question about the dread of going to the therapist

[Bertha Venation]

I guess I have a lot of lead-in to my question. I’ll try not to make this too long. I try not to do TL;DRs.

I'm 50 years old. I was 23 when I started the long road I’m on now. In therapy for a few weeks, I soon found myself in a psychiatric hospital for two months. Subsequent to that I was in therapy for thirteen years. Dr. Carol Brush saved my life (although she tells me “no, you did the work”). After that time I was without a therapist for several years, but it was ok. The work done with Carol changed my life so that I was no longer suicidal, no longer had anxiety attacks, quit looking over my shoulder, learned to cope readily with the crap that life offers. I was happy, genuinely happy. Not perfect, but happy. I knew how to cope and did it well.

Cut to a couple of years after I moved to Maryland. I started having overt emotional problems again. I got a referral to a good psychiatrist, who set me up on some meds and referred me to a good therapist, Jane. The meds started helping, but the therapy was having some disturbing effects. The therapist referred me to the psychiatrist she worked with closely, and I've been seeing that doctor ever since. She takes good care of me. I am now on a powerful cocktail of four psychiatric drugs. They work well, but the main side effects of taking in all of these chemicals every day are loss of short term memory and inability to concentrate. These are terrible side effects for me. They affect my work, and that’s not good. Yet the slightest tweaking can cause serious problems -- although a few months ago we were able to reduce the dosage of one by 1.5 mg. That was a small victory. But I fear I will be on these drugs forever, because of that slight tweaking problem. I worry about this, especially as I realize I’ll have to retire sometime, and there’s that god damned donut hole. . . .

My biggest problem right now is that, after years without seeing Jane (she does not take insurance and is not cheap), I was having enough minor breakdowns that Mrs. V. and I decided, damn the cost, I’d better get back into therapy. Well, therapy has me completely raw and completely vulnerable. It’s very painful and for the first few weeks I left her office feeling numb, then had to try very hard not to break down when I got home and was in a funk for a few days. That went on for a few weeks before we decided to ratchet back the intensity of the sessions, and now they’re much milder. But I still dread going; I get a mild anxiety attack on session day.

Does anyone have any advice that might help me get over my fear of going to see Jane? I dread it so that it is a heavy weight on my chest.

Thanks for reading.