New Therapist

I can’t even begin to describe the type of week I’ve had… it’s all happened so quickly, that I feel like I’m running on adrenaline and also on auto-pilot mode. Which, in a sense, makes accomplishing tasks easier, but it all feels like a dream at this point.

I saw a new therapist today.

Before I talk about what happened in session today, I must rewind to last MONDAY, when all of this stuff started.

OT emailed me and told me she got the letter I sent. She told me her first reaction to the letter was:  ‘you haven’t done anything wrong, but it sounds like you think you have’. Which was entirely accurate. I felt like I had somehow screwed things up between me and her, which got us to where we were. I continued to read the email and was speechless by the end. Basically this was the main part of her email: You ARE an ultra sensitive person, and that makes it hard to interview, as if ‘reject’ or accept a therapist, and at the same time, there is not much to be achieved by swimming upstream.  Therefore, I am going to challenge you to move on and find a therapy nest that feels ‘just right’ to you.

Honestly, I was kind of numb by what I had read. Part of me expected to see that, but another part of me was angry. At myself. At her. At this whole entire therapy thing. After getting the email from OT, I was thinking of quitting therapy altogether. Feeling discouraged by the entire therapy process, in general.

I was thinking about sitting on the email for a few days, kind of digest OT’s words, and perhaps wait until after spring break to call OT for a last session/reach out to a new therapist, etc.

WELL, that didn’t quite happen…because Monday afternoon during my seminar class, I received an email from the insurance coordinator at my university informing me that if I didn’t make a decision about which outside therapist I was going to choose, the referral for outside therapy [made by urgent care therapist in the beginning of February] would expire on March 11th (this Friday). Talk about pressure! Next week just so happens to be finals week, and the following week is spring break. And since school t is leaving on March 31st, that means I’d have to make some random appointment with an urgent care therapist or a therapist on campus in order to get a NEW referral for outside therapy. Which would likely take weeks.

I knew that if I was put on that sort of timeline, I’d NEVER go back to therapy, considering the fact that it would be so complicated.

On Monday night I spent 2 hours on the phone with my mom, since I felt HORRIBLE about myself, I felt like if I wasn’t me, then maybe OT and I would’ve been able to work things out. But after waking up on Tuesday morning, I decided I’d call the other therapist that I had gotten a referral for when school t initially referred me for outside therapy.

Somehow I agreed to an appointment this week, because of the school referral time issue…AND… I had my initial appointment with new therapist today.

This therapist somehow got me talking about how complicated therapy has been. I’m also less resistant, in general, this time around, so I was able to share more about what brings me into therapy.

The only thing that concerns me so far is the fact that this new therapist doesn’t allow out of session contact. Which SUCKS, considering that sometimes, I NEED that extra support. She wants to do the work in session, which I understand… but apparently emails, phone calls/texts, etc. are all for administrative purposes only. So– we’ll see what happens. In general, though, I felt pretty comfortable sharing stuff, which is a good start, I’d say.

I’m so ready for this quarter to be over…. I haven’t started on my final papers yet… and I’m currently in a grading frenzy. But once I’m done grading, then I can really start to focus on my own work~so if I’m not commenting/liking posts as regularly, that’s the reason. 🙂