The final straw

I was sick with a cold for nearly 2 weeks. It wouldn’t have been all that bad if I just could have slept! But it is hard to sleep when you can’t breathe. Every day I would wake up hoping that today was the day I would finally feel better. I was supposed to have a meeting with my counselor last Monday, but when I ended up not sleeping well Sunday night I gave her a call and left a message hoping that we could reschedule. When she finally called back she was like “What’s going on?” I told her and she asked “So there is no way you can come in? Being that this is late notice?” Sorry, my cold didn’t give me enough of a notice for you….

After I told her I could make it happen if I HAD to, she said we could just reschedule (flaky, eh?). The rescheduled appointment was yesterday. She seemed in a bad mood since she answered the door, telling me that I can just come in after ringing the bell (My bad for using manners to wait for someone to answer their own door at their home) and then when I went to shut the door she told me to leave it, so the next person knows to just come in. It doesn’t sound that bad in writing, but she did not say any of this in a very nice tone. Okay, whatever, we all have bad days.

For the past week or so I was afraid that DH would not follow through on his month of planning a date, at which time I would schedule us with a marriage counselor. Well, he did follow through, he asked my sister to watch Little Bach and he made dinner reservations to a place he knew I had been wanting to go for a while now. I was really excited about it. Of course I still ended up feeling like crap that day, but we still went out and had a good time experiencing fondue for the first time together.

I told (We will call her Mrs. B) that he came through on date night. She asked what we did and I told her we went to dinner.

Mrs. B “What else?”

Me “That was it. He asked me what I wanted to do after we left there, but I was still sick and couldn’t even stay awake, I just wanted to go to sleep”

Mrs. B “So he didn’t plan anything else?”

Me “No”

Mrs. B “So he STILL doesn’t understand what you want?”

And then it got into her saying that because he asked me what I wanted to do after, that he didn’t do what I wanted him to do. I told her I was happy just to go to dinner! And he booked it all and set it up at a place that he knew I wanted to try for a while. And she was just really trying to get me to be mad about it!! “But… he still didn’t know what you wanted to do after. He still asked you and wanted you to figure it out.”

I was seriously picturing in my head leaping across the room to choke a bitch. I was SO MAD.

I defended him saying that of course he asked me what I wanted to do, he knew I had been sick for over a week and it is not just perfectly fine, but also perfectly logical for him to ask me what I want to do in that situation so he can learn what I was up for in my condition. (Which turned out to be nothing. Going home and sleeping).

She did not like that answer. I am getting fuzzy on the details of the conversation by now because I am just so mad. But she seriously kept trying to convince me that I didn’t get what I wanted and that I should be upset about it. “But don’t you think that he … didn’t do… blah blah blah”

Finally after our arguing she said “So you are okay with it?” In a tone that suggested she thinks I shouldn’t be (which was obvious). I told her “Yes.” And she just stared at me (mean look on her face). And finally said “K.” pause as she looks at her notes and then said “What else then?”

I was so mad at this point (10 minutes in) that I wanted to just leave.

I know that no one else was there and couldn’t back this stuff up. But just based on her words alone. Does this seem like a legit reason to get mad and be done? I am on my period, so maybe I’m just over-reacting.

I had other things I had written down to talk about regarding my husband, but at that point I had NO intention of sharing those. I really felt like she was villain-izing my husband.

I had to fill the remaining time with something. So I brought up one of the biggest issues for me, being my anxiety, and how it keeps me up at night some times, when DS doesn’t get up and cry at night I get worried something is wrong, I get up, check the monitor, sometimes I even go into his room to make sure he is okay. This is ridiculous, and I can’t keep doing this, I recognize that. Her response: “You have to stop.” Ummmm Thanks Lady… “How?” she told me “You just have to discipline yourself to stop”

But she didn’t stop there she went on to tell me how my anxiety could affect my son, which I realize is something that could happen and is an okay thing to tell someone on its own. But she described this at length. “He will see you scared, and then he will be scared and will grow up being scared of things that aren’t scary, and then you will have to console him and then what will you say to him?”

So here I am pissed that I have to defend my husband after making what I think is great progress (and isn’t this whole therapy thing about me and my feelings?) and now ready to cry because I feel like an awful mother. I really did, she gave me no help in how to stop my anxious feelings but proceeded to tell me the terrible things that could happen if I don’t. Well as you ladies with anxiety know, telling an anxiety riddled person about all of the things that can go wrong is NOT going to help ANYONE!

The most advice she gave me during this session: say to yourself “I’m calm, I’m relaxed”

That’s it.

Never even brought up the perfectionist thing from the previous appointment. Didn’t have the info on it she was going to give me. Nothing.

 

Am I overreacting? Either way, I’m done with this B.