Why?

Yesterday I went to my first counseling session after a year.  I arrived at the office and rung the bell and noone came.  Another person walks in and rings the belland the window slides open.  I was immediately irritated.


After a while a older gentleman walks out and calls me by my last name. We precede to go to his office where he turns his back to me and starts asking questions and typing.  Hes one of those types who wears his college class ring and worn out slip-on loafers.  All of his pi lamda theta plaques on the wall.  I just didnt connect.  I left dispondant.  


Im in counseling to help myself deal with lossesI ve experienced and develop myself more. This morning after a month, the friend i broke things off with a month ago  sends me a text.  He says he remembers when I was his.  I text him back and tell him Im "noone's."  He texts back nothing.  Of course it makes my heart hurt again. It opens the wound up again. I thought I had blocked him but apparantly not good enough.  


Im starting to wonder if the insomnia is something deep rooted.  Its the second relationship iveexperienced great losswith.  It feels like death.


Replies

arfie
arfie

A huge chunk of my personal psychotherapy has been grief counseling. Under the Pop Psychology fad of the 70's, it was a formal part of the "Therapy Funeral" where I attempted to process the grief attached to the not-so-simple fact that my birth family could not help me with my recovery from child prostitution, etc. That line of therapy gained its next big push in 2005 when my "Therapy Funeral" estranged father died. My counselor insisted, "The death of a loved one is tragic, but the death of an abuser is the death of hope. It might be more important to formalize that process for the death of hope than the loss of a loved one."

It's all theory, but I do believe I benefited from the grief workshops she channeled me toward. My co-grievers thanked me for the extra considerations in their own grief processing. In Arf Opine, grief is as personal as journeys get. I'm still working that theory set, and no two of my own grief journeys have been the same. At 65, those journeys seem to be getting closer together.

Oopsie. . . Am I co-opting your journal entry? Will I be co-opting further that some of my best therapists kept their back turned to me during that initial session? The reasons explained later ranged from his own social anxiety to taking my pulse before she started recommending tests.

Continued support, Sage. Asking forgiveness if I am co-opting.
SageLife
SageLife

Arfie,

The coopting thing went over my head as most things do. No apology necessary. I know my problems are specks of dust compared to yours. I guess I just wanted so much to move on without hearing from him. I was moving on or so I thought.
arfie
arfie

Good news, Sage. Thank you for your grace in allowing me to ramble. It helped me in my own venty way. Who else really needs to understand?

Condolences on the ex-stuff I don't much understand, either. I have the romantic inclination of a chain saw, reinforced by a 39th anniversary coming next month. How did *that* happen? Blame it on the dude? On his good days, Hubby is poet league romantic. Then there are the other 360 days of the year. Sigh. . . I hate it when life gets in the way of the good stuff.

I'm not sure we should be comparing problems, though. Isn't that a bit like comparing earthquakes and tsunamis? Pain is pain. It exists to let us know *something* is wrong. Fix ^it^.
Community Leaderbobinmaine
bobinmaine

People have deep rooted beliefs which are often from past trauma and fears, long since, buried and forgotten so it can't be healed and that's the whole idea of psychotherapy which is to make the unknown, known! Freud said that, I didn't.. If you don't "click" with your therapist then it's not going to do any good because no two counselors are alike.

The friend could be a trigger that is bringing those hurtful feelings to the surface that have little to do with you breaking it off with him. You might want to do some soul searching. That may be the only way you can find peace... That's why I think you hit the nail when you said "Im starting to wonder if the insomnia is something deep rooted. " That's most always the case.

God Bless