Twice Bitten

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

It has been nearly two years since I last saw my therapist.

The why of this is difficult to explain. At our last meeting, I got angry. I got offended. I got defensive.

So, I walked out and decided to not go back.

What she had said to me was not true, I decided. Therefore I did not need to return.

Two years Later, I am returning to her office. Defeated. A little Ashamed. Changed and Unsure.

I hope I will be able to tell her that any hint of "I told You so" will be roundly smacked back.  I can not bear that. I can not bear being wrong when I have committed to something so fully. When I have set aside my perpetual cynicism and opened myself and believed, only to have it all fall down around me covering me in fine grey ash, I can not hear how I should have known better, should have listened, should have heeded.

All of these things I know.

I emerged into the world knowing these things. The machine of my lesson learning is well oiled and fine tuned.
I live in a place where the rock is ready to be rolled back up the hill and my refreshment is always just a little bit further....

Reality is not my downfall. Real things, real work, real sacrifice and struggle and discomfort remain my burlap lined silk. These things I know.

What I need are reminders of why I should bother with anything else.

Two nights ago I had a puzzling dream that left me sweaty and tangled in my sheets.

I was in a dorm room with two females I didn't know.  I still occasionally walk the halls in my dream universities, a strange mixture of places I have known and mixed up corridors.

There was some kind of interview being filmed with one of the other people in the room. I walked behind her and my hair caught in some cobwebs.  As I reached up to brush the cobweb away I received the first bite.

Knocking off what had bitten me, I saw it was a black widow spider. I felt the zing of outright terror - that body reaction to knowing that something you utterly fear is on your body. Has touched you. Has intimate knowledge of your skin.

The cameraman alerted me that there was a second spider just as the second bite came. It too was a black widow spider and I yelled at the camera man to kill it! Get It OFF of me! Just KILL it!

The adrenaline pumped through me. I was genuinely terrified. I had felt two bites. Spiders had been on my skin and tasted me.  I knew Black widow spiders could kill you, and I had two bites. I knew that antidote is not carried in every hospital.

That is when my mother appeared in my dreamscape. She told me I didn't have to go to the hospital, despite the swelling of my face. She told me that black widow spiders weren't really that dangerous and that I shouldn't worry.

Even then, even in the height of my panic knowing I had been bitten and that these were indeed poisonous spiders, I entertained her option. I wavered. I wanted to believe that they weren't poisonous, despite what rational ( and obviously watching far too many documentaries)  dream-thought told me. I wanted to believe that everything was all right, despite the poison swelling my face. I considered pretending everything was perfectly fine, despite the clear knowledge that these bites were going to kill me

That is when I woke up.

That afternoon, I called my therapist.

5 Baleful Regards:

RavenRead said...

I'm sorry now that I was so flip in my comment to your FB post about your dream.

I hope she is a therapist deserving of you and therefore avoids any hint whatsoever of told ya so.

Dawn said...

Oh NO Becky - one of my oldest friends! Your flip and funny comment was perfect.

And it was a strange fucking dream - taking place partly in the cabins of GORP.

I am still figuring out what it all means. I am just knitting all these pieces together and trying to figure it out.

No apologies needed, my dear

roo said...

I hope your therapist can help you figure out the things you're considering. And if she can't, or if she makes you feel bad about yourself, I hope you don't let her dissuade you from the process-- there are other therapists in the sea.

SUEB0B said...

I'm glad you recognize the need to take care of yourself.

Dawn said...

Thanks my dears. I am actually OK, really. Much better than even a couple of months ago.

The dream remains a puzzle. Other than my desire to believe non-truth as potentially true, because it is comforting.

Plus - as I have said before, it is when I resist therapy the most that I know I need it.

I've gotten my body healthy, now it is the minds turn.

 
◄Design by Pocket