Firsts

In the last few days I've had a few firsts. My first meeting with a therapist, my first mammogram, and my meeting with a "wellness coach".

I had intended to put up a post right away to give my very first impressions of these firsts, but Ha Ha, I should have known better. Though I don't think my thoughts on these have changed much, so what I'm about to write will probably be pretty similar to what I would have written 2 days ago.

I'll start with the easy one - the mammogram. Aside from making me feel old, it really was no big deal. So I'll risk saying that I don't get all the angst about them. Not that I love having some stranger grabbing my boob and mashing it down in a machine, but it really didn't hurt. In fact, I'd have to say that the worst part was having to hold my breath while the technician took the picture.

The appointment with the therapist was ok. She was nice and I felt comfortable talking to her. Though I'll pretty much tell anyone anything if given an opening. (The only reason I'm sort of anonymous here is because my husband would have a cow if I went "public" - plus I don't want to risk certain family members stumbling across all this.) So, I talked a lot and she talked a bit, and I suppose that's how those things go. I made another appointment for 2 weeks from now because she's going to be on vacation next week.

Despite liking the therapist, I felt disappointed after I left. It took me so long to get to this place and now I'm ready to tackle things. And there are a lot of things to tackle. While I definitely think there will be a benefit in the long-term from talking and working through this stuff with her, I'm wanting to take action, to move, to address stuff head on, not just talk. I want to get myself assessed for ADD, I think I want to get my daughter assessed too, I'm pretty sure we'll need to bring my husband in to talk about the parenting issues and some of the marriage issues, and I mentioned all those things, but that's as far as it went. She didn't offer to meet with us together, she said, "maybe you could talk with someone or go to a parenting class". She suggested maybe seeing psychiatrist for the ADD stuff. Mind you this is a full service counseling center that offers all of these services and more. One of the reasons I choose to go there even though they don't take my insurance was because of the one-stop-shopping. I'm feeling just a tad overwhelmed and the notion of having the built-in support and ease of dealing with these issues in one place was very reassuring. I realize her job is not to tell me what to do or do anything for me, but I guess I was hoping for someone who might at least volunteer some suggestions or referrals. I'll definitely go back for another appointment. I just need to figure out if I need to readjust my expectations or find someone else to work with. Sigh.

That leads to my last first, the "wellness coach". It may seem weird that I met with the therapist and wellness coach back to back, so let me 'splain. I actually signed up for the session with the coach through the fitness center at my work. I thought it would be focused on fitness and diet and I could definitely use some help here. I signed up thinking it would be a one-time meeting and hoped to discuss how to design realistic fitness and nutrition regimes for myself. Oh, but she was so much more. First of all she was super nice. Second, she made me cry, several times! She actually asked me some questions that I had expected the therapist might have asked me. But the thing I really liked is that she is action oriented. She is a coach, not a therapist, so when I walked out of the meeting I had two goals set for myself the next two weeks and another meeting scheduled with her.

I know I can't afford to keep seeing both of these women for very long, but I'm going to do a few sessions with each and see how I feel about things.