TheBanyanTree: Previously published in IDMH Recovery Times Summer 2015

[David]

My First Therapist

I’ve always considered the talented cartoonist Charles Schulz to be my 
first therapist. My childhood was dysfunctional and abusive. I doubt 
that I have to explain that fifty years ago professional intervention 
was not an option in my situation. But the Peanuts gang was readily 
available and I had no trouble acquiring all of the paperback 
collections of comic strips I could ever want. I kept my collection 
bedside because that was my favorite place to read, and reading was an 
acceptable excuse I could give my family for staying in bed.

The internet is a double edged sword for me. There are countless 
benefits to having access to such an enormous amount of information. On 
the other hand, the internet can be a vast wilderness of emotional 
triggers. A friend unwittingly suggested an article for me to read about 
childhood physical abuse that read nearly word for word the experiences 
I had endured so many years before. I was immediately mentally 
transported to the worst of my childhood. After the shock of having a 
traumatic flashback, I fell into the familiar depression that had 
debilitated me so powerfully before I had found the road to recovery.

For a couple days I persevered. I was able to work, drive a car, 
function, and access my wellness tools. I have never called for an 
emergency session with my therapist in all of the years we have worked 
together, but by the third day I found myself on the phone pleading for 
her time, which she graciously granted me during her lunch break.

Between the two of us we were able to return me back into the present. 
As David Thoreau described in his masterpiece “Walden”, the place 
between the two eternities. The future being infinite as well as the 
past, but that is not where I live. My life is in between where I am an 
adult over fifty years old and no one is hurting me. Where I function, 
work, have healthy loving relationships, and am safe from physical and 
mental abuse.

My coping strategies and wellness tools are so important to me. Still, 
after my visit with my therapist, I still was suffering pretty painful 
depression symptoms. There are times when I have to accept my pain, 
knowing that it will pass, and succumb to the reality that I am simply 
down for the count. In my experiences there are simply days when I have 
to bear up and be with the uncomfortable aspects of my mental illness. 
Since I am actually now an adult I don’t need an excuse to spend time in 
bed.

This never means that I am giving up. If I have the flu and spend time 
in bed I do so because rest is required, and I know soon I’ll feel like 
myself again and get out of bed. For these times Peanuts and the gang 
remains in my wellness toolbox because there are still times I need to 
visit my first therapist for a reminder that life can still be magical, 
and being a kid is just plain weird.