Please note: For what they are worth, these comments represent Debbie’s opinions and perceptions based upon her own experiences and must be understood as such. Thank you.

Here is a beautiful therapy success story that was told to a therapist today:

“I grew up in a bubble of trauma.  It started when I was a child and continued as I became an adult.

“Last week, however, somehow I stepped outside the bubble and was able to turn around and look back at it.  I noticed that all my life I had been aware of the hurts and pains, and I had wanted things to be different.  But they never were. My mother never gave me the love I needed; my husband never understood what would make me happy. I wanted to be nurtured in a way that really met me where I was; but no one ever could do it.  I knew I was wounded, but I never found a way to heal.  I kept expecting my husband to be different than the way he had been in the past, my mom to be different, my son to be different. But they never were.

“Then I stepped out of the bubble of my past. It closed behind me and I was free from those people and those experiences. I was no longer owned by their ideas of me. They were wrong. It was not who I am.   I have nothing to do with how they think of me.  I became aware of the triggers of my trauma. But I knew that it was not about me at all.

“Thus, I busted loose from the bubble. I could hear what was being said about me without the filters of my own wounds.  It felt like a burden dropped from my shoulders. I had been attacked by my own thoughts, not by what they said.  And I was no longer afraid. I didn’t do anything to make the fear go away; it just left by itself.

“Now, when my husband does something inconsiderate, I can say, “That hurt my feelings. It makes me feel unprotected and unloved.”  I give no lecture.  I do not ask why.  I just express how I feel. My attitude is different.  I realize that I can take what he says any way I want to.  I can just laugh at it if I want. I have control.

“I am different now. No more self-pity.  Writing helps with this.  I am now in touch with what I want and what I need.  I can let others be who they are so I can be who I am.  In the past I had always felt that I had to be a part of something or someone else, not an individual me. I had to be a wife, a mother, a friend, a cousin.  Now there is a me that is separate from others.  I have had a change in attitude.  It is ok to walk alone.  It is not ok to have an attitude.  I have changed and now look at the world differently. I am more aware that I am establishing a self.

“In some ways I am sad. My mother lived her whole life and never got the help she needed.  She stayed in her bubble.  I have left the bubble behind.  I can still remember it, of course. But now it affects me differently.  I still have the memories, but without the pain. (I thank EMDR for this!)  And the anger is gone, too.  I did my therapy homework, and it has made the difference.  My husband still raises the triggers, but I do not feel them.  I knock heads with my kids, but now I have a different response. I hope my daughter can get the help she needs and not have to go for years with her untreated trauma.“I am an individual now; I no longer (have to/want to) fix everything.  I just work on fixing me.

“And I feel so powerful! Not just empowered, but, really, self-powered.  I can do anything I want to do now.  Life was horrible and now it’s not.

“I can even forgive myself for not protecting the kids from their father.  I didn’t know that what he was doing was abuse.  I did the best I could at the time.  That was all I could have done back then. Now I know more.

“I am free at last.”

…dhc

Please note: For what they are worth, these comments represent Debbie’s opinions and perceptions based upon her own experiences and must be understood as such. Thank you…

… or

What do you want to be when you grow up?

This has always been an interesting question for me.  And it is one I like to pose to my clients.  (Especially interesting, perhaps, in that I treat only adults.)

But people who come to see me generally want to change something in their lives.  So here is a fable, authored by George Reavis in the 1940’s.  It gives me a way of looking at individuals as I try to help them figure out what to do with their G-d given strengths.  See what you think of the message.

The Fable of the Animal School…

Once upon a time, the animals decided they must do something heroic to meet the problems of a “new world” so they organized a school.

They had adopted an activity curriculum consisting of running, climbing, swimming and flying.   To make it easier to administer the curriculum, all the animals took all the subjects. 

The duck was excellent in swimming. In fact, better than his instructor. But he made only passing grades in flying and was very poor in running. Since he was slow in running, he had to stay after school and also drop swimming in order to practice running. This was kept up until his webbed feet were badly worn and he was only average in swimming.

But average was acceptable in school so nobody worried about that, except the duck. 

The rabbit started at the top of the class in running but had a nervous breakdown because of so much makeup work in swimming. 

The squirrel was excellent in climbing until he developed frustration in the flying class where his teacher made him start from the ground up instead of the treetop down. He also developed a “Charlie horse” from overexertion and then got a C in climbing and D in running.

The eagle was a problem child and was disciplined severely. In the climbing class, he beat all the others to the top of the tree but insisted on using his own way to get there. 

At the end of the year, an abnormal eel that could swim exceedingly well and also run, climb and fly a little had the highest average and was valedictorian. 

The prairie dogs stayed out of school and fought the tax levy because the administration would not add digging and burrowing to the curriculum. They apprenticed their children to a badger and later joined the groundhogs and gophers to start a successful private school.

I strongly believe in working with an individual’s strengths.  Our strengths are what help us achieve success in anything we want to do.

Let me know if you’d like to chat about this….dhc

Please note: For what they are worth, these comments represent Debbie’s opinions and perceptions based upon her own experiences and must be understood as such. Thank you…

So, what is all this telemedicine stuff, anyway?  I get asked this question a lot… So I thought it might be good to share my views on the subject….

Telemedicine (ehealth, internet counseling, distance counseling, remote visits, etc.) is a fairly new way to use electronic systems like computers to have a one-to-one visit with your healthcare provider.

In my case, it is a way for me to have a counseling session with you over the internet.  You can be snug and warm at home in a room where no one can overhear you, and you can log into an internet site with your computer, tablet or smart phone.  I do the same thing, and we can see and hear each other in “real time.”  It is very similar to what you might know as Skyping or Face timing, but it is done through a HIPAA-compliant system so that no one can overhear what you and I are saying to each other.

I have been performing ehealth with clients for several years now and find it to be a useful therapeutic tool. The client does not need to leave home and travel to my office. I do not need to confirm that they are safely driving or not running into other problems along the way.  I find that I can understand what they say and can help them sort out their issues just as if we were face-to-face in my office. And I have discovered that I can use all sorts of methods, including EMDR, EFT, somatic techniques and so on, even though we are far apart.

And guess what?  Health insurance pays for the service just as if we were face to face. How’s that for being in the modern age?

Of course, there are a few hoops you have to jump through. For example, there are special permission slips you must sign, and I must make sure that I am licensed in the state where you are. If you are a Medicare Part B recipient, you must (in most circumstances) be speaking from a building that is certified to accept Medicare (like my office or a hospital or clinic). But aside from that, the process is pretty easy.  Most all the other insurance companies, including Medicare Advantage programs, let you do it from home.

I think this is a development with great potential. For example, if it snows on the day of your appointment, no problem. If you can’t get off work for the travel time and office time to come to an in-person session, you may be able to walk down to the parking lot and use your smartphone from your car. If you live way off in the mountains up a dirt road or down a canyon, you can still get counseling… If you have a bad cold and do not want others to catch it, if your anxiety is so bad that you are afraid to leave home, no problem…. See what I mean?

More and more of us in the counseling business see this as a way to reach out to folks who couldn’t get into our offices before.  Some of my internet clients come to my office on alternate weeks. The opposite weeks we meet on the internet.

So let me know if this is something that might interest you ….dhc