Hooo boy... (anxiety about starting therapy)

[GoSlash27]

All,
 So... I just had my first therapy session today. It was kind of an emergency intervention to learn how to process my panic attacks in a healthy way. Apparently I'll be using this technique fairly often.
 She said she was impressed by how well I've adapted over the years, and that took me aback. "Did you hear the part where I said I never let *anyone* in my house, not even my own son or girlfriend"?? 
 Apparently there's worse avoidance out there. A *lot* worse.
 
 Anyway... She told me something that alarmed me: My inner critical voice and depression may return during this process. 

 I haven't had to deal with that for over thirty years. I'm back to fretting that this process is going to cause a lot of changes I'm not ready for.

Best,
-Slashy 

[Papa Coco]

Slashy,

Sounds like your first therapy appointment was definitely energized.

If your inner critic returns, it's probably because it needs to.

My experience with IFS therapy, also called Parts Therapy, is that in my case, I have a lot of inner critics. The interesting thing is that they are not talking to me to hurt me, they are trying to protect me.

When I want to do something risky, and one of my parts shouts out, "You aren't smart enough to make it work" that critic isn't trying to hurt me, he's trying to stop me from doing something that I was taught as a child would be dangerous. My inner critics call me "too emotional" and "too sensitive" and "You'll fail." Which is what my parents used to say to get me to stop wanting to do things with other kids. My inner critic is trying to stop me before someone humiliates me.

Parts therapy isn't designed to stop the inner critic or send him/her away, it's designed to make us into friends again and to find the right way to help me now that I'm not a helpless child anymore. Our inner critics are frozen in time. They think we're still the age we were when they were created. Once we talk with them and thank them for their service, they sort of discover that we're not helpless anymore, so they change their method of working with us.

My therapist works to join me and my inner critic together and find our love for each other.

So if your inner critic(s) become(s) active again, that's good, because you and your therapist can work with them if they're willing to come out and talk.

Parts Therapy, or IFS therapy, is about merging our voices back together and giving these terrified little critic voices proof that we're all grown up now and we can merge back together as strong and competent adults.

Trauma disorders are a fragmentation of the brain into individual pieces that don't work together. GOOD IFS therapy is all about merging our brain's isolated parts back together, one critic at a time. Like putting a thousand-piece puzzle together, it goes from a thousand pieces to one completed puzzle as we work with it. It's proving to be a powerful type of therapy for a lot of people. 

One thing my therapist, as well as the writers like Richard Schwartz and Robert Falconer, say is that the therapy isn't done by talking about these inner critics, but is done by talking to them. The critics don't hear us when we talk about them, but they respond very quickly when we listen to them, and talk to or with them. Like children, they want us to listen to what they have to say. If your therapist truly understands parts therapy, she will help you listen to them, and they will speak to you, and resolutions really do happen.

I'm truly amazed at how, once I've made contact with a critic, they change to a positive voice very quickly and permanently. The true slowdown for me is that I have a lot of inner critics. The good news is they are all willing to talk when it's their turn in therapy.

After 40+ years of therapy, IFS and Parts therapy are giving me more traction than all the therapies I've tried put together.

[GoSlash27]

Papa Coco,
 As always, thank you for your care and support.
 My T's plan involves EMDR, DBR, and the Satir model. Still researching all the gobbledygook. 

 I'm still planning my future around me as I exist *now*. I just talked to a realtor today about the possibility of buying my retirement acreage waaay out in the middle of nowhere, so far away that I can't even tell that any other humans exist on this planet other than the ones I trust. That sort of place is the only place I feel truly at peace. It's an escrow deal (if it goes through). I asked my GF to join me on the trip to review the property because I want my home to be her home too. I can't move to somewhere that she doesn't want to be.
 I love her because we're both dysfunctional in similar ways that allow us to truly understand and appreciate each other in ways that most people simply can't.

 All of this is under threat of upheaval and future change. It frightens me.

 I'll stick with the plan, let my T drive, and hope for the best.

Best,
-Slashy

[Papa Coco]

Slashy,

I spend a lot of time on Zillow looking for a secluded place too. Coco and I live in the city, not far outside of Seattle, but we build fences and grow trees all around us so as to make our yard as private as possible. We also have a small house out on the coast, where we spend a lot of time listening to the ocean surf and not much else. It's not terribly secluded, but it's in a quiet community where most homes are empty vacation homes, so it's very quiet and, again, we plant trees and build sheds strategically to block views from neighbors. Currently it's illegal to rent homes near us for weekend partiers, but if that changes, I'll demand we sell the house. When I go to the beach, I like to stay for 3 weeks at a time, several times a year. I try to spend 40% of my life there.

Coco won't consider moving out of either home, so my Zillow searches for secluded homes on 10+ acre wooded lots are just me pretending to be in the market. When I get really stressed, I do Zillow searches the way other guys do porn. I call it my real estate porn. I can't have the houses, but I can sit and pretend I can buy them. Sadly, with Coco's love of living in town, there is no acreage in my foreseeable future.

I will, instead live vicariously through you and your GF, hoping you find a fantastic, secluded acreage with a good house on it so you can breathe.  I agree, that when I feel alone, I can breathe better. Nobody judges me when nobody can see me or hear me.

Good luck, and I'm jealous (in a good way).

[NarcKiddo]

I'll stick with the plan, let my T drive, and hope for the best.

I am happy to read that sentence. Because to me it indicates that your therapist seems to be a good fit. Of course it is early days. But she has told you something you don't at all like (the depression and critic may return for a while) and you have not run screaming for the hills. If you are anything like me then the word "trust" is way, way too strong to use at this stage, but it feels like there is something there. I hope I'm right.

You're very brave to be doing this knowing there could be change. I mean, we all do it with the hope of some change because if we were 100% happy as we are what would be the point of going through therapy? But imagining change and the unknown is tough and from your posts it seems like you may find future unknowns particularly challenging to contemplate. Maybe your therapist can help you with that. Mine has been good on that front.

You've started on a road that I hope will lead you to happy things. Go, Slashy!