Zen_Racer's Recovery Journal

[Hope67]

Hi Zen_Racer,
Your relationship sounds really positive - I agree with the others who have mentioned being in awe of how you have handled the situation and the date, and as SenseOrgan says 'beyond' as well.  Really sounds positive and balanced and caring - I also wanted to use this emoji  and also send you a hug 

[zen_racer]

Thank you everyone. I've gotten a bit quiet, mostly due to the impending therapy visit later today. I will respond more appropriately and get back to everyone else's journals tomorrow.

[NarcKiddo]

 

[sanmagic7]

i hope therapy went well, ZR.  rooting for you!  love and hugs

[zen_racer]

Alright.  I appreciate how many people have said that they're in awe of how I handled that.  I don't see it.  I was honest, both about my reaction and answering her questions.  She seems to have no reservations because of that.  But I still feel like I shouldn't have had that reaction in the first place, and still feel shame regarding that.

That said, I'm not letting that make me self sabotage.  We've gotten together again to walk around a sculpture park, and then got dinner.  She's been very supportive of me, especially yesterday because she knew it was going to be a difficult time at therapy for me.

Therapy was really difficult.  When I got memories back regarding my drinking binge, self harm, and a couple more things I don't want to repeat right now, it really got to me.  I've cried about this stuff on multiple occasions since then.  But when talking in therapy, I am normally an even keel, not showing how much something effects me.  I describe it and what it means, but I don't really have a reaction that shows it.  When describing these events, I couldn't stop from having a reaction and having to take breaks.  My therapist would stop us and do something like throwing a pillow back and forth to bring me back into the room.

With what we had already covered, and then going over a lot of the big huge array of things that happened during the drinking binge, she at first brought up maybe doing the Adverse Childhood Experiences quiz, but then very quickly changed her mind.  She then explained what the quiz was for, and suggested that me seeing how high I would score would probably be more detrimental than helpful for me.  During part of what we talked about, she kept trying to find the person or people that would've been my safe person to help me through those experiences.  But there wasn't one.  She eventually said that she was surprised that I was in therapy at all.  When I asked about that, she said she was surprised that I would ever decide to trust anyone after all the things we've gone over so far.

I didn't say anything about it after that in therapy.  I just kind of let that sit, like I had never considered that.  But that's not true at all.  After all the stuff growing up, and all the stuff leading up to and during that drinking binge, I later decided that no one would ever be able to hurt me as much as I'd already been hurt by others.  No one would ever be able to hurt me as badly as I'd hurt myself.  It's not trust.  It's confidence that life would never be any different, and confidence that I'd already been through worse than anyone could ever try to make me go through again.  But that's another set of memories I didn't have until now.

When we stopped, she asked if I was still present in the room.  I didn't like that question and thought it was pointless.  I told myself that if I could possibly answer that question in any way, it would prove I was present.  And I told myself that while zoning out and thinking about those memories I wish I didn't have back.  But I realized that in my mind I was being spiteful and then playing semantics games in my head to not actually be honest, so I told her I wasn't.  We spent another 5-10 minutes tossing the pillow back and forth again while started complimenting me on how I made it through those things.  How I overcame all that to some degree to become as successful as I am.  I am not good at accepting compliments like that.  Especially with how I was feeling right then.

I was never mean or rude to her though.  We had already gone about 15 minutes over and she asked if I was present again.  I told her honestly about 50/50.  She suggested I go for a walk before driving anywhere.  Do something for grounding like try to find 5 cars a certain color or something.  I walked over to the close Dairy Queen and got a chocolate shake.  I then called my oldest friend and talked with him driving home.

This morning while checking in with myself before work, I cried almost nonstop for 20 minutes, and had a really hard time shutting that off to drive in to work.  I didn't feel like I had really left that behind until I got to work and got distracted. 

The woman I've been seeing checked in with me several times yesterday, both before and after therapy.  I'm not used to anyone being that accepting and supportive, but I am strangely not finding that difficult to accept like I do compliments.  And that acceptance and support does go both ways.

I am still finding what I talked about in therapy really difficult to cope with, but I'm also glad I got through most of that situation.  I'm going to go try to get grounded again.