Getting grounded, when exiting a therapy session, is a weekly goal for us. Last week's marathon 2 hour session left us feeling...unsettled, a little bit off, as we walked back to our car. There really wasn't any way to fix the way I felt. I managed about 3 days of semi-functionality, 3 days of trying to find one solid person in the system before I decided to reach out for help.
It's the first time, to my recollection, that I emailed therapist asking for an extra appointment. It's been about 10 months with this new T, so we've done pretty well
This whole asking for help thing and patiently waiting to hear back, is new for me. T wrote back within a few hours saying she would check her schedule when she got to her office the next morning, meaning today.
She wrote me this morning saying she had a half hour to spare. I jumped in the car. I had been standing outside and I didn't even take the time to go into my house for my water bottle and wallet. I felt seriously desperate and needed every minute I could get with her. It was a calculated risk that I was willing to take.
Jumping back to last week's 2 hour session...2 major events were brought up. One, the first one we spoke of, was a new flashback that involved a younger me walking in with our mother to see a new pediatrician.
What's a flashback?
A flashback is when the brain suddenly releases, let's go of, a long held repressed memory. It felt as if I was, Was walking with my mother, holding her hand, reading the sign out front with the doctor's name, seeing and walking through the glassdoors, feeling the floor mat, smelling all these new scents of an office; the carpet, cleaning products, fragrances emanating from this person or that.
I Felt and saw everything from the perspective of a child; the tallness of the doctor and nurse, the desk I could barely see over, the big exam table, etc.
So something happened that day, almost 50 years ago, that was traumatic and overwhelming. The flashback would only show me the "opening snippet", me walking through the doors and waiting room and the flashback, fb, would then abruptly stop.
That's why I go to therapy, to resolve these sporadic flashbacks. I've learned that a) fbs are my brain trying to heal. B) fbs can be triggered by outside events, hence one really good reason Multiples (the name which I and others with DID often refer to ourselves, from the older diagnosis of Multiple Personality Disorder) tend to stay indoors where it's relatively safe and fbs don't happen spontaneously as often. C) fbs only feel highly terrifying but I've lived through whatever this memory is once before and I can do it again. D) the discomfort of a fb will end at some point.
For my fb to end, I need to be able to verbalize it. Plain, simple and frustrating. I can write and think about the fb all I want but I've learned that they only go away once full talked about with someone trusted, my therapist.
I find that frustrating, especially as an Autistic because I pride myself on being able to do as much as possible on my own. I certainly do not like needing someone to witness and hear the gruesome, disturbing crap I've been put through. It is what it is, and I'm working to accept that.
There was a second...highly heinous, very complex memory involving about 5-6 parts of me that has been hanging around in the periphery unresolved. I don't usually procure 2 hour sessions and I really needed extra time to try and process this complexity out.
So, we tackled both subjects, both memories. I feel we just touched the surface on the doctor one, which Did prove to stop the fb. More work needs to be done and I'm glad we got started on it.
The second complex memory is becoming clearer. It felt like pure chaos yet now, after discussing, I can see the order of it. It will be distressing to work out. I envision a half dozen more sessions just for this memory alone. I can also see what I stand to gain and benefit from working it.
Maybe more on that later.
Enough for now
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