In which I quit therapy. (That was fast. :)

Thanks for weighing in, everybody, on my first meeting with a therapist. Blogging it through helped me get clear:
I hated it.

I lay awake last night, fuming. I had come to this therapist through a grant specifically for people working in the area where George Floyd was killed, but the therapist NEVER once said his name. I said it repeatedly.

I also talked about people living in poverty and dying of drugs and crime on the sidewalk outside my workplace--I talked about my personal distress and my concern for them and our city.

She made appropriate noises in response, but again, she never SAID any of the words that would reflected back to me what I am dealing with:
heroin, guns, bullet holes, overdose, police, prostitution, despair, fear, danger. etc.

Or: joy, meaning, connection, hope, City Council, public health...

Most importantly, we didn't seem to be living in the same HISTORY.
She seems to be living in a different time than I am. The nineties, maybe, when the plight of the Gifted Child was predominant?
 

[She'd recommended I read The Drama of the Gifted Child, by Alice Miller. This was big in the 90s, which is when I read it. It's been somewhat discredited since then. And at any rate, my issues with my family of origin are only slightly relevant, if they are relevant at all, to the issues I face at sixty-one years old.]

This morning, I wrote a fairly neutral email to the therapist, trying to be pleasant but also informative about why I was not going to continue seeing her beyond this one time.

[BEGIN email to therapist]

Hi, A.,

Thank you for meeting with me this week. It helped bring into focus what I want/need right now, and that doesn't include therapy.

I went out for a beer with a coworker after work, the day I saw you.
He and I had painted the boarded up windows together after the police murdered George Floyd. (I'd sent you a photo me painting "Faith Hope Love" on the boards. This coworker had painted "Justice 4 George".)

Talking about our workplace and Lake St., he said,
"Wouldn't it be weird if one of us actually got shot?"

And I thought, Isn't it weird that this is a normal question in my life?

Family of origin, Gifted Children, even Buddhism... those things you brought up affect my life, of course, but they are irrelevant to the spiritual emergency/state of civil unrest I live in.

The great thing, though, is that going to Mass does provide some helpful framework--for instance, the George Floyd angel painted on the pavement at 38th & Chicago, where Floyd was killed and which I bike past going to work, looks a lot like a crucifix.
Seeing you and thinking "not this" nudged me to take that step of going to Mass, so that was helpful.

In fact, the whole process of deciding to ask for help was helpful!

I am going to take more seriously the need to make some peaceful space at work, and to take breathing breaks, and to stop and have a cup of tea mid-afternoon, before irritation arises.
I'm also going to take first aid classes and continue learning Spanish (half our customers are Spanish speaking). If I were to explore any religion further, it would be Islam--lots of Muslim customers too.

Thank you, A., and my best to you, Fresca

[END e-mail to therapist]
_________________________

She emailed me back just now:

"Thanks for getting back to me.  I am glad our meeting was helpful in deciding what you need.  I will be happy to explore breathing techniques and yoga if that is what you are interested in.

If not, best luck to you.  I feel grateful our paths crossed."

*   *   *

Lady, you are not getting it.

Not one word of concern for me or the people around me.
And YOGA??? At $185/hour? I could do it for free on youTube, or anywhere in person for less than $185/hour.
But honestly, the offer of a bullet-proof vest might have been more appropriate.

I deleted her email and made no reply.

Am I ever glad I cut this therapist off right away.