anger

The role of therapists in my life.

Peggy Rice1 Comment
from my therapist’s office

My first therapist was Bill, and I saw him a few times when I was in college. I distinctly remember visiting him before I graduated from school. I was moving back home for some surgery, and wanted his help in learning how to navigate old communication patterns. The tools he gave me were very useful as I adjusted from independence to needing help. I was grateful for the techniques I learned, and I think it made my stay at home a smooth one in an otherwise difficult time.

Ted was my next therapist, about 20 years later. I first started with Ted in April 2008. His practice was recommended to me by someone at the church office. I dialed three times and hung up before I finally let the call go through and scheduled the intake appointment.

I remember “clicking” with him almost immediately. Good thing, because I was in desperate need of someone to help me with my jumbled emotions. I was in my mid-40s, we had just moved back to town, and I had expected to pick right up with old friendships and circumstances. But instead, I was feeling incredibly sad and couldn’t shake it. I tried, but was unable to explain to my husband what was wrong. I could only cry. We both agreed that I needed to talk to someone.

So Ted has been with me from the beginning of my depression, which started that summer, and for all the years since. He was with me through the very worst. When I was at my lowest. When I didn’t think I could go on living. Through my hospitalization. He helped me through the trauma and drama of deep depression, during the days when it was overwhelming and suffocating. He helped me navigate through the darkness and slowly back into the light. And he did this several times as I repeated my depression over seven years.

Ted knows me so.well. Maybe even better than I know myself. He can take the words I say and make them make sense. He finds the thread between my random thoughts, puts order to them and gives them back to me. And he’s done this for me for years.

Ted has served as my coach, as my educator, as my mentor, and as my confidant. I didn’t share with him in place of sharing with my husband, but he helped me to formulate my thoughts in a way that my husband could receive them. So that I could say what I wanted my husband to hear, instead of getting lost in my emotions or randomness. He always pointed me back to my husband.

Ted’s a Christian, and he prays for me at our appointments. He helped me sift through the spiritual battle versus the mental illness, and reminded me regularly that Christ is with me in my depression. He was the first one to really help me see Jesus standing alongside me as I struggled to fight for my mental health.

Ted helped me navigate some difficult memories. He worked with me on abandonment fears. He let me sound off about things that made me angry and helped me learn to express anger in a healthy way, instead of squelching it like I used to. He pointed out my faulty thinking, and gave me a different story than the one I was telling myself. He challenged my all-or-nothing thinking. He showed me that I speak to myself in questions, and I “should” on myself a lot.

I remember one time in particular when he really pissed me off. It’s when he pretended to be me. He told me everything I was thinking, including the things I hadn’t said out loud. I was so angry! Or maybe I was just afraid, because I had been vulnerable enough for him to see through me, to know the way I think and how I form my opinions and thoughts, and he nailed it!

I don’t worship him, nor would he ever let me. But I do have a really hard time finding a therapist, because everyone gets held up to the measuring stick of Ted. And they often fall short. It’s not a fair comparison, I know, because they don’t have the years with me like he does. So of course they don’t know me like he knows me, which puts them at a huge disadvantage when I start comparing.

I found a Christian therapist when we moved to Florida, and she was kind and gentle and accepting. I drove 40 miles one way to see her, and it was worth it. She helped me through the grieving process of relocating, and together we navigated a depressive episode with faith in Christ as my healer.

I’ve tried three therapists here – one was a hit for a little over a year. We just “broke up,” as she is moving to her private practice and I’m looking for a Christian counselor.

But I know that I’ll always have Ted. He’s promised me many times that he’ll always “be there” for me, and he always has been. I haven’t needed him as much as I used to – I’ve found these other therapists over the years who have been helpful. But I suspect I will always reach out to Ted in my depressed moments, for just a word of understanding from him to ease me through the darkness again. And he’ll point me back to my husband, and remind me that Christ is with me.

Now that’s a good therapist!

Emotions in Dreaming

Peggy Rice3 Comments

Oh. I’m angry! So angry that I wouldn’t allow myself to go back to sleep. I’m tired enough, but afraid that the emotions swirling would carry over into the next dream, and I need to shake them from me!

I don’t think this has ever happened, at least not that I remember. Maybe as a baby, you know, when a baby wakes up crying and angry, but not as an adult. And I am so angry!

I’ve awakened in the middle of the night before and been afraid, after a horrible scary nightmare.  And I’ll reach over and find my husband’s hand and squeeze it to assure myself that the dream was not real, that I am truly safe in my bed under my cozy covers in my secure home, with no one chasing me or threatening me. And my fear has always melted pretty quickly. I can only think of one time where I actually had to wake my husband so he could hug the boogeyman away.

But this dream filled me with rage! I’ve rarely been so angry even in real life! And so helpless to the impossible situation!

I wanted to drift back to sleep right away, but my heart would start pounding and my stomach would begin churning and I could feel the angry tension rising, so I kept opening my eyes and taking deep slow breaths to calm myself. It wasn’t working, so I got up (4am) and made myself some chamomile tea and grabbed my laptop to type it all out. Then maybe I’ll be calm enough to fall back asleep.

Such an intense emotion. Anger. And I don’t handle anger all that well when I’m awake and alert in the middle of the day. Apparently, I am much more vulnerable in my sleep!

The Dream: I answered the doorbell to find several college-aged boys in pick-up trucks with furniture and ladders and wood. They barged into the kitchen and began measuring for the new cabinets they were going to install – in the most stupid place – next to the pantry doors! Then the girls arrived, with mattresses and bedding and brushes with white paint dripping from the bristles. They moved everything out of my childhood bedroom and began to move their mattresses in, plus climbed a ladder and were painting bright white around my posters on the wall, not even willing to match the paint with the white I already had! Apparently, the girl who was moving in was bringing a friend to move in with her – I learned this from the girls who had overtaken my room.

I was furious – who were these folks that thought they could just come in and rearrange my house? I tried to find the phone number for my landlord; I couldn’t, even though I somehow knew she was a very close friend. I wandered outside, to discover more girls settling into the side yard as some guys tore apart the wrap-around deck which overlooked the woods behind my house – the verdant green, lush forest of tall trees and deer and birds. They were going to extend the landscaped path to make room for the 20′ pool deck lounge chair they had. The new roommate was on the scene now, and I tried to stay calm as I asked her what the hell she thought she was doing! We were suddenly back into my bedroom – that’s when she told me we’d have to fit three full-sized beds in here. Wait! How?! There wasn’t any room to get between the beds, or to reach the closet. And now I was trapped in the far corner of the room.

But then I was walking down my childhood hallway and I stopped at my childhood bathroom to splash water on my face in an effort to regain my calm. I overheard the girls laughing at me and my confusion. Oooo, I got madder! I continued to my childhood kitchen, now full of guys on ladders, taking apart light fixtures and banging their hammers on the cupboards. I began frantically searching through cancelled checks, and finally located the landlord’s number at the top of one of them. But I couldn’t dial it – my hands were shaking badly and my fingers kept hitting the wrong buttons. I asked my sister to help me, but she walked past me on her way out the back door slider from my childhood dining room. Then my aunt appeared at the end of the kitchen counter, and took the phone from me and very calmly dialed the number.

When I got the landlord on the phone, it was clear she was talking to the girls in the other room on another line! So we’re complaining in her ears, she’s trying to answer each of us and talk us down, …

And that’s when I woke up. Full of rage at the uncontrollable circumstances! I became aware of my surroundings: I felt the cat lying down by my leg, I heard the kitten on the chair as he began playing with the pull-string of the floor lamp. I looked at the ceiling fan, and got my bearings in the bedroom. I tried to go back to sleep, but the rage kept rising, so here I am, typing it all out and chuckling as I see the different pieces from reality that morphed into my very upsetting dream.

The backyard woods were from across the street from our house in Florida, and the enormous lounge chair was from the pool in our Florida housing community; I’d been thinking about Florida when reading a friend’s Facebook post yesterday morning. My sister, who I just texted last evening. My aunt, who my mom mentioned in our weekly Friday phone call.  My childhood home in detail. The landscaped path – we had walked down a cool sidewalk in Philadelphia last weekend. Cancelled checks, which were in the box I was digging through earlier yesterday as I was looking for labels. The construction in the kitchen, and my husband has to finish some repair in the laundry room ceiling later today. I think I might have become my daughter in this dream – she used to live with her best friend (who is the landlord and just moved out a few weeks ago). I was asking my daughter about her last night, and how she’s adjusting to her new home. All of these features showed up in this very upsetting dream, but are mostly grounded in my last 24 hours.

So where did the rage come from? I’m not angry, nor have I been recently. Isn’t the purpose of dreaming to resolve unfinished emotions or conflict? I can relate the scenes and characters from this dream to my reality, but not the emotions.

What do you think it means? Well, you figure it out and tell me in the morning. I’m calm now and am going back to bed!

 

 

 

Where Does It Hurt?

Peggy Rice14 Comments

I can feel my emotions in my body. This is true most of the time now, but especially if I’m in a depressive episode.

My shoulders are pulled up toward my ears, as if to hide my neck. I feel pressure and tension in my lower head, on the sides around my ears. So I push my shoulders down and back, and there’s a crunching sound, like my muscles are rolling logs down my bones, and they pop loudly. I turn my head to the side, feel another “pop” and the muscles in my neck stretch down down down along my spine, almost all the way to my waist. I slowly turn my head in the other direction and feel the stretch. There’s brief relief as I try to relax my shoulders, but putting them into a resting position brings them back up and forward.

My jaws ache. My teeth feel loose, and my bottom lip is tight. I’m frowning. I’m not gripping with the back teeth; instead my lower jaw is pulling forward until my bottom teeth hit the inside of my upper teeth, and they stay that way – straining up and tight. I feel them suddenly – I didn’t know I was clenching, and I relax my bite. I open my mouth as if to yawn, trying to relieve the pressure in my ears that has built up from gritting my teeth for who knows how long.  That hurts, too.

There’s pressure. Something is sitting on top of my stomach. Yet it’s inside, too, and my stomach churns and rolls over and feels like it’s being chewed on. And there’s fire burning in the pit of my stomach, with the flames licking upward into my rib cage and making it hard to breathe. I say, “My stomach hurts.” I feel like I want to retch. The back of my mouth tastes terrible, like I’m going to be sick. That steely taste that tells me my insides are coming up to my throat. Yet there’s nothing there. And I clench my jaw to hold nothing in.

My chest hurts. It’s like there’s a hole in the center of my body where I think my heart should be. Which is strange, since if my heart is missing, then how can I feel this pain? And at the same time that there’s a hole, there’s also this incredible pressure, like a boulder resting on my chest. It’s so hard to take a deep breath, and it hurts when I try. I can’t get air all the way in. The insides around the center of my chest are jiggling like Jello; they won’t stay still. The fluttering moves down toward my lungs – my ribs are full of this writhing.

At a massage a few weeks ago, the therapist pushed on my calf muscle and my thoughts were flooded with anger and sadness and grief. Caught me completely by surprise. The therapist felt it, too. “Did something just change? Was that you or me?” I told her about my emotional response to her touch, and she told me that many people carry emotion in their legs. It just had never happened to me before.

These are ways that my body holds emotions. Anger. Anxiety. Fear. Grief. Sadness. It hurts! I can feel it, not just in my head, or in my thoughts, but in my body itself. Depression has often been very physical.

On all these occasions, where I can actually physically feel my emotions, the best approach for me has been to breathe. I tell myself:

Focus on taking a breath. Just stop thinking about anything for a second. Put my thoughts on breathing in. Feel the air come in through my nose. See my chest and stomach and shoulders and arms move, feel my head tilt slightly. Don’t think, just watch my body. Hold my breath, just for a few seconds, then loudly exhale. Make all the air leave my lungs. Do it again. Deep breath – feel it, watch it. Hold it – count to four. Don’t think. Just count to four. Now as I breathe out, with my lips making the shape of an “O” and loudly through my mouth, count to six. Make all the air come out. Push it with my diaphragm, with my stomach muscles. Do it again. Breathe in for four – count to four as I take a deep breath through my nose. Hold it – count to four. Breathe out, counting to six. Listen to the sound of the air leaving my lungs, coming out of my mouth.

Breathe in through my nose for a count of four. Hold my breath for four. Making an “O” shape with my mouth, breathe out loudly for a count of six. Repeat as needed until calm enough to think.

There. Better.

(footnote)

Finishing Unfinished Business

Peggy Rice3 Comments

I had an amazingly difficult – and amazingly insightful – appointment with my therapist yesterday. Did some hard work, cried lots of tears. But gained some understanding, too.

Therapists often help their clients work through “unfinished business.” Perhaps it’s a childhood memory or trauma. Maybe it’s unforgiveness or deep emotional hurt. Whatever the case, part of their job is to help the patient figure out what is incomplete, and work it through to completion. For me, “business” is relationships. And that explains my anxiety. It’s a conflict between the move to FL (three weeks from yesterday) and the uncompleted business here.

I’ve been keeping Ted informed of my increasing anxiety over the past couple of weeks, but especially intense anxiety in the past few days.  At yesterday’s appointment, Ted helped me sort it out so that it made some sense.

In every move we’ve ever made, I’ve had to leave behind deep roots. Sometimes, I was able to say goodbye. Sometimes, I was able to finish the tasks on which I was working, or hand off the torch for the groups I led. But moves have always meant the end of some friendships. This was true even when I moved 10 miles up the road – some friends couldn’t make that transition – it was like I’d moved across the ocean – and I didn’t see them for a very long time, if ever again.

I’ve “lost” other friends in other moves – “out of sight, out of mind.” Of course, I’ve also gained new friends too, some of them for a lifetime, some for just that time.

In this case, I’ve really been trying hard to wrap things up. I’ve got a notebook of all the things we need to do to move, and what we need to do to move in. I’m handing off a care group that I facilitate. I’ve found a good home for my cat. I’ve said goodbye to my Bible Study friends so many times, I almost wish I hadn’t been there at all this month.  I’m saying goodbyes – to some friends I’ve known for a few years, and to others I’ve known for 19+ years.  I’ve made coffee dates and lunch dates and get together dates, to be able to visit one last time face-to-face. To some, I’ve said, “See ya later.” To others, there is no “later” so it’s been goodbye. Either way, these are friendships – roots – that are hard to rip out of the ground. It feels like they are ripping out of my heart.

But the time is coming – and approaching quickly – when it won’t matter if I’ve said my goodbyes or finished up my commitments – it will be done, whether I’m ready or not. I will not be here anymore. And that makes me very very sad.

And it turns out, it makes me angry too. Not angry at anyone in particular, just angry at the situation. Once again, I pull up roots. So the anger builds – inwardly – as I grapple with the decreasing time. And here’s where anxiety rears its ugly head. I don’t know what to do with the anger – I didn’t even recognize it as anger! Ted said it’s not surprising to him at all that my anxiety increases as the time to relocate approaches – there is less and less time for me to finish business here, and remember, for me that’s relationships.

I’ll be so far away from my kids. I keep thinking I’m moving, then I’m not (that has been going on for over a year). I’ve said goodbye to some people for the last time – 3 times! Makes the uprooting process unpredictable, hard to organize and control. And I want to control it. I need to control it. Because I have no control of any of it.

*TRIGGER WARNING* I expressed my anxiety by trying to control my emotions, but since I couldn’t control those either, I took to snapping a rubber band. It hurts – it really stings. But I control the sting. I control how far back I pull the band, I control where it snaps. There is an immediate release of tension, a deep exhale, followed by the opportunity to self-soothe. To touch the welt, to feel how warm it is, to rub it and comfort it. This is not behavior that I am particularly proud of – hurting myself can seem more than a little ridiculous to those who don’t understand. But snapping the rubber band allowed me to release the pain and anger that was bottled up inside, and exert some control over it.

That’s not the way God wants me to manage my pain. (Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies. – 1 Corinthians 6:19-20) God wants me to bring my pain to Him, to lay it at the foot of the Cross, to express my need for God’s comfort, to ask Him to hold me, and to remind myself that no matter what, He is in control. (Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. – Philippians 4:6-7)  A couple of days ago, a very dear friend whispered in my ear, “He’s got you. He’s strong, and He’s holding you.” I needed that reminder. Thanks, Phyllis.

And I needed Ted yesterday. I needed him to help me figure out what was causing the anxiety and why I was angry. As he always does, he pointed me back to Christ. He thanked God for giving him insight into what I was saying so that he could help me sort it all out. He reminded me of tools to use to self-soothe that have nothing to do with rubber bands. He let God use him to bring me comfort (All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is our merciful Father and the source of all comfort. He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us. 2 Corinthians 1:3-4, NLT).

Thank you, Lord, for Ted, for friendships, and for new adventures. Thank You that You go with me, that You are an everlasting friend who will never leave me. In Jesus’ precious name, Amen.