemplating therapy, check out the Resources page for helpful links.