Or not.

It was a hard, hard session that ran for 70 minutes.  That happens only when it is INTENSE.  And this is when he came in mainly to see me while still feeling bad.  I feel bad because I don't think he realized this was an additional appointment and wouldn't mean another missed week.  And I did not exactly go with the less intense approach.  But I did what had to be started so that I can start finding ways to not freak out. Apparently I'm not the only one who worries about what happens when I miss so much, and he is also going to be away next week although I will still get in to see him.  I really should try to get an extra session early the next week too so that I don't go more than a week for a while now.  Extra sessions are just hard now because of the distance.  However, I've now gotten us into deep waters so I probably will need the help for a bit.

Today was spent on dealing with covering my face.  It's not easy.  There are way too many memories that come back and not ones that I feel empowered by.  There are more bad memories than I want to consider.  Dr. Mind seems to think I will be most successful if I can learn to cover it with my own hand.  He says that I do so sometimes when thinking, even did so today.  However, I do not know that the loose cover he sees will block enough cold air.  On the other hand I will fully admit that he is correct and that this issue seems so huge to me right now that it's all or nothing and that I'm frustrated enough to be having a hard time seeing that there is potential to succeed.  I honestly think that it takes a decent amount of that to ask for help in coping with it, but I also see his point.  I'm scared of everything except not covering my face and to do that means damaging my lungs.  Dealing with traumatic memories seems better than permanent lung damage.  Apparently this is an understandable issue but what I left realizing is that I need someone telling me that I just have to do it.  Which is what he is good at and where he did end up.  Once I tell him that I need him to be firm he'll probably enjoy doing so.  We did determine that I simply have a great dislike of anything remotely like being held down or restrained in any way.  I even realized while talking that while I was in the hospital and had what I now call The Great Freak-Out where I cried for hours before seeking help and barely kept myself together enough to function I partially kept the control I did because I was aware that if I lost it too much that I'd be subjected to the restraints I had signed an agreement to be used, and moved to the general unit probably more restrained that I care to consider.  And as out of control as I was then to have any reasoning meant that I'm pretty terrified of that thing.

I made one error.  I've made this before and I know why he always feels he needs to be sure I know it's never, ever going to happen.  I used him as an example, as in "well, if you touch my face I'll bite you".  He knows obviously that I'm not going to attack him.  I also know he is not going to touch me.  In almost 6 years he has touched me once, and since I was shocked at the time I remembered but did not freak out, which also made me remember.  (It also makes me remember this time when DON'T TOUCH ME was a deadly serious rule and I (one of a very few times) started crying with Dr. Mind #1 (yes, this one is the 2nd.  They are so alike they should have the same name and this is why they are the only effective psychologists I've had.)  Anyway, he did not have tissues near me and couldn't very well reach out to me to give me the box.  So in the most convoluted move I have ever seen anyone make without falling or knocking something over he reached for the tissues kind of sideways, then somehow arched his arm clear around a large lamp to the other side of the table and pushed the tissues up to me on my side of the little stand between us.  He must have reached 6 feet to avoid reaching 2 feet toward me because I was so afraid.  It was truly impressive.)   Anyway, whenever I say something like that he must think I am slightly afraid he will go after me sometime, even though I truly am not. So he made sure to reassure me that he won't ever purposefully touch or grab me unless I would be completely out of contro and in danger of hurting myself or him in ways I don't act at my worst and he would have no choice and nobody sees that happening unless I stop all meds or something equally dumb.  (my words, not his).  So we had that conversation again.

I just don't know how to do this.  I guess it's good I don't need to know.