Tag Archives: Counseling

Fears, Phobias, and Fairytales

06 Friday Jun 2014

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profile_236971163_75sq_1350264225I have been away from the blog for quite a while. Moved one daughter home from college, and the other one into a new apartment, and then she graduated from her college.  In the middle of it all, my mom had surgery, and was in the hospital.  Throw in a graduation party, and our own packing because we have to move soon, and endless financial aid requirements for the next round of classes for everybody in the fall, and you have an idea of how our summer is going to go.  We sleep, shower, and run.  We’re tired.

The graduation party.  In my mind, I love parties.  I like to plan them, go to them, dress up for them.  I’m a very social person… in my mind.  In reality, I have social anxiety, and this is how it plays out:  I plan a large party for one of my kids, and buy a lot of food, and decorations, flowers, and balloons.  Then I freak out and don’t invite anybody because I can’t make phone calls.  There is no help for this;  I’ve been this way for as long as I can remember.  It’s embarrassing, and frustrating.  I have a hard time going to their school events, or anything else that involves large groups of people, or strangers.  Graduation parties, weddings, receptions, reunions, work, school, church, you name it, I get sick over it.  Not with friends and family, and never in counseling, but pretty much anything else.

My counselor once said she really wouldn’t have time for someone like me until she was at least partially retired.  A fair, but cringe-worthy observation.  I am not an easy problem to solve.  I never really knew myself what was wrong with me, until I went to a clinical training on children and anxiety.  I ended up in the back of the room, which was a good thing, because I cried all through it.  It was the first time I had ever heard myself described so accurately.  Turns out there are a lot of people who grew up just like me; afraid to make phone calls, uncomfortable around anyone except close friends and family, too afraid to go to school.  I don’t do well in staff meetings at all, and my internships were so anxiety-provoking  (because of the performance aspect) that I was sick most of the time.  I wouldn’t have made it through at all except for two things:  an absolutely unshakable knowing that this is what I am called to do, and my own weekly appointment with my counselor.  How I will manage grad school I don’t know, but hopefully this situation will be resolved by then.

Anyway, we have to move in less than twenty-five days, and once again, we have nowhere to go.  I miss owning my own home so much.  I just want to be able to paint my bedroom the color I want it, and plant my flowers, and actually see them come up and enjoy them.  I miss our yard, and our trees.  Losing our home has been the single biggest factor in our financial security.  Well, okay, losing my husband was THE single biggest factor – many women who experience divorce immediately plunge below poverty level, along with their children.  One minute I was eating appetizers with local politicians and celebrities, and the next thing I knew I was sitting in the Civic Center downtown, waiting to meet with the domestic-violence worker who would sign us up for food stamps and other social programs.  Nothing prepares you for that;  what in the world do you wear?

I’m tired of living in other people’s houses.  I don’t mean to be ungrateful, but  it is depressing to live everyday in an environment that isn’t yours to change, or to make pretty.  We have had our share of slumlords, and terrible problems with mice, bees, and squirrels.  (In the house.)  People tend to not take care of their rental properties, but because of our limited finances, we have had few choices along the way.  It’s been a matter of we-have-to-take-whatever-we-can-get-because-we-have-to-move-next-week for the most part.  The last house was the best so far, but, as has so often happened, the house was put on the market, and it sold to someone who wanted $400.00 more a month than we were already paying.  (Oddly enough, I think I saw her in church tonight, too.  Weird.)

What do I want?  I want what most single moms want:  a house, a home, a husband, security.  Peaceful, quiet, private, and safe.  I want to drive, for once, with the gas light on the dashboard not always on.  I want to read a recipe, and actually have the money to buy all the ingredients.  I want to plant flowers, and paint walls, and unpack boxes, and rest.  To stop this incessant moving.  Everyone is telling me I have to be realistic;  that I can’t keep expecting God to help me out of all the messes I seem to get myself into;  that God doesn’t always give us what we want, and I have to stop expecting so much, and asking God for more than what would be possible under normal circumstances.  I already know this.

I serve a big God.  That’s all I can say.  Do I deserve anything?  Nope, not on my own merit.  I have messed up more times than I can count, intentionally or not.  I don’t even feel particularly loved most of the time, and sometimes I question if God even exists, or if I’ve fallen for some kind of fable, or fairytale.  But at the very core of my being, under all the doubt and disbelief, I know that God exists.  I do know that He loves me.  And I know He delivers.  Every time.  Always has, always will.

Good-early morning people.

 “In the day that I called, you answered me.  You encouraged me with strength in my soul.” ~ Psalm 138:3

Nothing But the Blood

19 Saturday Apr 2014

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That was not the first time I was treated to my very own, personal deliverance session.  A long time ago (I believe it was after I graduated from high school, but am not sure – it may have been during)  there was another meeting, not so unlike the one I described a few days ago.  This one took place in the home of my youth leader.  I was going through a lot at the time, as most adolescents are, and was struggling with both depression and anorexia.  There was a belief in our local Christian community that anorexia was caused by demonic oppression, and that I was at the very least, oppressed, if not possessed.  Not sure about all of this, not being privy to the adult conversations;  I only remember getting into the youth leaders’ van one day, and seeing a small paperback book on the seat, I picked it up and said “What’s this?”  My youth leader took it quickly and said “Nothing”, but not before I saw the title:  Pigs in the Parlor.  He wouldn’t let me see it, but I remembered it.  There were a lot of odd things said about me at the time;  some was said directly to me, which made my social anxiety worse, and my sense of shame and embarrassment increased.  So did my depression.  I had only recently shed the back brace I wore for several years, and my biological father had also disappeared.  Reasons enough for any adolescent to have identity issues.

Anyway, I really did have a difficult time.  All I remember about this particular meeting was that my parents drove me to the youth leaders’ house one night.  I remember that many people were in the room, including my pastor and his wife from our other church.  (We went to two different churches from 1978 until 1985, for reasons I won’t go into  right now.)  I sat in a chair in the middle of the living room, which seemed dark to me for some reason.  The all-important wastebasket appeared in front of me, as it did many years later, with the same explanation:  some people throw up when the demons come out.  And so I sat, frozen, while they all prayed and sang in the background.  “Nothing But the Blood of Jesus” is the only song I can remember from that night, only because they sang it over and over for a very long time.  I now hate that song, and feel so guilty about it.  But when we sing it, as we did tonight in church, it puts me right back into that living room, into one of the darkest periods of my life.  I don’t think anyone noticed I wasn’t doing very well with all of this;  I sat and stared at the floor, as I usually do when scared or nervous. The appropriate medical term would be shock.  I can’t remember all of what happened that night, partly because it went on for a very long time, and partly because I was exhausted.  I have always thought that if there had been at least one clear-thinking adult in the room, they would have taken me out and left. The overwhelming emotion associated with all of this was fear.  No, terror.  This is a horrible, horrible memory;  the damage this did to me  is indescribable.  What it did to my ability to relate to any kind of spiritual authority with even so much as a grain of trust is irreversible. Suffice it to say, I trust God, and God alone.

I honestly think that my youth leaders, and pastors, and everyone meant well; I just think they were misguided in their thinking.  I’m not alone in my experience, either.  Many young girls who struggled with eating disorders were thought to be under the influence of demonic oppression, and were subjected to similar experiences.  There were some highly esteemed leaders, both in and out of the church, who had some strong ideas about the etiology of anorexia;  there still are.  I have some strong opinions myself, but can only speak with a fair amount of certainty to what it was all about for me.  Certain mental health ‘experts’ believe that eating disorders and childhood sexual abuse are intrinsically linked;  I say not so.  Not always.  Causation and correlation are too different things.  The Sidran organization had a brochure out several years ago in which they stated that they treat anorexia as an expression of unresolved grief;  this is the closest I’ve found to what fits me and my own experience.

I don’t fault the church.  They were reading the books and ‘research’ that were available at the time. The elders’ wife, who made the same erroneous mistake some twenty years later, was also reading books written by people who seemed to have a great deal of credibility.  I think she also meant well, in her heart.  But when you sort things out, and take an honest look at the facts, I had good reason to be sad, scared, anxious, and depressed.  Most of us do, at various times, and not everything is caused by demonic activity.  The elders’ wife was reading a book written by a man I actually agree with much of the time.  He has written some really good stuff.  However, it became a problem  when she had me start repeating prayers after her, and ‘renouncing’ and ‘binding’ things that were listed in the back of the book, some of which actually were a part of my life before I became a Christian, but not after.  I did it, because I tend to be outwardly compliant to a fault, but realized I actually didn’t (and don’t) agree with all of this in my heart.  To my thinking, the day I became a Christian, all of that was under the blood of Christ in that moment, and my spirit was completely renewed.  Satan no longer has any claim, or power over me at all.  I believe that when we put our trust in the death and resurrection of Christ, our regenerated hearts are no longer under the influence of Satan, or his demons, and that Christ alone has not only removed any trace of generational sin from me, but that there is no curse that can control or oppress me, at all, ever.  Do I still sin?  Yes.  Do I need deliverance, as a Christian?  No.  Is my mind completely renewed?  Of course not;  that comes through reading the Word, and growing and maturing spiritually over time.  Barring an untimely death, I’m only halfway through this thing.  But the book bothered me.  So, I stopped ‘doing the work’ and eventually frustrated the hell out of the elders’ wife.  I’m not interested in sitting, week after week, doing work I don’t actually need to do.

Sometimes, but not often, I speak up and say so.

I think a little common sense and a lot of faith goes a long way.

A Collage of Many Colors

11 Friday Apr 2014

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CIMG0396In order to tell the whole story, I have to go back to how I met my counselor in the first place.  On July 8, 2000, I was invited to an event by a friend, who was, at the time, attending the church I go to now. This all came about because of something that had happened at my old church.  When my marriage fell apart, I started meeting with one of the elder’s wives.  This was not for counseling, but for spiritual guidance and accountability.  I made it clear in the beginning that this was all I was looking for.  I did not want to become somebody’s ‘project’ and said so.  My doctor had suggested that I talk to her, because I refused to go to a counselor, and I finally agreed.  I found out much later that this woman was in training to be a counselor for the church, but I didn’t know this at the time, and she never mentioned it.

It turned into a nightmare.

Somehow, she got the idea that the extreme grief I was experiencing as a result of what I was going through with my husband was really because I had been abused as a child;  specifically, ritual abuse.  (If you’re not familiar with this, bear with me, as this could all sound a bit odd.  If you are familiar with it, well, I’m sorry.)  It all culminated with a meeting in the Pastor’s office one day, when he was out of town.  I had thought it odd when she said that she wanted to meet there, instead of in her office, as we usually did.  When I got there, my best friend was already in the room.  I found out later that she was also being mentored by this woman as a counselor-in-training (I hadn’t known this, either) and, lo and behold, I was the person they were practicing on.  I have no idea what transpired between them, or how or why my friend came to be in the room that day, and had no idea what was about to happen.  As we sat down at the table, the elders’ wife said, with a nervous laugh, “If he (meaning the pastor) only knew what we were doing in here today, he would never allow it.”  That should have been my cue to leave the room.

I don’t know what made this woman think that grief from a broken and abusive marriage warranted a ‘deliverance’ session, but apparently she believed it did.  It was a humiliating and painful hour;  I sat frozen through most of it.  I could not look my friend in the eye, and the friendship ended soon after.  I had never, to my knowledge, told her anything that would have led her to participate in such an event, and could only imagine the talking that had happened between the two of them behind my back.  At one point, before they started praying and ‘casting out demons’, the elders’ wife put a wastebasket next to me, as she had heard that “people sometimes throw up when the demons come out.”  Really.

To my knowledge, the pastor never did find out what happened in his absence, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to tell anybody.  I did, finally, tell the elders’ wife that I had heard that she was in training to be a counselor for the church, under the leadership of the person teaching our biblical counseling class.  I only found this out when I signed up for the class myself;  the unwitting secretary had told me, and suddenly, everything made sense.  So, when I asked her “Do the other church leaders think that you are my counselor?” she became very angry, and said she would no longer meet with me, or help me in any way.  And so, we were done.  Immediately.  And she stopped speaking to me completely, even in church.  But, she kept something of mine, and hid it in her husband’s office without telling me, or asking if I minded that she put it there.  (Since my husband golfed with her husband, I would have minded very much.)

At one point in meeting with this woman (before the casting-out party) she had asked me to make a collage;  it was a project from a book that she had ordered for the bookstore.  I thought it was somewhat juvenile when she suggested it, but went home, borrowed some of my daughters’ glue sticks from her home school supplies, and sat down with a pile of magazines and a pair of scissors.  I started cutting out pictures, and little snippets of headings, and parts of sentences.  I couldn’t find anything sturdy enough to use as a backing, so I took the cover off an old copy of the church directory, and glued the pieces around the logo of the church.  So much of my pain was about the church, and my experience there, that it seemed fitting, and made the finished collage make sense.  To the right of the center fold was everything about the church and my divorce, and my adult life, and the left was about my childhood and growing up.  (For the most part).  This wasn’t really planned, but is just how it worked out.  I worked on it for at least three days straight, and did very little else during this time.  The collage really created itself, as most artwork does.  I can remember it clearly, if I think hard enough, but it, too, is gone now.  I cry about that, a lot.

After I finished the collage, I took it to her, and we did talk about it a little, but it seemed to be a bit too much for her, so we put it away.  Actually, she put it away, and that was how it ended up in her husbands’ office.  When I finally asked for it back, she told me where it was, and went down the hall to get it.  But it was ruined;  without even so much as asking me first, she had put it through the laminating machine in the office.  She said she was worried that all the little pieces of paper would come unglued, and she had hoped it would come out of the machine okay.  Then she said that she was going to use it to show to other people she was meeting with.  There was nothing about ritual abuse, only a lot of hurt and confusion, all poured out on paper.  Some of it was spiritual, and some was about abuse, but none of it was intended to be about the things that were in the books she was ordering.  (About ritual abuse, which I had never heard of until I met her, and started reading these books.)  I have no idea how many people in the church she showed it to, without my knowledge or consent.  Only God knows.  To say I was embarrassed is an understatement.  So, this is how it came to be that my friend, out of sheer desperation, said she wanted me to meet this counselor, who went to her church, and was going to be speaking at a women’s event in July.

I don’t believe that all therapy needs to be an intensive archeological dig, but mine did, only because of what I brought with me.  I brought my collage, and wanted my counselor to help me make sense out of it.  I desperately needed help.  I was a confused, depressed mess.  Although, come to think of it, that is how most people end up in a therapists’ office, so I guess there’s nothing all that strange about that.  What is strange is how it all ended.  But we’re not making a collage of that.  Or anything else, for that matter.

 

 

Scattered Pearls

15 Saturday Mar 2014

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IMG_299554994445707My husband always bought me Chanel No. 5;  he started doing this when we were dating, and continued for about ten years into our marriage.  To this day, I can’t walk by and see it on a department store counter without feeling a certain kind of pain.  And then, one year, I opened a bottle of Elizabeth Arden’s 5th Avenue on Christmas morning.  I wondered why the sudden change… until I discovered that he had bought two identical bottles of perfume that year.  Shortly after that, I found several other receipts, for gifts I didn’t receive or open.  Smart man, yes?

No.

There is so much shame and embarrassment that comes with divorce.  It would be nice if there was a safe, quiet place where we could go and heal.  Divorce also comes with a lot of upheaval;  we lost our home, and every place we’ve rented since has been sold by the landlord almost as soon as we unpacked and got everything set up the way we want it.  Suddenly, it was all gone.  There is a saying that “God is a God of second chances.”  With God, we get a clean slate, so to speak.  Not so with people.  Sometimes they’re just gone.  Sometimes we lose our place of hope and safety.  Or we lose our voice, instead of finding it.

In the very beginning of counseling, I had an extremely difficult time trusting that my counselor was honestly not going to just quit and disappear.  After everything I had just been through with my husband, I just did not believe that she wouldn’t do the same thing, and I wasn’t about to go through anything like that again.  I was already extremely sick, and tired, and it just seemed like to much effort to go digging into the past.  Nor did I want to dig it all up, and then risk being left alone with all of it.  I told her that I was afraid I would ‘come apart’, and all of the pieces would scatter, and I would never in a million years be able to get it all back together.  When I said that, she did the most wonderful thing;  she left the room, and then came back with a small package of Skittles.  She opened the bag, and let the candy fall all over the floor between us.  Then she got out of her chair, and knelt down, and started picking them up, one at a time.  She looked up at me and said:  “And if that happens, we will pick up every one of those pieces, together.”  When she had them all, she sat back down.  She had heard me.

Some time after that, she gave me a small, beautiful bracelet made of pearls.  She said that she was giving it to me so that I would know that I could trust her, and that she would never just quit and give up on me, and walk away.  She said that she understood that I had a hard time believing her, and that I would learn over time that she could be trusted.  I loved my bracelet, and I finally believed her.  I did wear it, and it did help.  Had I known what would happen in the end, I would have handed it right back and left the room, but at the time, I really did believe her.  I think she did, too.  Unfortunately, things didn’t turn out the way she promised, and now all of those little pieces of my life are scattered everywhere, like little beads from a broken bracelet.  Most of this is all my own fault.  I wish I could go back, because there is so much I would do differently.  For the last couple of years, I have been trying to pick up all of those pieces by myself, without a counselor.  It isn’t going very well, mostly because  I didn’t get to take them all with me, the way you normally would when you finish counseling, in some kind of integrated whole.

After the horrible day in her office, the day she was so very angry because of my email, I waited and waited for her to call and say that what she did was wrong;  that she had made a mistake, and we would talk it out at my next appointment.  Instead, she called, and said that she would meet me at Panera Bread when she got out of work one night.  Why we met at Panera Bread, I will never know.  None of it made any sense, and still doesn’t.  I don’t know what the purpose of any of this is, and it’s all still such a confusing mess.  It hasn’t served any purpose, Godly  or otherwise, other than to make me wish I had never asked for help in the first place.  When we got there they were closing soon, so we didn’t have much time.  She explained somewhat hurriedly over coffee that she had read something in her devotional that morning, and that she took it to mean that God had given her an ‘out’ so to speak.  (That is not how she worded it, but is in essence what she was saying.)  She had brought a copy of it with her;  I read it, but didn’t see what it had to do with what had happened in my session.  I still don’t.  I felt like I was watching our conversation from the ceiling, or another part of the room;  the whole thing was surreal.  When she was done saying what she had to say, she promised that nothing would change, she “would still be there” (I haven’t yet figured out where) and that we would be friends, and have coffee, but we just wouldn’t “do therapy.”  And just like that, she was free.

She kept a part of her promise, for a while, and even sent an email on my birthday.  We were actually going to go for coffee (she said) but before that happened, she read a couple of the posts I had written about how hurt I was.  I regret it, but don’t know what to do about it.  There’s nothing anyone can do.  Needless to say, everything has changed, and all I want is to go back and finish my therapy.  It’s not about her, it’s about me.  I want a second chance.  Now we are not even friends.  She just disappeared.

I was heartbroken when we left Panera Bread.  I also sent the bracelet back to her, but can’t remember if it was before or after Panera.  She told me that as she took it out of the envelope, it broke, and the pearls scattered.  She said that she took it as a sign that the counseling just “couldn’t stay together any more.”  As though it were proof that God had let her off the hook.  I took it to mean that she had broken her promise, and that I was right in the first place;  it was a sign that she really couldn’t be trusted after all.

Do you know what it was a sign of?

That if you wear a bracelet every single day, for years, but never get it re-strung, the elastic will eventually break, and the beads will go all over the place.

That’s all it means.  Nothing prophetic, overly spiritual, or profound.  It’s not a sign from God that it’s okay to break a promise, it’s just a sign that you shouldn’t send fragile items through the mail.  It’s a sign that you can’t trust a piece of jewelry to keep a human being from acting like a human being.  They get angry, they blow up, and they hurt the people they say they love.  And then they leave.

That’s all.

I miss my bracelet, and I want it back.  And if I had honestly thought for a moment that she would keep it, I wouldn’t have sent it to her.  I only meant to remind her, in a not quite so harsh and hurtful way, that she had made a promise.  If I hadn’t sent that email, none of this would have happened, and things wouldn’t be as they are today.  It really was a pretty bracelet.

I will never see that again, either.

Wittenberg Revisited

08 Saturday Mar 2014

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profile_236971163_75sq_1350264225There is another aspect of this story that, while embarrassing to me, is partly what was behind some of my hurt and anger.  Before the day of the “Jezebel” session, earlier in the year, we had talked one afternoon about the possibility of my sharing the office with her on a part-time basis at some point in the future.  (My counselor, not Jezebel.)  I knew that I would be graduating soon, and would then be working on my Master’s degree, which would take me about a year or so, because I had worked hard to maintain my advanced standing.  (Which only means that you’ve maintained a certain grade point average in your classes.  I did, until November, later that year.)  She said that she would talk to her landlord about it.  This would have worked well for me, because I wanted to only work part-time while finishing school, and I could have worked around my classes much more easily than I could have if I worked for someone else.  It would work perfectly for her, she said, because she wanted to work fewer days per week, and then eventually retire.  I thought it would also help with some of my anxiety, to be able to meet with people in a safe place that I was already familiar with.  Because I’m also a writer, I have an obsession with desks, and I have grown to love hers.  It is the absolute perfect writing desk, and I would have been unbelievably happy working in such beautiful surroundings, and just being free to be me. A very happy me.  Not only that, but I would have considered it both a privilege and an honor, as I look to her not only as my counselor, but also as a mentor.  As an example.  It meant a lot that she took me seriously, even knowing all that she did about me.  (We don’t take our best selves to therapy.)

I left the appointment so very, very happy that day, but didn’t want to bring it up again, just in case she had for some reason changed her mind.  I didn’t want to be disappointed.  At the end of one of my sessions a few weeks later (I think) we were leaving her office one night, and I finally got up the courage to ask if she had really meant what she said about sharing her office with me.  I didn’t want to risk the embarrassment of being told no, or of being rejected, after getting my hopes up.  As she reached to turn off the light in the waiting room, she looked at me directly and said “Well I don’t know;  are you going to be a therapist?”  I said “Yes, I am”, and she said “Then yes, I meant it.”  And so we left.  Again, so very happy.  For someone who likes to know two years ahead of time what is going to happen tomorrow;  who craves structure and security, I felt like I finally didn’t have to worry.  At least one problem in my life was solved, or so I thought.

Some weeks later, I brought it up again during a session, and instantly saw by the look on her face that she had changed her mind.  She said she was sorry, but she had “been advised not to do that.”  She did not say by whom, or why. Only that she had decided to give the office to someone else.  My office;  my safe space.  Desk and all.  I had long since become quite attached to that particular piece of furniture, and to everything else in the room that had grown so familiar over time.  With all of our moving, and constant upheaval since losing our home, her office was an anchor in a never-ending nightmare.  A literal oasis in the middle of every week; in the middle of a very traumatic and disrupted life.  I was crushed.  Both ashamed and heart-broken.  And so embarrassed, for being such a fool as to think anyone would have ever taken me seriously, or thought that I was capable of doing anything like that.  And, to be honest, I wanted so badly to be like her.  To be adult, and professional, and capable, and not so damned insecure.  I tried so hard to earn her respect and approval, but never could quite pull it off.  This may not be important to anyone else, but it is to me, even now.  Please don’t write and tell me why it shouldn’t be;  it won’t matter at all, nor would it make any difference.  It just is.

But I think this is partly what was underlying my insistence to set things right about the other matter, because I felt that people were talking about me, and didn’t know who, or why, or what was being said.  But mostly I felt that she had changed her mind, for some reason, because of some inadequacy in me, and that she didn’t really take me seriously as anything more than a client.  That she would never see me as anything but unhealthy and incompetent, and I knew this was partly my own fault.  I had said, and shared too much.  Trusted too much.  And now hated myself for it.  When we hate ourselves, or reject ourselves, we act funny.  We do act odd, and people do talk about us, and not usually with a great deal of grace or mercy.  We ruin our relationships, both personal and professional, and I had done both.  Hence, the “Jezebel” session.

Interactions like these are important, no matter how frustrating to both client and therapist. Therapy provides the perfect place to pull these things apart, and face them, no matter how difficult, because this is where the meat of all real therapy is.  How the client interacts in relationship with you is probably much the same as they do with others, and this is what they actually need help with- not the situation, or crisis that brings them into the room in the first place.  Unfortunately, this is also where therapists all too often throw up their hands and make a referral, in the desperate hope that a different counselor can clean up the mess they made in their own office.  Have you ever tried to clean up a mess made in one room while sitting in a different one?  Doesn’t work very well, and it’s not for someone else to do.  For a client who has a hard time speaking up and dealing with people, the relationship with the therapist provides the perfect opportunity to practice how to hang in there and talk about hard things, including anger, without running away, quitting, or altogether avoiding uncomfortable situations.  This is what results in true life-change, not just behavioral modification.  My normal pattern is to shut down, run away, and avoid the person who hurt me like the plague.  Instead of her using this situation as a way to help me learn a different way to do life, it ended up being a re-enactment of what I had already spent a lifetime doing.  I went to therapy to un-learn this, although I didn’t know it at the time.

We can’t, as therapists, run from and avoid transference and counter-transference;  we have to learn how to use it, because, as I said before, this is where the real work of therapy is.  (These are just important sounding clinical terms, courtesy of Freud:  transference represents the clients’ ‘stuff’, and counter-transference represents the counselors’ ‘stuff’.  It’s what we both bring to the table, and is a normal part of all true therapy.) Our perceptions of other people are filtered through the grid of our own past experiences, and we transfer both our opinions and our feelings when we interact with each other.  We make assumptions based on fears that are not necessarily unfounded.  To chalk everything up to client resistance is neither fair, nor true.  Counselors are not God;  the best ones realize this, and work with full awareness of their own humanity.  This is what creates the safe space required for life-changing  therapy.  Anything less cheats both, and limits God.

What counseling is about for the client, and what it’s about for the counselor are two completely different things.  If you’re going to help anybody, you need to understand that from the beginning.  Clients don’t care about your degrees, your awards, or your theoretical orientation.  They don’t care if you are Freudian, Rogerian, Bowenian, or a Martian.  They care that you care.  That you are a kind, honest, and wise person.  That you see the person paying you as having worth and value apart from their signed checks.  I, personally, do care however about your theological orientation, because as a Christian, I am not going to go for help to someone who is not well-grounded in scripture and serves the same God;  someone who understands both spiritual warfare and spiritual authority.  Unless, of course, all I’m looking for is practical help, such as how to balance my checkbook.  I’ve had to take a long, hard look (as we all do, at some point) at who I choose as to look up to and learn from.  Do we choose our mentors, or do they choose us?  I have a feeling it’s a bit of both;  helping others makes us feel good about ourselves, and makes us feel competent.  If we have any insecurity at all as counselors, it’s soothed and satiated by sitting  with a clipboard or a keyboard in front of someone who is looking to us for help.  And we keep those clients who make us feel that way, and get rid of the ones who don’t.

I have a pattern of looking up to certain people who have turned out to be false, dishonest, or harmful.  I don’t know why.  I don’t count my counselor as part of this group.  I learned a lot from her;  more than I ever did from school, and got what I call a back-door education.  I learned not only by being a student, but by being a client at the same time.  Of the two, I would have to say that I got more for my money from my counseling than I did from the university.  What was being taught to me in class was being experienced in weekly sessions;  you can’t put a value on that kind of education.  And you could tell many of the teachers hadn’t had it themselves, by the way they taught.  An exorbitant amount of  text-book theory, but very little common sense.  Not a whole lot of “how to help the person sitting in front of you.”  And an education that benefits you, but not your clients, is just not worth the time, or the money.  Remember;  most clients could care less about what is hanging on the wall of your office, no matter how pretty the frame is.

The person of the therapist is the therapy.  This part is essential.  If nothing else, remember that.  A degree simply means you’ve done your homework, checked all your boxes, and jumped through all the hoops required by the university.  It doesn’t mean you’re actually competent, nor are you necessarily even called, to be what the piece of paper and plaque on the door says that you are.  It doesn’t say what kind of person you are.  Do you cheat on your taxes?  Cheat on your wife?  If so, pick another line of work, please.  We don’t need, or want, to emulate people who are as unhealthy as we are.  Sometimes more so.

All that being said,  my heart changed after that appointment.  I can say that I was both defensive and difficult, (more so than usual) over trivial things that shouldn’t have mattered.  I lost both trust and respect for her, but never told her why.  And, I got severely depressed.  Even more so than I already was.  I still don’t think that any of this should have happened;  I still believe that ending my counseling was wrong, and I believe that it should be made right.  I think it honors God and defeats the enemy when we clean up our messes and stay the course.  I still think that what she originally said about sharing the office was right, and was the plan of God all along;  it would have been the natural outcome of all that had gone before.  I don’t think it belongs to someone else.  It’s just too late now to fix it, all because I sent that email way back in October.  I wish with all my heart I hadn’t sent it, and will possibly pay for that mistake for the rest of my life, but there is absolutely nothing I can do about it now.

She called that night, also, and apologized sincerely for having ever made the promise in the first place.  She said that she had never meant to mislead me in any way.  (She hadn’t;  I heard her clearly and correctly.  I don’t get happy easily, and certainly not without good reason.) She said that she was truly sorry for any misunderstanding.  And I believe she was.  But, it did change everything for me.  Nothing made any sense;  I had believed all along that it was what I was in school for, and what God was preparing me for.  Now I didn’t have a clue or a plan.  And my degrees didn’t make any sense any more.  Nothing did.  Or does.

Doubt like that makes the perfect open door for the enemy.  And I fell headlong through that doorway, and have been falling for the last three years.  The first two were a hazy blur of medication that did little but numb my brain, and the last has been a clear-headed journey through hell.  I’m sorry all this happened, and sorry for my part in it.  There is still so much more, because ten years is a long time.  But it’s late, or early, rather, and I’ve written myself into oblivion, and am going to bed.  The sun should be up soon.

Good early morning, people.

“I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;  I will counsel you and watch over you.”    Psalm 32:8

This Little Piggy…..Is Broken

13 Thursday Feb 2014

Posted by in The Journey

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My youngest daughter has a toe that is out of joint, and has been for some time.  She won’t let anyone touch it, because she knows it will hurt to pop it back in, so she lives with the poor little toe bent sideways.  She will not go to the doctors for it, even though a doctor is what she needs.

This is how I was when I entered counseling.  I successfully avoided all my old, deep-rooted little girl hurts, and drove my counselor to the point of exasperation.  I am sure I am not fun to work with.  We have talked, most of the time, about anything and everything but my deepest fears and most painful memories.  I have talked about everything from work to the weather.  Some of it is important, and a few years ago another situation came up, and needed to be dealt with.  And she really has helped me with that, quite a bit.

But whatever you do, just don’t touch that.  Don’t look at it, talk about it, bring it up, or I’m leaving the room.

I have done this for about ten years.

In counseling, we call this resistance.  Some of us are better at it than others.

I have had several burn victims as clients;  they are covered with either raw blistering skin, or peeling flakes of dried out skin.  They shrink from being touched, even while desperately needing to be touched.  Everything hurts.  They are the clients I most identify with, because of their scars.

Healing takes a very long time.

I have wondered what to do with this blog;  there are some who think I shouldn’t be writing about my personal life and my experience in counseling at all.  That I should keep this very spiritual, and all about God.  And I have read many beautiful blogs, about decorating, and cooking, and ministry, and all of the things I was interested in before all this happened.  I want a blog like that:  all pretty pictures and happy, uplifting thoughts.  I have read blogging books, and books on how to build your platform, and drive people to your site.  All very inspiring, if your goal is to make money.  The thing about a blog is that once you start, if you do it well, the blog writes itself.  And you forget when you’re writing that other people are reading it;  that they can read your heart.

The only really bad feedback has come from my counselor herself.  She read it, and was upset thinking that I am ruining her reputation, and trying to make her sound like a bad counselor.  I’m not, and she isn’t.  I only want to try to make sense out of all this, and salvage what I can of the pieces, and try to re-create my life.  To put the puzzle back together, so to speak.  But, this has changed me.  I still love all those things:  gardens, and art; music and decorating,  but not now.  I read somewhere once that depression kills creativity, and this is true.  All of the things that make me me are on hold until this situation is resolved.  I am simply too sad.

So, the blog will have to be a bit of all of it, because I am all of it.  It won’t be really professional, or pretty, or even all that happy or uplifting to read.  All I really am is a professional human being.  That’s it;  nothing more.  And I can’t pretend to be someone I’m not.  I can’t pretend this situation with my counselor didn’t happen, not even to make her happy so she won’t be angry anymore.  I did try, for a while, but it was like wearing someone else’s armor, which is never a good idea.  It doesn’t fit, and it slows you down. The situation at church, with the elder who created this whole mess has never been resolved, and because of my frustration with it all, my counseling came to a completely unexpected and inexplicable end.  Suddenly.  And ten years of work, of my life, was thrown away by someone I never in a million years thought would do that.

Silly me.

So, as I tell clients, I am a reality counselor.  (Is it okay to say I have a counselor, and also that I am a counselor?  Well, I did.  And I am.)  And this is a reality blog.  God can handle reality;  He is, in fact, only able to freely work in our lives when we are real.  When we are honest, with Him, and with ourselves.

My daughter was home for the weekend, but on Monday she and her poor little out-of-joint toe headed back to school, leaving one very sad mama who isn’t dealing very well with an empty nest.  It’s awfully quiet here.

Good-night, people.