What You See May Not Be What You Get

I see eyes and a mouth ready to eat me if I get too close.

That’s what I see as I sit in my therapist’s office waiting for my appointment. Maybe I watched too many cartoons as a child. I see the raised couch cushion forming an upper lip, while the frame underneath becomes the bottom of the mouth. And the tops of the sofa arms, become eyes.

But if I go over, all I will find is another place to sit.

I am surprised that I am back in my therapist’s office. Calling her office and making a new appointment was hard. Hard does not do it justice. I have been avoiding making an appointment for several months. Not because I feel I do not need talk therapy, but because depression was feeding me reasons why not going was better.

Depression loves it when I do not have anyone to talk to.

Depression will fill the void and inject all kinds of unhelpful thinking. It is the master of deceit and will share ideas with me that have no basis in truth. But that never stops depression from presenting those ideas in a way that makes them look legitimate. Depression presents or mentions these ideas like it is doing me a favor.

Having phone therapy sessions was a waste of time, depression told me because my therapist was working a crossword puzzle while I was talking on the phone.

Of course, that wasn’t true. And my therapist had a good laugh when I told her what I was thinking. As the pandemic continues, she has opened her office for those who prefer in person meetings. We both wore masks and were seated at a socially distant six plus feet. She did not take my temperature, but I would have passed.

I gave away several months of therapy because I saw the mouth, instead of the sofa.

Here’s where I could easily go into coulda, woulda, shoulda. But did I really waste those months, or was I working on other issues? Certainly, continuing my therapy session would have been helpful, but what did happen in that time frame was my medication was changed.

READ: I promise not to should on myself today

This has given me a new lease on life, being able to get up in the morning.

So much mental anguish and negotiating with myself about whether to or how to get out of bed. Having a new Psychiatrist look at my medication and offer alternatives gave me back my mornings. I was seeing the mouth ready to consume me if I arose. It never dawned on me that it was just a sofa. I knew for sure something was not right, but I assumed it must be me.

I couldn’t see what was really going on because it was really going on with me.

So, I am back in weekly therapy. The session is in person, masked, at a social distance. Yesterday’s session gave me many new insights. I had made a list to catch up my therapist and was able to share my feeling about many of the things on the list.

Just before the session ended, she made an observation about my life that I am still thinking about.

I expect once I look at it closer, I will be writing my thoughts and possibly my feelings about this. She suggested a label for my years of behavior.  And when she said it, all I could see was the mouth that was going to consume me. There was no sense that this was just a sofa to sit on.

For today, I am glad that I was able to make the call and get back into therapy.