Magic Words

One of the things that have been contributing to my good mood this year is my visits with the psychotherapist.  Every time I type the psycho part I feel weird because it has such a stigma to it but this is me being real…

I was so frustrated when I last mentioned my sessions but things have gotten so much better.  The lady I ended up seeing put me off a bit in the beginning but after seeing her a few times I have grown to really like her.   She’s even seen Xander and I together once, which was great because she helped him to understand where a lot of my pain and frustration has come from over the years.   I guess the same as I craved someone uninvolved to talk to, it took someone uninvolved to help him see the things I couldn’t.   I could say something 100 times and it doesn’t go through, she says it once and he totally gets it, go figure.

After coming back from Canada I had an appointment with her.  We talked a lot about my feelings about this country and about back home.   How visiting home after so many years away has helped me have a more realistic view of my two homes, rather than a pessimistic one about Holland and an overly romanticized one of life in Canada.   We also spoke about how much better I have been feeling since we started talking, and especially since the sessions together with Xander.   Having someone else give him their views of certain aspects of his behavior and how it has affected me helped me so much and has freed me of a lot of frustration.   She also helped me to understand that it was difficult for him too, which I always knew but I think didn’t truly get the extent of it. 

She asked me where I thought I fit in terms of depression, and I honestly wasn’t sure.   Before moving here I was always a drama queen but rarely ever totally depressed for no reason.   So it was hard for me to understand why I had such a hard time coping here.   When I saw my doctor I was told I was depressed and put on medication but without anyone to talk to, how could anything really have gotten any better when my mind was such a mess?

I told her that all I wanted all this time was someone to talk to, to let it all out and be honest with who wouldn’t judge and could help me make sense of things I have been struggling with.   After all the years I’ve been here and the things that have happened, whether it was my homesickness, issues with my husband’s family, problems finding a job I like and keeping it, or culture shock … trying to sort through it all on my own was impossible.   Sure, I have my parents and my husband but often in situations like mine they are helpless.   All they can do is try to be supportive, but the problem is that when you feel like I have, you don’t want to tell them everything you are feeling because they love you and when you hurt, they hurt with you.

That’s what felt so good about really being able to talk to this therapist.   I could tell her everything honestly, the things I’d never tell my friends or family.   My deepest thoughts, biggest worries, and most painful regrets without skipping the embarrassing bits or trying not to be too shocking or disappointing, like I might with people I’m close to.    I could talk about the good parts of my life and the bad, and be honest about some of the shameful things I’ve done or thought in my life.   I really needed that. 

I also figured that the better she knew me, even the really shitty stuff, the better equipped she would be to give me an honest answer about what was wrong with me.   Whether I’m a complete nutcase or if my depression and confusion was just a result of some bad decisions on mine and my husband’s part, some nasty treatment from people I’ve encountered since I’ve been here, and a lack of family and support system nearby.   I needed her to tell me this because I didn’t know anymore.   I think after so long, when all these things keep going wrong in your life, whether it’s through faults of your own or not, if you have people telling you that you are a bad person or that there is something wrong with you… after a while you start believing it.

When I told her how I felt, and that one of the people I’d seen in my road to her told me that she thought I had a personality disorder, she laughed so hard and loud that Xander told me later when I came out that he could hear her in the waiting room.   Mind you, I’d only seen that woman for less than an hour and she wasn’t even a psychologist, which makes me wonder who she was to be throwing statements like that around to people who are somewhat mentally fragile at the time.   

She told me that I certainly do not have a personality disorder and don’t show any signs of it whatsoever, which pleased me because as I said to her, I don’t have a fuckin’ clue what a personality disorder is… all I know is I don’t want to have one!

That’s when I heard the magic words.   She called me normal.  I know it probably sounds weird for someone to be so happy about something like that but it was like music to my ears.   It’s been so long since anyone has said something like that to me, and so long since I’ve felt it at all.   It seems like these last few years I’ve been told that I have mental problems so much that I just started believing it, even though I’d never really spoken to anyone qualified to say so.  

She said that in her opinion I’m someone who was young and impulsively jumped into a difficult situation where my only support system was someone who was also young and as overwhelmed as I was.   That the culture shock, loneliness, poor treatment by the doctors, and the lack of support or empathy from people I looked to for it would lead most any sane person to think they were insane too.  Especially after almost ten years when the worse you felt the more people held it against you.  A vicious circle…

It was such a relief.   Not that I thought I was Schizophrenic or anything, but for someone who really knows about these things to tell me that while I may be a bit of a drama queen (yes, understatement, I know), my reactions to the events in my life over the last eight years are totally normal… well, it felt good and was like an enormous weight lifted off my shoulders.    I guess, like what happened with Xander when he visited her with me, people I love could tell me things like ‘It’s not your fault’ a hundred times and it wouldn’t sink in, but she told me once and it did.   I guess because I don’t think ‘she loves me, she has to say that… ‘

So, the plan is for me to visit my doctor and get off the anti-depressants because god help me, I’m not living with the side effects any longer if they aren’t totally necessary.   In the meantime I am going to continue visiting the therapist so she can see how it goes… then we’ll wean that off as well and my life will be mine again.   Free of fears and guilt, and no longer cowering in shadows people who’s opinions don’t really matter.   

I’m not saying everything will magically change overnight, but I feel differently than I have in a long time.  Stronger, more hopeful…?  I’m not sure what it is but it makes me look forward to, rather than question, my future here in this crazy country with my Dutchie.