I go to therapy

If you’ve been here two or three minutes, you’ve heard me talk about getting hit head-on in July 2018. It was the day I began to not recognize myself.

Together on the outside. Wreck on the inside.

Trauma can do some crazy stuff to a body and mind, and I was no exception. Before the wreck (My therapist doesn’t refer to it as an accident; she calls it a wreck. Some day we will explore that distinction.) I focused on what I was outwardly. I was a “good wife,” a good Christian girl. I was pretty calm, especially in an emergency. If you broke a limb, I was the person you wanted there. It was easy for me to see what needed to be done and to cut myself off from all emotion. I had decades of practice. I once broke my own foot in Ukraine and never fell apart, never cried, never asked for help. I actually walked around on it for ten days until I got home and went to an orthopedist. Pain? I got this. I can handle anything.

I was always busy taking care of everyone’s needs first. I didn’t allow myself to have needs because what if they caused an inconvenience for someone? I took care of everyone else because then I could make sure everyone was happy. It was my way of controlling the emotional temperature of my environment. It’s where my people-pleaser part was born.

Anger terrified me—any kind, any size, even minor frustration. I was like a human Zamboni, going through life smoothing the way for everyone else so nothing would upset anyone. God forbid anyone was less than perfectly satisfied.

I had a lot of issues long before my wreck six years ago, and while I would have told you I was fine (it’s fine everything is fine), deep down I was not. I was full of emotions I would not allow to come out and resentment that they were being repressed. Never mind that I was doing my own repressing—it was all a big jumbled up mess inside that kept my stress gauge close to the red zone most of the time. But it never showed on the outside.

Then came the wreck and the cork could not hold it in any longer. Somebody dropped a Mento in my personal Diet Coke and it all blew wide open. For two long years I tried everything anyone suggested and none of it helped even a little. I was wrecked and hopeless and just knew I would never be the same.

So when the lawyer handling my case told me I needed to go to therapy, the perfectionist part of me scoffed and rolled my eyes, but the deep-down suffering part of me wondered if I could finally get some relief.

So I go to therapy.

I don’t go because God can’t fix me. I don’t go because his Word is not effective. I don’t go because I don’t have enough faith or don’t read my Bible enough or I’m not godly enough. I don’t go because I’m weak or needy or dramatic.

I go to therapy because God opened a door and said, “Walk through it and I will walk with you.” I go because I tried all the other healing modalities and none of them helped. Do you know why? Because my problem was not spiritual and it was not because of the multiple concussions I’ve had that have gotten the blame every time.

I go because my problem is PTSD—an actual bona fide diagnosis—the result of one too many car accidents and other difficult events in my life. And PTSD is not healed by spiritual means. It’s not a spiritual problem.

PTSD is a nervous system problem. It’s physical. It’s the combination of the brain and nerves and muscle memory and our God-given fight-or-flight system. PTSD happens because of the way God created our bodies and minds to react when some terrifying event occurs. It is normal and natural and not a cause for shame.

So I go to therapy.

If I’d had PTSD in Freud’s day, he would have said my reactions had a sexual root. He thought everything did. Weirdo. I’m thankful to be living in the 2000s.

If I had cancer, I would go to the person—the oncologist—who knew everything humans can know about how to treat it. I would still pray, I would still ask God for a miracle, but I would trust him (God) to use the expert he placed in my path.

Without God being the giver of knowledge and understanding, my therapist wouldn’t be able to help me. But God HAS given knowledge about how our brains and bodies work and why PTSD happens, and a lot of this knowledge has come in the last 50 years. He’s given understanding and wisdom so people like me can the get help we need.

So I go to therapy.

But there’s more.

When I first started going to therapy, all I wanted was to be my old self. I wanted to be what I thought of as “normal” again. When my therapist asked, “What if you could be better?” I thought, “Yeah, yeah, just fix me.” I figured she would take a few sessions to wave her magic wand and all my troubles would disappear. But that’s not the way therapy works.

I’ve learned that there is much more to it than that. First, PTSD doesn’t get cured. It doesn’t go away. The effects last forever. The goal is for you to learn strategies that help you live with the effects in a way that is not disruptive to your life and relationships. You learn to regulate your nervous system instead of letting it dysregulate you. You learn to let it be in the car but not be the driver.

But there is also a lot of learning about my old habits, particularly my ways of relating to others. I’ve done a lot of growing, and so has Ben. Our relationship is much healthier now than it was even ten years ago, and that’s a direct result of me going to therapy. When I understand why I became a people pleaser and can see clearly how unhelpful it is, both to me and to those who are my victims, I can learn new ways of being that are healthier for both of us and more honoring to what God intends for marriage and friendships.

So I go to therapy.

I say often that therapy is the best and the hardest thing I’ve ever done. When all my bad habits are laid bare and I am confronted with either fixing them or continuing in my misery, I roger up and it is agonizingly hard work. Every day I catch myself doing something the old me would have done without even thinking about it, only now I recognize how unhealthy it is so I stop and force myself to make the new, healthy, but oh-so-difficult choice. It is daily learning to walk outside my comfort zone, but knowing God is beside me, cheering me on.

God does not send us into therapy rooms and wait at the door while we wrestle with deep, hurtful issues and terrifying memories on our own. He goes with us. He sits on the couch and is an active participant in our undoing and rebuilding. He is the foundation of it. Without the Lord being there with me, this would all be vanity. He was and still is the center of it all.

I’m not sure why we always think of Psalm 23 as the funeral psalm. It is full of life and helps me every day.

The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. He takes care of me and provides everything I need.

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He gives me rest and feeds me good things. 

He leadeth me beside the still waters. He gives me peace. 

He restoreth my soul. He gives me hope. 

He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. He doesn’t lead where I shouldn’t go but to places that will be good for me.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me. He is with me. 

Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. They are the tools of the Good Shepherd who never leaves me nor forsakes me.

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies . . . Often in therapy, my therapist invites me to imagine sitting at a table with Jesus, asking him to lead me in the right way.

Thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Therapy is a meeting of three: me, therapist, and Jesus. I leave full of him.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever. The end result of spending time with Jesus is always goodness and mercy.

I go to therapy because God said go and I became unwilling to let popular opinion get in the way. If you’re a scoffer, I understand. I used to be one too. But then God opened a door and said, “Enter, and I will go with you.”

God’s hands are not tied when you sit on a therapist’s couch any more than when you sit in the oncology unit of a major hospital. In everything we do, we need his blessing and his help.

So I go to therapy, and he goes with me.