a hand up

My therapist fired me yesterday.

No, don’t be sad about it. This is a good thing. Actually, I cannot tell you how incredible it is! When I first sought her out, I was feeling terribly stuck on a recovery plateau, with no understanding of how to continue moving forward. Like a rock climber stuck on a ledge, in need of a hand to help me up to the next point. She has been that hand.

I’ve worked with other therapists – with mixed results. Taking the good with the not-so-good, or even the confusing. Some people told me I shouldn’t work with a female therapist. Some people told me I needed to find one with the correct letters as part of their title. What I knew was that I needed someone with empathy, intuition, and understanding of trauma. By the end of our first session – just over a year ago – I felt certain she was exactly who I needed.

I am certain there are many, many highly qualified, highly skilled therapists in the world. I’m grateful I found one of them!

Over the past year, my therapist helped me care for the most painful, most ashamed, most angry, most controlling parts of myself. Not once did she bring even a speck of shame into the room. Always compassion. Always a level of intuition that was nothing less than a gifting.

We started a year ago with weekly appointments, and over time they became bi-weekly, then monthly. Even as we were scaling back, there was one time when I got pretty disregulated, and I was able to meet with her same-day, And then, towards the end of last year, we began talking about scaling back the sessions to as-needed. Yesterday, we talked about a few issues I had been working through, and then we agreed. It was time. She told me “You know who you are and where you are”. We both expressed our joy for how much things have changed for me in this year’s time. I got a little choked up. So did she. It was sweet, and beautiful, and right. And then, on my way out, I skipped past the receptionist’s desk and didn’t schedule another appointment. Then I sat in my vehicle, cried a few tears of joy, and began writing this post.

Of course, she’s still there if I get into another sticky spot. I am grateful. I’m also super grateful for the new ways of thinking and being that I am practicing. This, I’m certain, is what recovery is all about.