This is well worth $2 a minute...
Holy hell, exposure therapy is intense. I'm still recovering from the panic attack it gave me just an hour ago.
I knew it would be like this, but wow...I mean, he had me imagining this scene where there was a fire downstairs that crept up into the apartment and by the end my cats were under the bed (which was in flames) and I couldn't get to them. Next thing I know he has Kenendy running out from the bed crying and ON FIRE, and then Juliette too; Goku was just trapped and burning/crying. He had everything in the apartment on fire, me yelling at myself for being such an awful person to let them burn then had me have to leave them as they were in flames, dying and crying out in pain. Then of course he has me call my parents who he has screaming at me (dad) and make it all about themselves (mom) to try to get something to click inside my head, some connection, but it didn't quite get there. We did find the high anxiety points to focus on next time to make it even worse though, as crazy as that seems.
The idea is that my anxiety level will get so high that it breaks. I'm not explaining that very well, but there's a whole lot involved that I don't feel like getting into. He asked me once in a while to stop and pay attention to how I was feeling so my anxiety would intensify or would ask me "what would your father say next?" or "what would you say to him if he said that [you are a worthless loser, I can't believe that you let your apartment burn down and that you killed your cats] to you?" to see if anything would come out. I almost cried a couple times, especially when I couldn't get the cats and when my dad was screaming at me, but I couldn't cry...I still can't let him (my dad) win.
The hang ups I had that hindered me from being really in the imagery were the little details that he didn't have right about the apartment (i.e. the smoke wouldn't first come under the door if it was from the apartment below us as he described) and I kept wanting to "act" a lot quicker in the imagery, I wouldn't have reacted so slowly. I'm terribly picky like that. I hope it doesn't interfere too much.
I simply can't WAIT until the next session.
I knew it would be like this, but wow...I mean, he had me imagining this scene where there was a fire downstairs that crept up into the apartment and by the end my cats were under the bed (which was in flames) and I couldn't get to them. Next thing I know he has Kenendy running out from the bed crying and ON FIRE, and then Juliette too; Goku was just trapped and burning/crying. He had everything in the apartment on fire, me yelling at myself for being such an awful person to let them burn then had me have to leave them as they were in flames, dying and crying out in pain. Then of course he has me call my parents who he has screaming at me (dad) and make it all about themselves (mom) to try to get something to click inside my head, some connection, but it didn't quite get there. We did find the high anxiety points to focus on next time to make it even worse though, as crazy as that seems.
The idea is that my anxiety level will get so high that it breaks. I'm not explaining that very well, but there's a whole lot involved that I don't feel like getting into. He asked me once in a while to stop and pay attention to how I was feeling so my anxiety would intensify or would ask me "what would your father say next?" or "what would you say to him if he said that [you are a worthless loser, I can't believe that you let your apartment burn down and that you killed your cats] to you?" to see if anything would come out. I almost cried a couple times, especially when I couldn't get the cats and when my dad was screaming at me, but I couldn't cry...I still can't let him (my dad) win.
The hang ups I had that hindered me from being really in the imagery were the little details that he didn't have right about the apartment (i.e. the smoke wouldn't first come under the door if it was from the apartment below us as he described) and I kept wanting to "act" a lot quicker in the imagery, I wouldn't have reacted so slowly. I'm terribly picky like that. I hope it doesn't interfere too much.
I simply can't WAIT until the next session.