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Good therapy today. I got out a piece of paper and drew my life right now. There was me in the middle – big heart – attached to my kids, two giant hearts, with arrows going in and out, i.e., giving me energy, expending energy. (More going in, but plenty going out.) There was a part below that was sexuality and my physical self — all of which feel draped in soft muslin right now, hidden from sight, not really very pretty, not totally buried but not overly available either.
In the upper right, was money and work and just below them a giant hole. I keep putting seeds in the hole, but nothing has sprouted yet. Everything – so it seems – depends on what sprouts from that hole: good, soul-nourishing work? Or just-a-paycheck, soul-sucking work?
Below that in the lower right was a black box, a heavy weight titled Alex with “divorce” and “mortgage” in the box, too. There’s a small black box next to it, which is how I hope the heaviness will feel – shrunken – once the two deeds are done and it’s down to just negotiating Alex. Then there’s a tree next to it, which is how I hope Alex and I can eventually become – something healthy and decent, not a weighty black box.
Up above it all, in red, is my spirit and the growth I’m undergoing. It’s a place filled with curiosity and a belief in my ability to grow and change and heal.
“Intrepid aloneness,” my therapist said, as she looked at it – that’s how my life feels to her, appears to her in this image and in my description. And then: “Why a hole?” Indeed. Good question. As I’ve put more and more seeds into it, the hole has become deeper and darker and more mysterious. My seeds don’t seem to work; I’m shooting blanks. “What if the growth is happening under the ground?” Hmmm… interesting, possible. “Can you change it to a different image in your mind – something other than a hole?”
I’ll try.
In the meantime, I DID decide – via both this session and my friend K’s questioning about my work space the other evening – to move my office down into the sunroom. A decision that feels good and healthful and – perhaps – a digging out of any holes!
Today I discovered that my current therapist sees my former therapist as a client. Therapists need therapy too – I get that – no problem there. BUT part of the reason I’m in therapy is because of the old therapist whose ethics are questionable, to say the least, and who encouraged Alex to do some things that I was really opposed to. We saw this therapist as a couple and he did us no good. I’m pretty certain, in fact, that he harmed us. (Sorry to be so vague – I’m dancing here with full disclosure since several other people are involved.)
Now I’m feeling very…well, YUCKY, to use a really exact term, about my current therapist. I’ve been enjoying her and getting a lot out of it, but thinking of this other person sharing the same space, albeit at different times, is surprisingly off-putting to me. And though Dr. Melfi may have seen some of Tony’s victims, I don’t think I could have kept seeing her if I was among them and KNEW about Tony. Oy, what a mess.
