Therapy

So I'm seeing a therapist.

Four people in my life died violent deaths in the last two years. Three of them died in front of me. So... yeah. TOTALLY not feeling shy about the therapy thing. Feel a little funny when I hear people sigh in relief that I'm finally trying this out, mind you, but feel pretty certain that no one's gonna razz me for getting myself over to see a shrink.

My therapist is kind of great.

He's actually the second one I've tried. The first one specialized in trauma. Oddly enough, this made her pretty much useless to me. I think this is because I'm not your average trauma therapy patient. Since my first session has to start with what is essentially me listing the exhaustive number of bizarre traumatic things that have occurred in my life, I'm not the type for pussyfooting around. It's old hat enough that I'm pretty matter-of-fact about it. I don't need to be coddled. The first therapist was very worried about "re-traumatizing" me by letting me talk about the very thing I had come to see her to talk about.

Trauma is NOT my new therapist's specialty. And that's okay. I'm talking to SOMEONE. Which is good. And I'm sorting through things... which means having to feel them. I'll admit, I'm not 100% sold on this part of the process being a good idea. But in the end I'm moving forward in some way, shape or form. I think THAT part is very good. Instead of being in some sort of grief-shock stasis at all times. I guess it says a lot when crying at the drop of a hat and having lots of nightmares is progress. Buy hey! I'm doing something.

Doc referred to me as a "statistical anomaly" the other day - citing the fact that most people have some trauma and tragedy in life, but there are some oddities who either never experience any trauma or experience a disproportionate amount of it. You know which one I am. I found this oddly reassuring. Like being told you aren't crazy. I wanted to shake his hand. "So it's not just my imagination that this is a little excessive? Ok, good. I was hoping it wasn't just my imagination."

I kind of felt like looking up at the sky and saying, "See? He thinks I've had more than my share, too."

Lately I just find the whole world to be overwhelming. Which makes sense. All my resources are going to just, you know, getting out of bed in the morning. Holding my brain in place in spite of the fact that the last two years are actually real and sooner or later I'm going to have to allow that to sink in fully. All this admirable fortitude and getting out of bed and all takes up a great many resources. Which means that any teeny tiny little additional thing that happens is one more thing than I have the energy or strength to cope with.

You SO don't want to see what happens if I stub my toe or get snapped at by a stranger in the supermarket check out line.

So the other day I'm filling Doc in on my week and whatever I currently feel I am completely incapable of surmounting and he says, "Well, It's just life. There's no right way to do it."

I know it sounds silly, but it was a genuine relief to have someone say such a simple thing to me.

So this is me, checking in. Still breathing and all that fancy stuff. Defying statistics. Muddling through.

And I can do this. I mean, hey - It's just life.