This evening I had a therapy session. I would like to work through my fear of routine medical tests and the fear that something extremely catastrophic will happen just because I’m happy and in a good place now. I briefly described how I feel, what my goals are for therapy, and how I had extremely debilitating panic attacks for approximately ten years. The therapist had judgmental eyebrows. I don’t know how to describe it. She was knotting her eyebrows the whole time, and maybe she was concentrating. Otherwise, therapy was ok. She convinced me to go for my bloodwork. I’m off Friday and Monday, so I can go then- I just need to find out where to go. So I sent a general message on teledoc saying I looked on my order and can’t find where to go. They will answer in the morning. At least I hope. She gave me a breathing exercise. To me, breathing exercises don’t work well. I didn’t tell her that. I just let her think she was helping, because I feel like I’m going to need her at bay until I’m done getting all these tests. I need bloodwork, a Pap smear, a mammogram, and a colonoscopy. And even those aren’t going to ease my fears because what if I have a brain tumor? They don’t screen yearly for that.
I told her that I lost three cousins three years in a row in car accidents. Then two years after the last one, a friend of my mom died of pancreatic cancer and a year after that, the husband of another of her friends died of the same thing. Both of these people were health nuts! The man ran marathons, and the woman was a yoga teacher. Anything can happen to anyone. But this therapist said, that’s not a pattern. That was helpful. Catastrophic events do not happen in any kind of pattern, even if they seem to.
Work is going ok. It’s slow, but still mildly steady. At the end of April we have a big ass busy spurt with a lot of overtime so I’m bracing myself. I found this picture online, and it reminds me of myself in my severe panic attack days the woman in this painting also sort of looks like me when I was in my 30’s
Panic attacks are so frightening. I hope your therapist can give you some helpful exercises, instead of breathing exercises.
ReplyDeleteI’m hoping to tell her next week that they don’t work. My past experience in telling mental health professionals that breathing exercises don’t work is that they chastise me for saying that.
DeleteHello, so nice to meet you. I see you have some wonderful things in your life. Wedding! And yes, a sweet kitty. My husband went for therapy because I was nearly killed in a car wreck years ago. Their thoughts were that he needed to just "laugh about it". Can you imagine sitting looking at your spouse in a wheel chair and laughing! Therapy for me was too about the breathing and a bunch of goofy things like rubbing certain points on my body. We both gave up and eventually things fell into place. I have not gone to a dr. since covid hit in 2020. I have had one mammogram and I should get one again. And I do the dentist and eye doctor when I feel my glasses need changing. I love your quilting, that takes talent and patience. Wishing all things good for you.
ReplyDeleteThanks for stopping by. Nice to meet you as well, and I totallly get it.
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