To The Ones Who Led Me

There are no words to describe the loss I feel right now. Ok, that’s complete bullshit, there are words but I can’t find them. Friday I was up at 4 am sobbing, I sobbed on the way to my last group (imagine a woman hysterically crying on public transportation with everyone looking at her going WTF?!…and now quit laughing at me *lol*), I sobbed the entire time I was in my last large group, I sobbed all through my last Life Skills with Noel, I sobbed on the way home from group (same bus driver as the morning…I think he thinks I should be institutionalized) and now I am really relying on spell checker to catch my typo’s because I cant seem to stop crying.

Satna really didn’t know what to do with me on Friday. I’ve been building up to leaving for over a month now. I talked about it a lot in various different groups so I would be able to tolerate the pain of truly leaving but this feeling goes beyond pain. This is loss at its greatest magnitude.

I am trying to assimilate what I learned going through the program and all of the therapists are getting jumbled in my brain. I think I have to break it down by person to make it reachable. (I’ve included a little bio on each group mentioned so each of you will be able to understand what I am talking about.)

Anthony – Projectives (a group where we draw a picture on any given topic and then pass the picture around the room and everyone says what they see in the picture) was a true eye opener. The fact that I drew a picture of myself and my dad together but neither of us had hands, which I ran out of time to put on the people, and you picked up instantly on the distance I feel with my dad and that maybe I am the one keeping that relationship at a distance was truly insightful. You never failed to make me think about what I had drawn in a brand new way. You brought to the surface a lot of the things that I worked on throughout my therapy just from my drawings.

I loved playing games with you on Thursday’s because you have such a fun sense of humor. I distanced myself from working too hard with you because I had so much fun with you. Satna helped me realize that keeping you as a “fun” person in my life was OK because that made me feel safe with you and it helped me get over some of the losses I experienced throughout my childhood when my parents simply didn’t have time to play with me. Thank you.

Brandy – TV group (a group that is recorded for the first 30-40 minutes and then you watch the tape and talk about what you see in yourself and other people) was one of the best groups I went through. Your ability to see right through my defenses about my ball cap and why I wore it helped me recognize other defense mechanisms I was also doing to keep people at a distance from me. I learned so much about my body language and how when I was trying to convey a thought or feeling it got lost behind my defenses.

In Problem Solving (a group that is focused towards practical problems and helps you take steps to fixing them) you taught me to value practicality and how to decipher if things were reasonable and attainable to actually accomplish. I learned to value excitement and accomplishments – no matter how small. I learned how to approach issues in my life in an S.M.A.R.T (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Time Oriented) way and it has made a tremendous difference. I find myself with motivation to keep moving through other tasks once I have completed a task that I was struggling with doing.

In communications (a group that is designed to go through the steps of communicating) you helped me recognize some passive aggressive behaviors and worked with me on changing them and becoming more assertive without being aggressive. I admired you because you are roughly my age and seem so put together. Before I make any decision now I always wonder “what would Brandy do?” The gifts you gave me were priceless. Thank you.

Brennan – You were my assigned therapist and I fought a connection with you until the very end when I realized it while saying goodbye to you and broke down. The days that I had to do my history with you were some of the hardest times I had to go through in the program. I busted my ass with you in Stage 1 Action Group (a group that is you acting out a scene on any given topic either on your own or with other people in the group to help) and did a lot of work. The day I put my Boyz into the empty chairs and said goodbye to them. They day I re-lived my rape through other people’s actions while I directed. The day I had it out with my “dad.” I HATED action group, but I was determined to work with you to make you proud of the progress I was making ~ that alone screams of the connection I had with you but was denying.

In Vocational Group (a group designed to iron out any work related issues) I learned the most from you. I learned to recognize, utilize, and value my strengths. I realized how capable I am. I quit making excuses for myself and I quit giving myself easy outs. I raised the bar for myself.

I was so thankful that you were in my family interviews. (One with Lance, and one with my mom & dad) the knowledge and insight you had of me was very apparent in them. Lance & I learned how to openly communicate with each other during our interview. We learned how to HEAR what the other was truly saying. My parents & I learned how to move beyond the mistakes we all made and are now able to openly talk about the past, the present, and what we think the future may hold.

Exercise Group (a 1 hour group on Mondays where we play volleyball and a 1 hour group on Wednesdays where we do aerobics) were some of my favorite times. Playing volleyball with you was a total blast. I am still sorry that I spiked the ball off your head *sighs n laughs*. Aerobics was not really my favorite time. It’s hard to have fun when you are screaming in pain and praying for it to be over. Whenever I think of you I instantly picture the Energizer Bunny BUT despite the pain of Wednesday I still learned the value in exercise. I now walk my dog for an hour each day, swim 3 nights a week for an hour at a time, and I use my elliptical 4 days a week for 30+ minutes. When I finish exercising I feel so much better about EVERYTHING. I am full of energy and happiness. I am so grateful that I was able to push through my initial anger at being forced to do aerobics and my pain filled muscles to take the gift you offered me. Thank you for never giving up on me despite how hard I was on you, and, how much I struggled against you. I appreciate and admire you.

Cathy – You were the therapist I had the immediate connection with. You were the therapist in the support group before I was given my start day for the program, you were the therapist that did my intake, and you were the therapist that NEVER let me off the hook no matter how difficult I was. In Stage 2 & 3 Action Group (a group that is you acting out a scene on any given topic either on your own or with other people in the group to help) I did a lot of really hard work with you. I worked out my feelings and thoughts about terminating the pregnancy with the help of Grant and Mike (who played my brain doing “good idea, bad idea”…see previous post to learn about them both) and even when I hit the floor sobbing you didn’t let up on me.

In Problem Solving (a group that is focused towards practical problems and helps you take steps to fixing them) you taught me the meaning of the words PRACTICAL and REALISTIC. You challenged me to change my way of looking at things and to change the way I do things. You taught me how to make things measurable so I would feel a sense of accomplishment which would increase my feelings of self worth and self respect.

In Stage 1 Self Awareness (a group designed to give you self awareness) and in Stage 2 & 3 Personal Relations (a group designed to teach you how to interact with others in healthy productive ways) you showed me how strong I was and how determined I can be. You taught me the true meaning of tough love. You reinforced to me on a daily basis that strength does not have to be cruel. You taught me how to use my voice to make myself understood. You worked with me to help me remove the exaggerations and extremities that I was prone to expressing. You also helped me recognize my pattern I have of creating chaos when I am experiencing difficulties ~ I just keep adding more and more and more issues onto one difficulty until I am totally buried by them~ and you worked daily with me to eradicate that behavior.

When I was having the major problem with my neighbors 3 year old child (he was damaging the exterior of my home, he injured my dog by throwing Ringo action figures that got caught in his throat, I found him playing in the street on multiple occasions, I also caught him playing with a used syringe on my driveway, and every time I brought him back to his mother she would answer the door only after I pounded on it for a few minutes and always looked cranked up on something) and when I came into the group to express my anger at this child doing all of these things you asked me “why are you angry at the child who is doing what he’s allowed to do? Why are you not calling social services and having the appropriate authorities brought in to take care of this situation? What in you makes you so jealous of having to express care to another child?” I felt like a complete asshole, which meant I knew you were right. You took me into your office after that group and sat down with me to make the call to social services and then over the course of the next few days you worked with me about my guilt and why I felt I didn’t need to get involved to take care of an innocent child who couldn’t fight for himself.

I was very glad to have you as the second therapist in my family interview with Lance. You picked up things that I was doing and ways that I was behaving that were creating tension and unhappiness in both me and Lance. Lance and I were able to leave that interview and put into practice new ways of communicating and behaving with each other that have made things more open and sincere. Both of our needs are being met now and we are happily focusing on our brighter future together. I am grateful to you for your compassion, humor, and kindness. Thank you.

Noel – I don’t even know where to start. In small group during phase 2 & 3 (an unstructured group where we can talk about anything) I learned how to truly dig into a problem and work it loose. You taught me the difference between thinking with my head and thinking through an emotion to discover what its real meaning is. You taught me how to have an open and honest relationship that is based on mutual understanding and respect. You taught me how to cultivate those kinds of relationships outside of the program. You taught me how to work through my fear at confronting my parents and to work through my anger at my parents so I would be able to gain some new insight, understanding, and perspective from my interview with them. You explained the “Princess Theory” to me until it made sense and I could relate it to me and learn from it. (In a nut shell, the “Princess Theory” is where a person ~in this case a woman~ feels entitled to whatever she wants. The person’s ego, arrogance, and dishonesty will get in the way of establishing real connections with people) You showed me that it is OK to be emotional and that people will only connect to me if I am willing to be vulnerable. You taught me that I cannot feel anyone else’s emotions but my own and if I am feeling something it means I am reacting to something and I must take some time to think about what it is.

In Stage 1 Family Relations (a focused group where we talk about our families on a number of topics) you taught me the value of patience. After Anthony had brought up a whole bunch of things for me about my dad in Projectives I was able to come to this group and explain what I was thinking and feeling and you helped me work it through. You taught me to look at things entirely differently in this group. What I perceived was not always what actually was. I learned about my anger and miscommunication in this group and was able to take that information to all my other groups and work on them.

In Stage 2 & 3 Life Skills (a focused group where we are given a number of topics and talk about them) you taught me invaluable things. Life Skills was my favorite group of them all. It sucked that it was the last group of the week and I had to go home not quite finished with therapy every week and chew over what I learned on my own until I could come back to group and work through it some more. The only way I can process what I learned in Life Skills is to break it down topic by topic that I felt had an impact on me.

Topic: Success – Success is NOT defined by only my achievements. If I am constantly trying to prove something I will forget to take care of the parts of me that truly matter ~ my inner self. If I start to measure my success by how I am feeling about myself ~emotionally and physically~ and then I start to analyze the steps I went through to complete a task I will feel far more self worth and value than if I was to only wait for other people to acknowledge my achievements. I am pretty angry that this was my last group. I am still working on completely understanding it.

Topic: Gifts My Parents Gave Me – “You have let your resentment over shadow your gratitude.” When you said those words to me I felt the floor give out underneath me. I was so busy being angry at my parents that I intentionally threw out everything good they gave me. Recognizing that my parents DID give me some good, healthy, productive things was painful. I think I talked about this topic in every group I was in for about 5 days. This is where my break happened in therapy. I started to acknowledge that everything my parents gave me was a gift and I let my anger twist the good things into destructive pain filled things. I then took it a few steps farther and started to apply that to my friends in my life and to myself and my patterns of behavior. I was so surprised at how quickly the ‘black hole’ of anger disappeared in me. Thank you for teaching me how to fill that emptiness with worthwhile things. Thank you for teaching me a new way to think about things.

Topic: Potential - You taught me that everyone has potential. It is not “amazing” or “so much” it is simply that everyone has SOME. Exaggerating my potential only leads to pitfalls which can trap me and get me stuck in the same pattern which leads to a lack of self esteem. Potential can be a very strong motivator for people who are ready to harness theirs as long as they are not wrapping their feelings of self worth around achieving success.

Topic: Pessimism versus Optimism – This was the topic that I learned about realistic risks. You taught me that Pessimism is the tendency to see, anticipate, or emphasize only bad or undesirable outcomes while Optimism is a disposition or tendency to look on the more favorable side of events or conditions and to expect the most favorable outcomes. You told me that I was a “dreaming optimist” ~ despite all odds, history, and information I would expect things to always turn up rosy. When things never turned out rosy, or turned out how I imagined, my self esteem would take a big shot and I would get sunk into patterns of destructive behavior. You taught me to recognize achievable and attainable things and to not be afraid to be pessimistic about non-realistic things. You taught me how I use pessimism as a weapon on myself when things didn’t work out to my imaginings.

Topic: Humor – I learned the difference between truly funny and viciously cutting remarks. Using the example of Brennan and that I thought of him as the Energizer Bunny was funny for the patients and really not at all amusing for you. I learned that things are only truly amusing when they are not self depreciating or cutting towards someone else. I am still struggling with this because my enjoyment of witty sarcasm sometimes overweighs my self control and I slip into cutting someone down to make myself feel better. You taught me that trying to ‘break’ someone else to build myself up will not work regardless of the ways I try to do it. Even though I am still struggling with this, at least I am conscious of my actions now and am making steps to fix them.

Topic: Maturity – I really struggled with this one. I thought that maturity meant having ‘things’ and taking care of myself ~like paying my bills on time, keeping my house clean, etc. I thought that if I acted like an adult I was an adult. “Maturity is only measured by your emotional relativity.” You taught me that no matter how mature I may feel unless I was able to relate to adults on adult emotional levels I wasn’t mature. You taught me how to relate to adults emotionally and not like a child ~like looking for a father figure ~ and you taught me the value of those connections. You taught me about real internal power in this topic. You showed me the power of being vulnerable.

There were so many more topics that made an impact on me, but these are the ones that come to mind first.

I am so thankful that you were the second therapist in my family interview with my parents. I was so ready to go into that interview like a soldier. I wanted a war. Instead you lobbed the first grenade within the first 5 minutes of the interview and blew up my anger by telling my parents flat out that I was looking for a fight and left me defenseless so I could really hear what my parents were telling me. I was able to work out a lot of misunderstandings with my dad and heal a lot of past hurts with my mom. For that I am eternally grateful. I was finally able to acknowledge that I am jealous of my 2 year old sister Skye that my dad had with his soon to be ex-wife. My dad gives that child everything he never gave me. I want to believe he has changed, but I am still unsure. I am unsure because I am still angry at how neglected I was when I was a kid. You helped me work through that with my dad and in groups after the interview. Thank you for taking a front and center role in that interview so I could learn some hard truths about myself and some forgiveness towards my parents.

You were the therapist I felt closest to and safest with. I could tell you anything and you would gently lead me to where I could learn from it. Your calmness, gentleness, perception, and intuition were all traits that shined through when you dealt with me. Your sense of humor was so appreciated because sometimes I just simply needed to laugh and you recognized that as well. I admire you and I will miss you. Thank you.

Satna – The woman, who terrified me, made me think, taught me invaluable lessons, and made me laugh. You have achieved almost a mythical status for me. I wanted all of your attention and was petrified to receive all of your attention. You have a mind that I envy, a soul that I admire and a sense of humor that is quick and lively.

Every day in Large Group I never failed to learn things. My first day in the program you told me “I know how competitive you are, and because you are so competitive you didn’t want to get left behind while you were hanging around a much older crowd of people so you faked it. Unfortunately, you’ve never quit faking it” and from that day on you called me out every single time I was only half-assing it, faking it, or not getting involved at all. You were the only therapist I couldn’t pin down and out think.

I remember coming home on April 25th after my first day of group and talking to a friend and this was my first comment to her…”Kris: so my oh so brilliant plan of "quietly observe" lasted 18 minutes before this psychologist she-woman bitch from hell ripped me open like a biology frog”… you terrified me Satna *lol*

Ultimately, I got over my fear and grew to love you dearly. You taught me the true meaning of internal power by never letting me off the hook. I don’t know how many times I heard “what do you mean you don’t know?! Of course you know! Think!” from you *lol* but I always ultimately got to where you wanted to lead me and I always learned something brilliant. You made me cultivate boundaries and limits within my relationships by providing me an example to follow with your actions.

You never failed to help me recognize a reaction for what it truly was. Whenever I was unreasonable, difficult, stubborn, and just plain rude you always pushed me through my anger to help me figure out what emotion was lying behind it.

When I started talking about my Boyz you taught me how to tolerate loss. You worked with me through my anger, and grief about losing them until I understood that I didn’t actually lose the parts of them that matter the most to me. You taught me to treasure my memories but to remember them as they truly were. Not as I was enshrining them to be.

You taught me how to DEAL with my rape and the fact that all the men responsible are out on the street and I could potentially bump into them at any time. You worked with me through my fear and reinforced that I knew the ways to protect myself. you got through to me that the rape was not my fault and that nothing I could’ve done would’ve changed the outcome. I felt such calmness after I had worked it through.

You taught me how to recognize my emotions for what they truly were. In the beginning I had such a problem identifying emotion that you actually gave me a sheet of paper with emotions written on it and said “here, these are things you can actually feel, when you say ‘I feel like’ you are instantly dismissing yourself and destroying any learning you could do. Like is not a feeling.” You never let me bluster and get destructive. You always pinned me down and forced me to realize what I was reacting to.

You taught me tolerance and patience ~for myself and for other people. You also taught me that it was OK if I didn’t believe what the majority believes and that it was OK if I felt differently or had a different view point. You taught me that I didn’t have to argue my case to get people on “my side” I simply just had to tolerate “opposition” and that I didn’t always have to be right.

When I started talking about my fears and concerns over leaving the program you told me that I wouldn’t just be discharged and left to my own devices. You made it clear to me that support would still be offered and if I felt I wasn’t receiving all that I needed to come to you. We started talking a little more and what came out was my fear of my inability to be able to set my own limits and act within my own boundaries. I was scared what other people would do or say when they realized that behavior patterns from months ago were no longer applicable with me. I didn’t know how people would tolerate my changes. After that group on Thursday ~my second to last day~ you called me into your office and gave me this piece of writing and told me that if I ever felt I was faltering then I wasn’t being vulnerable and that I wasn’t being true to myself. If I ever felt backed into a corner by another person trying to push my limits I should not get defensive, but rather I should tell the person that I am uncomfortable with their behavior and would appreciate them more if they respected me. You then smiled at me and said “You have done so well here Christine, even though you learned some things the hard way, the important thing to remember here is that you learned them and you have been able to embrace what you have found true within yourself. You are going to be just fine.” You then handed me a piece of paper with the following writing on it and closed your office door.

Thank you Satna for all that you do each and every day for every single person in your care. I admire you, respect you, treasure you, and I will miss you dearly.

Listen.
When I ask you to listen to me
and you start giving advice
you have not done
what I have asked.

When I ask you to listen to me
and you begin to tell me why
I shouldn't feel that way
you are trampling on my feelings.

When I ask you to listen to me
and you feel you have to do
something to solve my problem
you have failed me.
Strange as that may seem.

Listen!
All I asked was that you listen,
not talk or do, but hear me.
I can do for myself,
I am not helpless:
maybe discouraged and faltering,
maybe lonely and isolated
and grieving and searching,
but not helpless.

When you do something for me
that I can and need to do myself
you contribute to my fear and my weakness.

But when you accept as a simple fact
that I do feel what I feel,
no matter how irrational
then I can quit trying to convince you
and get about the business of understanding
what's behind this irrational feeling,
and when that is clear the answers
are obvious and I don't need advice.

Perhaps that is why prayer works for many people
because God is sometimes mute
and doesn't try to give advice or fix things
he just listens and just lets you work it out.

So please listen and just hear me
and if you want to talk
wait a minute for you turn
and I will listen to you.
By Anonymous

It has been a long road, a painful road, and ultimately a road I am glad I chose to walk. I am proud of myself for confronting my demons and healing myself. I am excited to take my new found perspectives and utilize them in the “real” world. I am thankful that I had the support system in place to achieve “graduating” from therapy.