Posted by gardenergirl on November 21, 2004, at 12:58:49
I need to write about my last therapy session. It was something of a breakthrough of sorts, I think, but it's really hard to think rationally about.
Background: The week before, I had been to see a massage therapist who is into alternative treatments. She does energy work including Reiki and therapeutic touch, regular massage, Cranial-Sacral therapy, and gosh knows what else. She also is an intuitive. Anyway, she says I have no energy flowing in me; it's all stuck. And I am carrying a lot of "stuff", I assume to be emotional doo-doo, not all of which is mine. I'm not sure what she means by that, but perhaps it's because of my sensitivity and picking up on others' emotions?
Anyway, she was working on legs and trying to open up my pelvic area. As she massaged and stroked my legs, especially as she got to my thighs, I felt my chest get tighter and tighter. She finished each leg by bending it up to my chest, angled out some, as a way of assessing the mobility, I assume. When she was finished with both, she asked me how I was doing, and I told her that had been scary. And then I just started to cry hard. I couldn't figure out exactly why, but I did know that what she was doing had shifted at some point to no longer feeling safe. I've had tons of massages, but this has never happened before, although no one has ever worked quite that way, either. So she helped me work through the crying...she's kind of used to that with her clients, and then went on.
When I had my session Wednesday with my T, I told him about his experience. I have this fear that goes along with this experience that perhaps there is a trauma in my childhood that I am not aware of. It feels like quite an irrational fear, and I can acually identify a number of micro-trauma's for lack of a better word, that for a sensitive child would have been cumulatively traumatic. Anyway, in processing it with my T, he asked me what I had been feeling. I didn't know, but as I was trying to figure it out, the feeling came back in a huge wave. I just started crying and sobbing very hard. I don't know that I've ever sobbed like that in therapy. The hardest part is that I just didn't have any words or memories or thoughts to go with it. It was just pure pain. God, that's scary. The only word that came to me at all was "sorrow" but that seemed so inadequate.
My T is wonderful. He seems to understand how distressing it is to me to not be able to figure out what this means. He also said that I shouldn't go chasing what I can't remember, because we have enough on the table that I can remember to work with. So that was kind of reassuring, but I still am freaked out with this pain and my fears.
Ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh
This came out much longer and saying more than I intended, but that's okay, I suppose. I've got a session tomorrow. No way was I going to miss this week due to the holiday after last session.
And shoot, I got home Wednesday after crying all the way home, and just crawled into bed. A total waste of the rest of the day. I think I really needed that, but if sessions are going to be like this going forward, it will be hard to get stuff done, as Wed. is my day off. (I know they won't all be like this, but I seem to be doing a lot of catastrophizing lately, too.)
Sigh, how does anyone else deal with what you can't explain or even name?
gg
poster:gardenergirl
thread:418631
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20041113/msgs/418631.html