I finished with ex-T Monday last week (was it really only last week feels like bloody ages!) and managed to arrange appointments with three new Ts in that time. (They do things quick around here it seems!) Even saw one T twice last week, and the other two today.
Well cue misery depression hopelessness spinning round in dead end circles wondering what the hell is so wrong with me that I can’t seem to find a T who GETS IT. Why is it I come away feeling that I’ve talked and talked and talked and that nothing I’ve said seems to have made any sense, why is it the T talks and talks and talks and nothing s/he is saying makes any sense and I just go all fuzzy in the head hearing words and more words that don’t seem to mean anything? And that I leave feeling like therapists live in cloud cuckoo land, where they talk in riddles and don’t know how to answer a simple question with a straight answer?
That’s how I was feeling driving to the third and last appointment this afternoon. Wow wow and triple wow!
I couldn’t believe how this third T in just about every way fit to a ‘t’ lol what I have always expected of a therapist. I am now the very happy client of a new T with another appointment this Thursday and one next Monday and Thursday too. And no fuss, all straightforward, all sorted out with none of that teeth sucking head shaking solemn tippy toeing around me I’ve had with others.
I can’t quite believe how well it went, how she did everything right. She listened to me, really listened to me and heard me, and whatever she said, (and she talked a lot too) actually related directly to what I was saying, to ME, directly and personally. She actually asked questions, real interested questions (a first!) She was nice, warm, friendly, a real person and a therapist who came across as confident and open and easy in her role. She made me feel like a normal person and she never once hummed and hahhed about my questions - never once hummed and hahhed about knowing what she was doing and what she was saying.
She let me know it was not only ok but GOOD for me to challenge her, to criticize, to say what I’m feeling in the moment. She listened to me she heard me she was there 100% for me and with me. Oh bliss and joy!
I like her. I am so pleased, it’s going to work, I’m going to make it work and so will she, because I just know I can trust her to do her job so I don’t have to keep monitoring and stepping in and telling her what I need her to do. Finally, someone who knows what they are doing. Oh joy and bliss again
Ok so I scraped myself off the ceiling to think more rationally about it, and could only come up with one negative. And that got sorted in the session anyway. What! only one negative, when I’m so used to coming away from sessions and first meetings and writing pages and pages of stuff that bothered me? Unbelievable!
Now I can go back to feeling shit again because that’s the point of my being in therapy in the first place, but now I know I have somewhere to take my pain and maybe just maybe be able to work through it.
Going to lift myself from this euphoria for a moment to say - to anyone looking for a new T or who is obscurely dissatisfied with their T - keep looking. I never dreamed I’d actually get that inner sense of YES this is the right person, not to this extent, but it’s happened so it really is worth keeping on searching. Double lol - of course it’s early days, I will just have to see how it goes - I expect the feet of clay will show themselves soon enough - but for now I am just so relieved.
And if you’ve gotten this far - a question. What was it about your T that let you know - YES this is the one, this person gets it, this person is right for me?
Lamplighter
