Courage

A quote i read this morning:

“You don’t develop courage by being happy in your relationships every day. You develop it by surviving difficult times and challenging adversity.”

i thought that was very encouraging. As Maximus noted last night, someday this will just be a blip and nothing more. It feels like a crater now, time and distance will lessen the impact on the topography and it’s good to remember that.

i just got back from my first counseling session. i am very, very pleased with the counselor (i’m going to call her Fern). i can’t even remember what web directory i found her on, i had done many, many searches for kink-friendly counselors in the Portland/Seattle area and she came up. In fact, it was because of her notation on her website that she did Skype sessions that i ever considered adding Skype-capability to my list of requirements. The amazing thing, that i learned partway through my long introduction with her, is that she is in an open relationship with her husband, that they had incredible difficulties in their marriage at one point that included her raging. They were separated for nearly a year while she and they worked on their relationship and her raging. And, they are in a D/s relationship where she is submissive. i just wanted to hug her when she shared that with me. i feel very comfortable with her.

Most of the session was me telling my story, introducing myself and Maximus. She did share how raging is actually a physiological process, not only an emotional process, in that when you first start raging, you build neuropathways in your brain; future triggers or perceived risks then fire those neuropathways involuntarily, which is why often a person who rages feels they cannot stop the rage from starting–because the body has taken over automatically. This happens even if the person is not longer in the situation or relationship where they formed the neural pathways, because they have been formed and an easier path to travel than new pathways. Additionally, the triggers are related to the fight in “fight or flight,” in that it in response to some deep survival need, such as love, belonging, respect, that the person unconsciously fears is being threatened. So, we are going to be working on reprogramming my neural pathways away from raging and delving into what survival needs i feel are threatened. She is going to be using Imago Therapy and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy as well.

i am very encouraged. She was encouraged by my openness and honesty in sharing my story and issues and by all the work i’ve done so far. She is also pleased that Maximus is involved and that He is willing to be involved in the counseling sessions as well, both solo and as a couple. She asked that i journal about my feelings so we can work on triggers and survival needs, and we discussed how i am already journlling and will continue to do that. I will bring bullet points of my entries rather than pages and pages like i sent her already!

i have my next appointment Friday afternoon. i’m looking forward to it.

On a side note, i saw this today and oh, if it was only that simple!!