After all the chaos of last week, I went into Monday’s session feeling very apprehensive. It was hard to fall asleep the night before because I felt so anxious about seeing the therapist again after having such a tumultuous week, therapy-wise (real life seemed to go okay, since I scored a perfect 100 on both of my midterm practical exams, despite all the ensuing crises). I shared some of my thoughts about this with my wife who said I should just open the session by sharing how anxious I felt about it and go from there.
But I didn’t. I did make a half-hearted joke about how “interesting” things had been last week and she laughed appropriately. But I could immediately sense I had my “charming” face on (which happens a lot when I come to session right from school and Rachel has been out) and was going to be pretty superficial all session. Despite that, we ended up talking about some really important stuff because she’s good at her job, so she can steer any conversation I try to derail into therapeutic territory.
But it wasn’t the space I wanted to be in. And it felt compulsive – this need to be super stable and “okay” and “surface” after a particularly challenging week. It’s not that I don’t value the work we do when sessions are lighter, but there’s also this underlying sense that I am pushing away things that really need to be brought in there. She asked me a few sessions ago if I thought anything was triggering me (or the System). I said no even though I knew there were no less than four pretty big-deal things that were creating tension and stress among various Parts.
Things I Learned In Therapy 