First meeting

I had an appointment on Thursday evening with my new psychologist, Megan. I wasn't sure if I'd be okay talking with her about my phobia. I don't even like saying the word. Right away she set me at ease. Her smile is warm, her office is cozy. She uses an iPad, and that made me like her even more. She is from Nova Scotia, too. A Maritimer. We all know Maritimers are good people. ;)

Megan said something that made me know that she knew what she was doing. She referred to my phobic object as a phobic object. She didn't say the word. The word is hard enough for me to hear. I thought, "she's good." I told her a bit about my background - living in Sydney near the tar ponds meant I had far too much contact with them. I told her how I'd been away from them for years, and that I thought I was now more scared than ever.

Megan told me about a client who had a phobia of crossing the street. It was very difficult for this client to even make it to their first session, but now this person crosses streets, drives a car, and even travels for work driving rental cars in unfamiliar areas. Impressive. So, how are we going to do this? Hypnosis? Sign me up!

She then told me of her plan. It wasn't hypnosis. It was something called Graduated Exposure Therapy. Oh SHIT. I know what that means! I can't do this. I can't do this! I can't do this!

But guess what? I CAN do this. My daughter, who is one of the greatest people I know, loves going to Canada's Wonderland. We used to go sometimes, until a friend told me that she used to work there and she remembers seeing snake skins when cleaning the park at night. "Snake skins?" I asked. "Yep," she said, "they eat the rodents." I haven't taken her back. And what about that trip to NY we've been wanting to take? What's stopping me? Rodents. And camping; my partner loves to camp. I can't go because of the damn rodents. I have nothing to lose and so much to gain. I need to do this. I can do this. I CAN DO THIS.

Megan explained that we'll be taking a ten step approach. We'll be coming up with the steps together. She asked me if seeing the word and saying the word causes the same fearful response. I explained that saying the word is harder. So we now have the first two steps:

Step 1: See the name
Step 2: Say the name

Guess what step 10 will be? Holding one. She kept telling me to relax my shoulders; they were up near the top of my head apparently. OMG. So scary. So at my next appointment we will start step 1. She gave me a brief rundown of what it will look like. Apparently, I'll be posting the words around me. I'll make them my own. Glitter, cool font, colors, whatever.

January 9, 2013 is the start of step 1 for me. I'm scared, but sort of excited to see what happens. She told me that when I'm ready to move on to a new step it's not like I'll be going from step 1 to step 2. She said that step 1 will be so irrelevant that step 2 becomes the new step 1. I asked what happens if it doesn't become irrelevant. She said that could be for one of three reasons:

1. I'm not doing my homework (not going to happen, as I've said, I have nothing to lose and everything to gain)
2. There is some sort of benefit to me holding on to the fear
3. I've suppressed something, in which case she'll use hypnosis to see what it is.

So that's it. I'm excited for my next appointment. I want to start step 1 now, but I know there's a method to her madness so I will wait until she gives me the green light.