Therapy

I’ve said before on this blog that I’ve been going to therapy. It was a way of trying to deal with the death of my friend. Well, yesterday I told my therapist that I wouldn’t be back. I had begun to dread going to see the therapist. I haven’t gotten over my friend’s death, but I also couldn’t keep dredging up such painful memories. I want to remember the good times we had and the closeness I felt with him. I do not want to continue remembering only his death and the pain I felt afterwards.

In therapy, we had also talked about my hidden pains, which was a realization that I found very helpful. The picture above reminded me of what therapy was like. When I look at this picture, the first thing I see is a nearly naked man. He is the center of the pictures focus. The yellowish light around him focuses your eyes there. Then you notice the darkness and the city lights beyond. That’s how I felt in therapy. It was mostly me talking and the therapist listening, which was what I needed at first. It was completely centered on me, but as I talked more, I didn’t want to keep going over the same difficult memories time and again without knowing of a way to,deal with the pain. I needed someone else in the picture to help me deal with the issues I was dealing with. I know there is a darkness surrounding me, but that there is an abundance of light beyond the class that holds me inside.

Once I realized that I absolutely dreaded going to therapy, I knew it was time to stop. The other thing that I realized is that it was after therapy that I was experiencing panic attacks. Honestly, I didn’t realize that until this afternoon. You see, I haven’t had a panic attack in nearly two weeks, and since I’d skipped therapy last week because of a headache, it had been two weeks since I’d been to therapy. I realized thought that talking about some of these issues and the dark cloud that seems to surround me that was one of the causes of my panic attacks. Last night, I had an attack so bad that I had to take a Xanax just to be able to calm down. Panic attacks are one of the worst things to me. I feel like I have not control when I have one, and they also cause a period of intense depression. The Xanax eases that ever so slightly.

So goodbye therapy. I may seek other types of counseling, but for now, I feel better that I won’t be going back. I needed there to be more than just me doing all the talking. I hate for the focus to be just me.