Therapy Journal, Entry 1

My new therapist suggested that I keep a therapy journal. She thinks it would be beneficial because it would help me keep our discussions fresh in my mind and it would help me "work through" additional thoughts and feelings that I didn't verbalize during our session. Sharing the journal with her is completely optional.

Though "therapy journal" is the lamest sounding phrase I can imagine I think she's right. 55 minutes is basically only enough time to really get a good discussion going, so leftover thoughts and emotions are bound to happen nearly every time for me.

So here I am writing in the Batman notebook that shall be my first therapy journal, wishing I were more creative and artistic so I could create little colored pencil sketches of my therapist's office or my surroundings while I'm therapy journaling. It's my recent conclusion that journals which include sketches and drawings are far superior to those that do not. Maybe my therapist will suggest art therapy which will help me reach my goal of keeping a superior journal. I wonder if insurance would pay for that?

So this, my first entry in the therapy journal, is actually not about my therapist or our first couple sessions. It's actually about the first, second and third therapists I went to. Obviously none of them worked out. Though probably not terribly important I want to be able to remember or at least reference why neither of the first three were able to claim the title of my therapist.

Therapist One was a man. Completely unacceptable. I told the person referring me that a man simply would not do but she made me go anyway. As much as I hate any implication whatsoever that I'm a man-hating lesbian the fact that people actually believe that such a creature exists worked to my advantage in this situation. When the Evil Insurance Empire demanded to know why he didn't work I simply said "because I'm a man hating lesbian and he's a man." They didn't ask any more questions and sent me on to the next one.

Therapist Two, while a woman, was the coldest person I can recall ever meeting in real life. Had she been a character on television the audience would have briefly been sympathetic toward her because she was so obviously miserable and lacking people skills but then the audience would have moved on to hatred because let's face it, TV audiences don't like characters that come across as overly cold. She was overly cold. Overly cold was much more difficult to explain to the claims man at Evil Insurance but I eventually got the point across and they sent me on.

I kind of thought I'd hit the jackpot with Therapist Three when I first met her. She wasn't cold, had a pretty twisted sense of humor, made a few insightful comments and had a sweet velvet couch in her office. I just didn't connect with her though. Maybe you aren't supposed to connect with your therapist, maybe it's supposed to be a pretty clinical relationship. I'm really not sure. I just know that I didn't enjoy talking to her and that I dreaded going to sessions with her. No one is forcing me into therapy, I'm doing it for myself, so I'm not going to stay in a therapy situation that's unpleasant for me. What would be the point of that? Again more difficult than man-hating lesbian to explain to Evil Insurance but they eventually listened.

That of course leads to my therapist. If I'd already been through art therapy this would be where I'd draw the plastic spiderman head that she's growing a plant out of. It would be a metaphor for her eccentric yet nurturing personality. It would also be a placeholder for the next entry, which will be all about her, because I'm fucking tired and am going to bed.