![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Goodbye to therapist
Aug. 29th, 2017 11:21 amI don't talk about therapist stuff a lot here, but I'm going to talk about this morning's session because it was our last one. As I said last time I mentioned the possibility of stopping, we hadn't had too much to talk about lately, and I could use my Tuesday mornings back. So we cut to every other week for three final sessions, and sure enough, I made good use of the "off" Tuesday mornings and nothing bad happened, so today we said our indefinite farewell.
I learned something really obvious from her, which is that my emotional system does process things -- sometimes it's deliberate and sometimes it's some natural metabolic process related to time passing. When I first started seeing this lady I was struggling with something too big for me, which wasn't fading or changing (at least in my mind), and so I also definitely learned that sometimes my emotional system can need help. But more often a thing will happen, and I'll feel terrible one week and a little less terrible the next week, and a little less the week after that. The idea that I can generally trust this process to happen sounds trite but is kind of a game-changer for me; I've been very used to putting effort into everything. And for my initial problem I did need to. But for many/most problems, maybe I don't. Which makes them more like events than problems, really.
Second distillation of everything: given that reactions to bad things fade, and given that reactions to good things fade too, and given that I've spent too much time lately observing folks turning inward and turning against newness and skill-building, and given the way that memories form... oh, and given my vacation experiences earlier this year... novelty really matters, both for personal growth and also for happiness. Even for steady-steering people like me.
And something from my notes: Regrets are inverted worries, protecting us from what we feel in the present moment by pulling us into thoughts of the past instead of thoughts of the future. (Is that pithy or what?) That said, life entirely without regrets is too much to ask of ourselves, and I shouldn't beat myself up for feeling one every now and then.
We had a nice goodbye. I asked whether she has a new Tuesday morning person (she thinks she does), and wished that person well in a passing-the-torch kind of way, and told her that I think she does a ton of good in the world. She, for her part, said that it had been a pleasure, and she feels like I'm well-equipped to keep taking on the world for a while. We'll be thinking of each other for a while. And I'm likely to send her a letter after six months or twelve months, just to let her know how the current cliffhangers turn out: promotion, old cat, new-ish boy, things like that. She said she'd like it, and it'll give me a nice feeling like wrapping up an email thread, so why not?
I learned something really obvious from her, which is that my emotional system does process things -- sometimes it's deliberate and sometimes it's some natural metabolic process related to time passing. When I first started seeing this lady I was struggling with something too big for me, which wasn't fading or changing (at least in my mind), and so I also definitely learned that sometimes my emotional system can need help. But more often a thing will happen, and I'll feel terrible one week and a little less terrible the next week, and a little less the week after that. The idea that I can generally trust this process to happen sounds trite but is kind of a game-changer for me; I've been very used to putting effort into everything. And for my initial problem I did need to. But for many/most problems, maybe I don't. Which makes them more like events than problems, really.
Second distillation of everything: given that reactions to bad things fade, and given that reactions to good things fade too, and given that I've spent too much time lately observing folks turning inward and turning against newness and skill-building, and given the way that memories form... oh, and given my vacation experiences earlier this year... novelty really matters, both for personal growth and also for happiness. Even for steady-steering people like me.
And something from my notes: Regrets are inverted worries, protecting us from what we feel in the present moment by pulling us into thoughts of the past instead of thoughts of the future. (Is that pithy or what?) That said, life entirely without regrets is too much to ask of ourselves, and I shouldn't beat myself up for feeling one every now and then.
We had a nice goodbye. I asked whether she has a new Tuesday morning person (she thinks she does), and wished that person well in a passing-the-torch kind of way, and told her that I think she does a ton of good in the world. She, for her part, said that it had been a pleasure, and she feels like I'm well-equipped to keep taking on the world for a while. We'll be thinking of each other for a while. And I'm likely to send her a letter after six months or twelve months, just to let her know how the current cliffhangers turn out: promotion, old cat, new-ish boy, things like that. She said she'd like it, and it'll give me a nice feeling like wrapping up an email thread, so why not?
