THERAPY UPDATE:
I know I've been away recently. I still read all the time and think of you guys, but I'm kind of wordless. Things with T are going really well, but we're doing a lot of work around shame that is...gut-wrenching and exhausting. Despite that, it's gotten increasingly safer to approach those things which were previously inexpressible, to own them as my own, to not dissociate or switch so much in session.
I feel safe and cared for and protected in my sessions, and T is ever humble, a goofball, and somebody who has shown he will consistently own his own stuff when it comes up...to the point of recently telling me that as such a sensitive person, I am going to pick up on other peoples' stuff even when it's not glaringly out there, and because of my shame, I will perceive it as my stuff and my responsibility, but over time, I will start to figure out when its his or my pastor's or my husband's or whomever's.
T challenges my internalized beliefs, but also really validates the things I perceive when I express them. About a month ago, I mentioned something he did that I reacted to by feeling invalidated and why (which was scary to bring up) and he said that he can't think of a single time when he has been called on that by me (and he said in his own family too) where it wasn't ultimately true...not that it was his conscious intention to invalidate, but what he did/said was invalidating.
A couple of weeks ago, I managed to get minorly frustrated with him about an honest scheduling mix-up (on his end, he didn't change the clock in his office and left me waiting quite a while while he was on a phone call) around the time change. I wasn't mad about his running late (which he often does), but because he had asked me to switch to a different time than usual, which I was already freaked out about, then left me in the waiting room when I could have been having dinner with my family if he had given me a heads up he was running late. In the end, it was a honest mistake...
I froze up badly and took a long time communicating it and it ended up taking up our whole session, but it was cute how excited he got about my frustration, because I haven't been able to feel anything approaching anger before and feel safe with it there. Not that I never get angry in my life (just ask my H), but I usually dissociate it so quickly or go straight to self-destructive. It was terrifying to be minorly frustrated at him, but I felt it and it was mine. In the end, he apologized (which terrified me) and the next time he was running unexpectedly late, he texted me to let me know. That was all very hard to accept, but I guess the way things are "supposed to" go when you have a rupture with someone who cares about you...
He is sick this week, so I missed Monday. Then Tuesday he texted to say he could see me and then felt sick again and had to cancel again. I see him Friday and I feel confident I can make it to that point, but I do really miss him and the rhythm of my week is disrupted a bit. Anyway, so the point is, we've been doing really good work and although I still do have major dissociative episodes and crises, everything is on an upward trend right now, especially since I don't have to worry about insurance issues for now and can focus on my healing. So, overall, therapy is really positive right now and I'm feeling very blessed to have my T.
MEDICAL STUFF:
On the other hand, my physical health is deteriorating. I had a major knee injury last year that I worked through physical therapy with and got to a good place. It involved an MRI and over three months of PT, but my knee is doing much better. However, during PT, I started having hip and back problems. It took me a long time (and several major triggers) to get comfortable at my PT office. I still sometimes get flashbacks and body memories there if they trigger me, and just being asked to pay attention to certain sensations reminds me that I have a body, which is a trigger in and of itself. In addition, now, I've had to do a couple more MRIs, and see the results, then will have to get an injection on the part they found with a problem to make sure that's actually the issue. Then either more PT or surgery.
Every time they take a scan, I feel like there is going to be something major wrong or bad inside me. When they show me the results, it does not go well. Looking at my MRI and having it explained, I almost passed out. I literally felt like I was at a high elevation and I stopped being able to hear the doctor, got so dizzy and nauseous that I had to clutch to the chair to not fall over and ask him to stop talking to me and leave the room. I looked so awful throughout that he has told me I am not to drive myself to/from any future appointments, because my anxiety was so awful. Seeing that the computer listed on my chart "Child abuse NOS" from something I told my GP during an pelvic exam filled me with shame.
I am just...not sure I can do what it's going to take to fix my body. I want to give up and live with the chronic pain, because it is too hard to be aware of my body. I exist mostly in my head, as if I'm some sort of floating brain. I'm constantly dissociating the pain, because when I pay attention to my body, it's much worse than it is on a regular basis. I know it needs to be addressed so I don't need a more major intervention later on, but...I'm just...so scared. I've never had a panic attack that bad. It felt like dying and I've had a few other minor ones since then when I've read/thought about the procedures I have to have coming up.
I'm just...scared. And I know there are people on here who are terrified of their physical existence or of something wrong being found in them or of medical procedures and hospitals in general, so I'm just coming to somewhere I know I'll be understood, because outside of T, the people I have available to talk to about it haven't really gotten how powerful all this fear and shame can be. And as I told T recently, and a friend reminded me yesterday, not being understood can be so isolating.
This is all not to mention the shame from my medical bills impacting my family.
I'm starting to dissociate now a little bit trying to write about this and it's really long already (sorry), but I just wanted to check in somewhere safe with this, especially because I haven't seen T this week and for all I know I might not get to on Friday if he's still sick...Sorry about being absent on other peoples' threads. I really am reading them and sending good thoughts everyone's way. I just can't seem to find words that I feel would even help anyone right now.
Anyway, thanks for those who read and any support or understanding you guys could give would be much appreciated.
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