My Merry Go Round
I had never though therapy was going to help me, there was nothing wrong with me after all.
There must have been a tipping point – I used to be in control. When I was getting out of line I could bring myself back. That had changed, and I was in an endless loop feeling great, then I would go completely off the rails.
It was as if I had strayed into the wrong paddock and could not find my way back. I was a broken record.
Attempting to find my way back I had tried meditation, psychologists, alcohol, antidepressants, clean living, the lot. I was exhausted and the people around me were also.
I kept going though, I’m a stubborn little Zebby after all. Therapy was how I was going to find my way back to myself.
A Challenge To My Psychologist
I knew to keep hunting therapists until I found the right one. I’d been looking for six years, having awful, sometimes terrible experiences with the people I found.
That was until Emma. We clicked straight away – I was at ease, open and ready to work. Emma is my fourth, she will be my final. I came in pretty hard, I wasn’t there to pick apples. I wanted to make sure that Emma knew where I was coming from.
My challenge to Emma was clear:
“I want you to find something in me that I can’t find myself.”
Zebby, January 2022
Good luck!
I’d kept repeating bad behaviour throughout the years and I need to put a stop to it. I couldn’t figure out my behaviour. What I was saying to Emma is that I have a blind spot, something in me that I don’t understand, which causes me to break down. Of course I didn’t she could fix me, after all I’ve known myself for 48 years. How could she find something that I couldn’t not find myself?
The Therapy Grind
Therapy session can be tedious. Often you leave with a little less cash and not a lot of insight. You question whether to continue at all. This was me for approximately 18 months, every two weeks. We discussed my childhood, talked about events of the past couple of weeks, however nothing felt like real progress. It felt like the longest first date I’d ever been on.
Still, we persisted.
Emma suggested we try schema therapy, which is a pretty simple process:
- Fill out a 400+ multiple choice questionnaire
- Emma reviews my answers assigns me schemas
- We use those schemas to identify my behaviours
Still after all of this I didn’t feel we were getting anywhere, until I fell apart completely.
Breakdown
The wheels came off in spectacular fashion. As much as I’d promised myself that I was over this behaviour, that it was never going to happen again, I slipped up. It was as bad as it had ever been, honestly I don’t know how I managed to come through it.
To get to where I got, we have to go back to where it began. Recently a project I had spent 3.5 years on was thrown in the bin. All of it, and it upset me. From that disappointment there was a bit of hope however, because the project I was moving to had some great opportunities to learn and grow. One I began though, this project seemed to want me to continue to work on the old technology rather than the new. I spoke with my boss about it, and asked whether this is all I was going to be doing for the next couple of years and in a word: “yes”.
Add to this I had bills piling up which I couldn’t pay, relationships between the people I loved most were strained and I was in the middle. Things which matter most to me were slipping away.
For days I had to work hard to motivate myself to get out of bed and go to work. Eventually I wasn’t able to do it any longer and I broke down. Two days in the office I left at lunch and didn’t want to come back – but I did. After that I didn’t even come in to the office. 14 days later I was back at the office again having gone through hell.
Here’s what happened during those 14 days:
- 12 days in bed
- 7 work days lost
- 5 calls to hospital
- 3 trips to hospital
- 2 kids sports events missed
- 3 days in recovery before I could work again
- Unknown: The amount of emotional damage I cause to my wife and children
The shame and guilt can’t be overstated. Without this breakdown however, I could not have had my breakthrough.
Breakthrough
My boss was very kind to me when we spoke on the phone. I was in recovery and starting to feel human again, however I needed one more Monday off. Tuesday I was back in the office working from home, two days later I was in therapy, with Emma.
She already knew what had happened – the hospital had called it through. This is both frightening and comforting. She asked whether I wanted to talk about it, which I didn’t, but we did anyway. After all, that’s why I was there.
Our conversation started off pretty simply, just the facts, nothing else. Then it got dark:
Emma: “Do you want to explore this a little further?”
Zebby: “I don’t know how to, can you help?”
Emma: “I’m not sure, but I can try. Shall we begin?”
It wasn’t really a question, it was a starting gun. We were off and running.
Emma: “When you left the office, what were you feeling?”
Zebby: “Anger”.
Emma: “When you were sitting by yourself during those two lunch sessions, what were you feeling?”
Zebby: “Anger”
Emma: “Ok, now look at your schema and tell me how they relate to the events which led to you leaving the office”
HOLY SHIT
Zebby, June 2023
Working through my schemas and how they relate upended me. I could not have expected it and the emotion was overwhelming. The next 45 minutes were a blur of chaos, tears, inadequate tissues. I was a mess, it all poured out of me uncontrollably.
By processing the situation and applying the schemas as a way to understand, it turned out that anger was the product, not the actual emotion. What I was really feeling was:
- hurt
- excluded
- isolated
- awkward
- left out
- treated like a child
- left behind
- overlooked
After an eternity of analysis and blubbering, Emma asked how I was feeling. All I could come up with was amazement that she found something in me that I could not. It was an 18 month grind, followed by a one hour session that changed everything.
Next came gratitude and hope. Gratitude for somehow finding my way to Emma, and hope that I can build tools to use when I go down darker paths again. Yes, that’s a when, not an if – I’m a realist.
Emma asked whether I can forgive myself, I said it’s unforgivable. She said that forgiving doesn’t mean you condone. So here is how I forgave myself:
I forgive myself because I know that I have been running my scripts from my schemas. I was not aware of the scripts and didn’t understand my pain. Given that, I can forgive what I did because I know where it came from, now I have more tools that I can use to make sure this doesn’t happen again.
Zebby, June 16, 2023
If there is a positive from my hospitalisation it’s that it set the stage for this session. Without it being so raw, I can’t be sure I could have had this breakthrough.
What You Should Do
Do Not Give Up, Ever
That is you number one priority, do not give up. You absolutely must find the right psychologist for you, if you don’t trust them, if you feel there’s something blocking you from being your full self, find someone else. You must bring everything you have, all the dirt, all the good, the bad and the indifferent.
Bring yourself
Put Everything On The Line
Show up willing to have the most uncomfortable conversations imaginable. Leave nothing out and nothing behind. It’s not the psychologists job to like you and it’s not your job to try to make them. Warts and all, give everything