Breakfast with Therapy

When I first started treatment for my depression I included from the start therapeutic one on one counseling with a professional trained in the field. This person is of unique perspective and invaluable service providing a mirror into myself that I didn't know was possible.

Ninety minutes, once a week, for a full year I went to see him. I bled my heart out with him and shed so much misery as he reflected the goodness that was in everything I experienced. Everything that had me on this path to madness.

I must emphasize that the therapy we did was very intense. And not only just for me.

I had to relive so much in that office. So much including complex trauma from being a victim of a horrible crime. A crime you'd kill for if it happened to your mother.

I'd leave his office in an absolute total dissociative fugue. An unbelievable otherworldly state. I'd have to walk around the campus for an hour to compose myself before I could drive. Often finding a secluded place to purge myself of so much misery...heartbreak flowing from my soul through so many tears

One day I was trying to shake this yuck off of me. This awful black cloud. I starting thinking about funny things. Just random stuff that never fails to make me laugh. The sort of stuff that pops in your head out of nowhere. Like in the grocery store line, forcing your face to turn red as you try and stifle your laughter. Then I started thinking. I wonder what Dr Dear does to decompress? After all he's not a robot. He must have received some sort of training to shield himself from the horrible stories spewing from my mouth. Then I started laughing. All I could imagine was my Dr. scrubbing himself down in his office, but with what? What would he use? And that's when I thought...I know he's using cocoa puffs! out of his lunch box! Ritually cleansing his face of the residue of my sorrow...