Wow. It's been a while. And how my life has changed. Particularly in the past... well, since March 2020, which most will immediately associate with the COVID 19 pandemic that shut the world down for... a while.
I'm still living here in heaven, a tiny spot on the North Olympic Peninsula. The town itself has changed too, as towns do and must. I've had a nearly complete rotation of beloved pets too - two lost to cancer in 2017, another to advanced dementia in 2019. All those losses massive, painful, memorable. I still have three dogs and a cat - just two of the original 3/1 remain. Gracie died in January 2017, Tucker at the end of that summer. Gizzy joined the pack in late 2017, basically as a rescue hospice case with 'maybe 2 months' bur gave me 2 years of laughter and joy before sliding into dementia that did not let her sleep. I let her go in December 2019, in my arms and finally at peace. We think she was about 15. By then, Sadie had joined the pack as a senior rescue (about 8), and after Giz left, I waiting, searching for a rescue that would need us as much as we needed hir. That was Ohana, who came to us the Saturday before Covid shut things down on Monday, mid-March 2020. I still miss all who have gone ahead, and remembering them brings tears and smiles. I've been so blessed with my pups.
I'm still doing my radio gig, which is both nice and irritating. I was yanked out of my lovely time slot and dumped into Sunday afternoons and the sense of grievance has been strong enough to taint my time there ever since. I'd been really active there, giving time, effort, volunteering on other projects for them. The sense of having been done wrong was astonishing. But real enough for me to stop all those other things I was doing for them, and to limit my contributions to the single day of the week. Tellingly, nobody's noticed.
About November 2020, I was struggling with depression again and needed to get my meds re-assessed and tweaked. That began a frustratingly long process through the American mental health care insurance system. I'd call it a medical system, but it seems more structures by the insurance companies than medical anything. First I had to go to my medical doctor, who had to refer me to the behaviorial health people, who were the only ones who could give me the referral to the psychologist who could evaluate the meds and make recommendations. and because of the pandemic, each of those were over booked and over extended. and before BH could refer me on to the meds shrink, they were required to 'give' me x sessions of counseling. I told BH going in: "I've been in CBT therapy for more than 20 years." She nodded, and I swear it was like doing high school psych 001. To get to the shrink for meds eval, I had to do something like 6 sessions with BH. Each session was 30 minutes, and those were 2 weeks apart. That's 12 weeks of waiting, adn after that it was another month before I got to see the shrink. Those 12 weeks were me sliding further and further down the steep slope into depression, but totally required in order for the practice to be able to be paid. I finally got to the shrink, who asked me routine intake questions, starting with "have you ever been diagnosed?" All of which was in my record, but he had to verify and ask again. At least a dozen of the questions were focused on suicidal ideation - I finally said "I know you have to ask those questions, and you're good at rephrasing it in so many ways, but the answer will always be NO." "Sorry," he said. "I have to ask for the insurance." At the beginning, I told him I'd been diagnosed as chronic depressive in 1995, and PTSD in 2015. An hour later, a hundred questions later, he revealed his own diagnosis: chronic depression and PTSD. So now we're end of January 2021, and he's agreed that my meds need to be re-assessed, and gives the required referral to a therapist.
Somehow, by the weirdness of the universe and the luck of the cosmos, I landed on a name in a nearby town. Didn't really know what I was doing, or looking for (the clinic said I could pick my own, so it was basically me going through the internet list of providers in my area), just that I'd had CBT and it hadn't done much but maybe they'd be able to help me find the right person? Dear heavens, the goddesses were with me, because the person that responded was the exact right person for me.
So since late April 2021, I've been seeing Phoebe (not her real name). (I'll call her Feebs.) At our first meeting, we did the intake stuff and I realized I was really comfortable with her. I just skipped all the fencing around, flat out told her what I'd already done in the way of therapy, wasn't a novice and was rather desperate for help. Wide open honesty - it startled her that I was so a) desperate and b) willing to answer anything. At the end of the session, she said "I think you might be a good candidate for EMDR." Life changing words, those.
I'll do a post later about EMDR. But for now, I just want to say that it has changed my life in dramatic ways. Twenty plus years of CBT gave me lots of coping mechanisms, helped me get through hellish events and periods. Never touched the root causes of anything. Never went near 'em. Twenty plus sessions of EMDR have dramatically changed my life, detoxified and unlocked many/most of the base traumas that shaped the past 50 years of my life.
Now, looking back at my retirement life, I see things that I didn't before. I've found new friendships, developed new relationships and withdrawn from others. I truly suffered through the years of Trump, and fear for the survival of my country and my planet. But the way I think and act now is entirely different from the way I did in March 2020. That big of a change that fast - and to be consciously aware of the change, and appreciative of it - AMAZING.
No comments:
Post a Comment