Update after counseling

Saw my T on Saturday. It was a great session. Lately, I feel like there has been a slight but noticeable shift in me. I used to go to counseling in a harried state, frantically thinking how much I could squeeze into the session. Now, I do relaxation breathing ahead of time. I go in calm and in a receptive state. I go in thinking about how much I will get OUT of the session instead. I knew I had a lot to cover but I didn't feel pressured to discuss all of it. Instead I felt like I would allow ample time to cover each thing. Lo and behold, I actually had time to cover it all! I guess this is what's happening with the shift in me. I'm more in touch with what I'm feeling and through the blogging, I'm identifying and processing it appropriately. So basically I spent the first half of the session just sharing the dreams I'd already figured out, the feelings I'd already identified. T didn't have much to add. She said I did a great job.

I shared with her my anger work. I'm exceptionally proud of that, really. I have struggled with anger in a HUGE way so to make even one small step forward is really huge for me. You know, I've always known that I still harbor anger at my Mother. It's been very obvious. What I ended up screaming during the anger work session ("You get in the way of everything. Why didn't you get in the way of the people who hurt me?") now makes sense as to why I get my back up the absolute most when she invades my SEVERE sense of personal space. Note that the personal space exists only with her or people I find threatening. I'm actually a fairly "touchy" person in other circumstances. But I can't stand to have her close to me. Anyway, T said that even just letting that one thought out will start to change the energy I feel. We'll see. I'm going to be spending at least one, maybe two, days with her this week. At least I know I have the bat & chair available to me as an outlet!!

We talked about the night I had the three dreams in a row. T said these were much less obvious than the prior dreams. I really had not deciphered these dreams at all. She said they were "validation" dreams and highly symbolic. Dream #1 about "Big Mother". She said that Big Mother is me....that part of me that wants to hold control, maintain the appearance of perfection. The reference to the "lesser" women are the other parts of me that I judge and scorn and my DD in the dream is my innocent self, or my IC.

Dream #2 about my XDH, she said is about betrayal and the part at the end where I'm hurting the boy who is trying to pin me; that IS in fact my rage, as I'd theorized. There was a significance to the fact that I referred to all of these "boys"...high school aged boys. B/c my brother was a HS teen when the abuse worsened and concluded.

Dream #3: This one felt the least significant to me when I was writing it out and actually turned out, symbolically, to be the most. The fact that I was on the stairs below my friend who was acting inappropriately sexual with me. T said to consider this....I am "below" someone else and they put me in that position where there was nothing I could do about it. She asked me how I felt in the dream about what my friend was doing and I said that I felt uncomfortable and tried to dismiss it, ignore it, ride it out til it was over. Yeah. Then, the fact that the 4 1/2 year old was wearing heavy adult makeup......I'm not sure which way this goes but it has something to do with adult vs child....ie: a child turned into an adult at too young an age or an adult who is still essentially a child (IC). But the most interesting thing....T pointed out the child's age 4 1/2 and then the teen girl who comes into the room....that is my range of sexual abuse years (at least with my brother, anyway).....about 4/5 through teens. Interesting. Now, the thing with her jumping into the bathroom ahead of me.....I shared with T that my father and I used to have this malicious competition to see who could get into the bathroom first. He didn't like to go after me b/c I used all the hot water. I didn't like to go after him b/c when he left the bathroom, it absolutely reeked of him, including a cloud of Old Spice powder. So we had these unspoken bizarre competitions to "control" the bathroom in the morning. Like to the point that I would get up at 3am to take a shower and then go back to bed. And then the next morning, he would do the same. And then finally, in the dream, when I fell and sighed "that's two", T said I'm referring to THE two - my brother and my father and the fact that I'd fallen and was so sullen in the dream was my feeling defeated by them.

So it was all very interesting. T was supposed to give me some meditation CD's and she wasn't able to finish burning them. I'm so anxious to begin them, though. I'm feeling pretty good, actually. I'm feeling like I've made some progress and anxious to make more. I even (as of this moment anyway) feel motivated to address my eating. I know those feelings can change from moment to moment. So we'll see.