After a few months of therapy, something I had refused to think about suddenly refused to stay buried. I agonized over whether or not to tell Randy, my therapist. I even went so far as to tell him, "There is something I haven't told you and I'm afraid to tell."
Before that, my family of origin was off limits in therapy, except when I would describe how supposedly incredibly wonderful my brother Damien was. If Randy probed for the slightest detail of my growing up years, I grew angry and clammed up. Anything before the year I'd been raped was not up for discussion.
Needless to say, this was a major red flag.
Finally the burden of my secret grew too much for me. This is what I wrote to my support group for sexual trauma survivors. I couldn't even bring myself to mention what my secret was:
Last Friday morning, I somehow got up my nerve to tell my therapist what I think is my deepest darkest secret -- something I had so successfully buried that I hadn't even thought about it in many years, until recently. I was torn about telling, because I was convinced I was so "over" this thing, that it didn't impact my life today, etc., etc., But then I started wondering why, if I was so untouched by it, did I keep questioning as to whether I should tell, and why did I keep coming up with millions of reasons not to tell?
The only other person I'd ever told had been Dr. X, a therapist I saw briefly during college. We had been going around in circles during therapy. I wanted to talk about inconsequential things and she wanted, I suppose, to do something therapy-like. So I thought, aren't you supposed to tell your deepest darkest secrets in therapy? Before that session, I walked endlessly around campus, getting up my nerve. I may have even smoked a cigarette. Then I walked in, told her, made excuses, and walked out, never to return.
I told Randy, my therapist, that I was afraid I might do the same thing again.
Before Friday's session, I had tried to write it out in my journal. But all I kept doing is writing the prefacing remarks over and over again until they started sounding more and more polished and semi-eloquent. On Friday, I read them out loud. Got almost to the end of what I'd written and couldn't say the last few sentences. Randy assured me that he wanted to hear it, but didn't want to coerce me. Didn't want me to leave, either.
So I read the last little bit -- that only vaguely hinted at my secret -- and then I said, "That's all I could write." Suddenly even that had seemed way too much, and I put my arms on my raised knees, and buried my face in my arms.
Randy asked if he could ask me a question. He then guessed correctly at my secret. Pretty much the way we handled the telling part is that he kept asking questions and I answered them, with my face buried the entire time. Sometimes we would stop and he would ask how/what I was feeling, and he would reassure me. At one point he asked why I was hiding and I said, "I just can't look at you." But that wasn't all of it. I didn't want him looking at me either.
Towards the end, I felt much safer and was able to lift up my head. By the end of the session, I felt relieved that I had told.
As I left, I thought that if I was going to pick the perfect way for my therapist to react -- well, that's exactly how he reacted. I really thought it would not be some sort of nightmare to face him again. I felt drained, mostly relieved, and surreal.
Then, a few hours later, seemingly out of the blue, all that relief disappeard and panic washed over me. I felt like I could barely breathe, like my pounding heart was going to burst out of my chest.
It hit me: I told. Randy knows. Sure, he was all wonderful and everything, but there was no way I could ever face him again. Telling was a big mistake.
I felt overcome with guilt. My secret involves someone else, and I didn't have their permission to tell. I felt that I'd betrayed them.
Randy called on my cell phone, while I was driving down the freeway, to see how I was doing. I told him how much I now regretted telling. Told him I wasn't sure if I could ever come back. But I did promise that I wouldn't just disappear; I'd let him know what I decided. He, of course, kept telling me that I'd done the right thing in telling. I kept thinking, how therapish of him...
Since then, I've felt so confused and torn. One minute I will decide never to return to therapy with Randy again. Then I'll decide to return if he agrees to pretend Friday's session never happened. An hour later, I'll decide that we need to look at why I am so distressed over this. Then I'll decide to cancel my next appointment (on Wednesday) just so that I can have more time to sort through what I want to do.
I keep waking in the night, and the realization that I told hits me like a club.
I've told Randy some things that were really hard to admit, very painful...but I've never regretted telling him anything until now.
This hurts. And it's so confusing. And I don't know what to do.
