Through the Debris

Not only do the endless possibilities for therapy blow my mind, the process that one must go through to find a good therapist can be overwhelming in of itself.  Prior to recent events I’d never seriously considered therapy.  It’s not that I thought it was a bad thing or a waste of time — it’s just not something I seriously considered as necessary in my life.  I did have a few fleeting thoughts of looking into some kind of therapy when a loved one passed away, but I didn’t think that I had the time or money.  And besides, I’d be ok on my own.

Well, I knew this time that it was not something that I could handle on my own.  My adventures started with a marriage counselor.  After my husband dropped the bomb and I cried for about 24 hours after overcoming my initial shock, he finally agreed to see a marriage therapist with me, though he warned me that it wouldn’t change his mind.  (Granted at this point I didn’t realize how far things had deteriorated.  I still had hope.)  I realized I had no idea how one goes about finding a therapist.  So I asked my friend, a social worker.  She told me there were two ways:  word of mouth, and calling your insurance company.  Well I knew I didn’t know anyone in my geographic area who had gone to any kind of marriage therapy (other than my in-laws, and I just didn’t want to go there) so I called my insurance provider.  I spilled the whole story on the phone (and, yes, started to cry again.)  The person was very sympathetic and asked if I wanted someone male or female.  Those were the choices.  Nothing about specialties or recommendations from previous clients.  I took down the names of two men and two women in my region.  I asked my husband if he preferred male or female.  (Looking back I’m really upset that I did this because it just gave him further control over a horrible situation he had way too much control in already.   But anyway.)  He said he preferred female.  The first one I called, I was informed that she no longer practiced at that office.  Wonderful.  The second said that they could get me an appointment for the end of the week.  Hallelujah!  This was going to be the solution.  This was going to fix everything.

We somehow make it through the week, and arrived at the office.  They gave me one form to fill out.  I explained that we needed two forms since we were both seeing her.  Lots of confusion in the office ensued.  Finally I was told, “She doesn’t do marriage counseling.”

WHAT??

I asked why that information was not relayed to me when I made the appointment.  They didn’t know.  I asked why my insurance company recommended her as a marriage therapist.  They didn’t know.  Finally the therapist came out and I informed her we were both coming in.  After hearing the story of what happened, she agreed to treat us both.

Looking back this should have been a very bad sign.  But I knew nothing about therapy.  And I was really clinging to the fact that he agreed to the counseling as my only hope for saving our marriage.  I was desperate.

I had made the mistake of reading one of those “Save Your Marriage At All Costs” self-help books (one that I do NOT recommend and therefore will not provide a title nor any other information).  The gist was that if only one person wanted to save the marriage, that one person had to take responsibility for every mistake s/he had made and resolve to do the opposite in the future.  The concept is that the “bad” things one does drives one’s mate away, and by fixing those “bad” things, your mate will love you again.  (Now it seems really stupid, but, again, I was desperate.)  Therefore I started the session by listing all of my faults and how I took responsibility for them.  I was too assertive.  I was stubborn.  I had too high of standards.  I pushed too much.  I aspired for too much.  Meanwhile my husband is sitting there nodding enthusiastically.  Of course it was all my fault.  Somehow it became a session focused on “See how crazy she is.”  By the end of it I not only agreed to lower my expectations, but also to see a shrink for general anxiety/depression.  Which my husband, again, enthusiastically agreed was my problem.

I’ll spare you the rest of the gory details by concluding that I did not like the marriage counselor (or whatever she was) very much at all, because she participated in heaping all of the blame on me (a process I admit that I started, but she shouldn’t have allowed to continue) all while validating his feelings.  He was lonely.  He was curious.  He wanted to be free.  Never once saying, “Dude.  You’re married.  Having an affair is not an appropriate response to these feelings.”  Whatever.

So I agreed to see the shrink.  Note to anyone out there who has never experienced this:  don’t be sarcastic in a shrink’s office.  They tend to take everything you say during the initial evaluation very seriously.  First of all he started the session by talking to me very slowly and sing-songy like I was 5.  I felt like I was being interviewed by Mr. Rogers.  Doc, I’m going through a divorce, I’m not mentally incapacitated.  He made up this wonderful story/analogy about how we would be putting together a team for me to improve my mental health, and that I got to be the team captain!!  Yeah, I hate sports and was always the kid picked last because I couldn’t catch a ball if my life depended on it.  Sports analogies aren’t going to do it for me.  I suppose he had to ask all kinds of random questions as part of the process to figure out what was wrong with me, but I started to find some of them really amusing.  “Do you know where you are?”  “Do you know what year it is?”  “Do you hear voices telling you what to do?”  I started to get a little punchy.  He asked “Do you know who the president is?”  I replied, “Unfortunately, it’s Bush.”  He asked “And who’s the vice-president.”  I replied, “Supposedly it’s Cheney.”  It got a concerned look on his face and followed up with, “Do you think the media tells you things that aren’t true?”  I actually had to explain sarcasm.  Yeah, and I’m the crazy one.

Finally, in another attempt to reach out for help wherever I could get it, I contacted my companies Employee Assistance Program to look into individual therapy.  This is something I didn’t tell anyone about at first.  It turned out that my company would cover short term counseling at a corporate counseling facility not far from my office.  I took them up on that offer.  I had the pleasure of meeting with the most wonderful counselor there.  She really helped me a lot, encouraging me to talk things out and figure things out on my own and with some guidance.  She also gave me what I think of as little nuggets of wisdom that allowed me to look at issues and situations from a slightly different perspective.  She also was the first person to really give me permission to focus on ME during this time — not my husband, not my marriage, not my plans of what I was “supposed” to do — just me. 

Unfortunately it is only short term counseling and now I need to find a long term counselor.  She does have a private practice, but is not allowed to take on clients she met through the corporate facility.  Which is a huge bummer, but understandable.  She gave me a few recommendations based on her experiences and the backgrounds of these people.  I need to schedule an initial consultation with someone, see if we click.  If so, we can go from there, if not, I need to try someone new.  And so on.  Finding a long term therapist seems like a lot of work right now.  It’s a bit daunting.

But I had to laugh on my way back from the appointment, recommendations in hand.  If I can’t handle finding a therapist — someone I will pay to spend time with me — there is no way in hell I’m ever going to be able to think about dating again!