Anxiety, Agoraphobia, & More: Full "Good Start" Session

"I’m still not finding the words to property express everything that seems to be happening."

Intro from Gary: Note how Andre and I work together with The Unseen Therapist to get a "good start" towards relief on his intense issues. The full video is below but first, here is his follow-up letter about the session...

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Hi Gary,

I’ve waited longer than I thought I would to write. I wanted to be able to report as much progress as possible.

I suppose “remarkable” would be a good start.

The sea hunt trauma: The way the mind works fascinates me because while I could always vividly see in my mind the devastating seal hunt as though it was a film playing in my head that I could watch, I still can now still watch it but it’s no longer in colour—it’s in black-and-white—and while it’s upsetting because of what it was, it is now possible for me to talk about it freely—and watch it to the end—which is something I have never been able to do.

Freedom: I’m also experiencing something I suppose I could describe as a sense of weightlessness, like I’m free to do anything I want without overthinking it and causing myself anticipatory anxiety such that—often—I’d work myself up into a near-hysterical state of “what ifs” that I’d just end up not doing whatever it was. That is how my agoraphobia started—my world just kept getting smaller and smaller as I made myself believe that it was very dangerous “out there.”

Anxiety, agoraphobia, "stoked":

I’ve been to a friend’s lake house twice since we had our session. It’s about seventy minutes away, but that’s a distance that would have been exceptionally difficult prior to last week, especially in that the latter part is a long twisting road through the woods far out of cell phone range. We only stayed for the afternoon each time (five-or-so hours) and while I did take Ativan before going not because I needed it, but because “what if” I did and I had to turn back? The interesting thing of this though is that I’ve always needed an Ativan “booster” when I was an uncomfortable distance from home as it started to “wear off.” My anxiety would tell me when it was time, and I would take one so that I wouldn’t panic and have to leave. This didn’t happen once while at the lake. In fact, it didn’t cross my mind because the anxiety didn’t show up to tell me that it was time . . . so that’s a significant thing.

I also want to mention that after our session, I felt a little tired—a good tired, like I’d worked on and accomplished something—and I lay down and slept for two-and-a-half hours.

I’m still not finding the words to property express everything that seems to be happening. I think I’m starting to understand the collapsing table legs metaphor because I’m pretty sure it’s happening.

“Stoked” is a word I rarely use because it has rarely applied to me, but I think it applies here.

Thank you so very much Gary,

Andre

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