Oh that's great! Well, work through it with your counselor then! They will help guide you. It takes a while to see through the cloud of confusion, but once you do it gets easier and easier. Best of luck!!

Thanks! I certainly do feel I'm in a cloud of confused.

Maybe write down a condensed
version of the relationship, and
bring it with you to the session,
so when s/he asks you why
you've come, you'll have something
in hand ---- a place to begin.
That's what I'd suggest.

Good for you for digging in.

Sending you good thoughts.
Take good care.

That's a good place to start. Thanks Ilene :)

Ilene's suggestion is good.

One thing to remember, though, is that one session may well not appear to achieve much. You may find yourself all over the shop, even with your piece of paper, a bit garbled, rambly and so on. Don't expect too much of yourself or the counsellor in one session. But on the other hand, do trust your instinct on whether it's a good fit. Even a good counsellor with the right experience can be a wrong fit and therefore not the right counsellor. I was lucky, I found the right one straight off, and she helped me SO much I can't begin to say. But not right away - I was too messed up, too confused, too stuck. In fact, I started to see her while I Was with my ex, because I was suicidal. So I had to kind of get that "out of the way" as it were, before I could start to focus on the why, work out solutions (kicking my ex out was the best solution) and then start to deal with the real underlying problems.

It took me about 3 and a half years with this counsellor to reach a point where we "broke up" - mutually deciding it was no longer necessary.

Thanks Liv - Im realizing there is no quick fix. It took us years to get to this point. I know it will take time to sort through everything.
You do paint an accurate picture tho,... me walking in with my piece of paper that contains a brief overview of my life. It's sad that I'm at a point where Im so confused and not sure where to start that I have to write things down.
I actually started journaling things over the last 2 years - my feelings, our marriage, problems we encountered. Too bad I cant just copy all those journals and hand them over to the therapist and she can call me to review when she's all caught up ;)

Hugs,

In my experience, there is a lot of commonality in the way abusive relationships happen, and they can see what is going on even brief information, because they can see overall patterns and how to deal with those, then the details kind of work themselves out more on the individual level- although of course details can be worked on in counseling too.

I'm kind of overly-thorough with my journal and lucky enough to have a counselor that will read it prior to my session! She's amazing. I hope yours is equally as good!

I'm glad you're keeping a journal. It will definitely be useful!

Update:
The session was great. She just gets me. She's very nice and understands the situation. It's funny, she said a lot of things that I've been reading here. She recognizes his behaviors and it was so comforting to talk to someone face to face. I am really looking forward to my time with her. She's already given me some great insight and things to think about.

I am grateful for her and for this board. Being able to talk to others who have gone through or are going through this helps so much.

AWESOME! i am so glad you got some validation!

Glad it went well!

She sounds good! Glad to hear it!

I'm truly glad for you! I hope this is the beginning of a very beneficial therapeutic relationship for you!

I really am happy for you! My counsellor pretty literally saved my life, so I'm always stoked when I hear someone else has also found a good one. And yes, this board is wonderful, but there's nothing quite like sitting face to face with someone and actually SEEING written on their face, that they get it.