Urban Drool

It took me awhile to get to the point where I realized and accepted that I really needed some professional assistance in dealing with both the trauma of the Pickle’s birth and my post-partum depression.

Once I got to that point, it was apparently another enormous struggle to actually GET the help. Through an odd chain of events that included my insurance only covering psychiatrists and not therapists and but wait! here’s a counseling program for moms that I can do but then the case manager for that program had emergency surgery and was out of the office for 8 weeks and her temporary help misplaced my file after my initial intake and then I had my intake but they cannot begin actual sessions, group or individual for another month because their building is being renovated, etc…and it’s really been a long couple of months.

Ahem.

But. Intake appointments 1 and 2 have been completed. And I have a mammoth 2-3 hour long one on one session in two days. And then (hopefully) will begin with group sessions every week thereafter.

I am more than a bit apprehensive about this next appointment. OK...I am pretty scared about this next appointment - for a number of reasons. As I told the Boy the other night, I feel like I have placed a rather effective band-aid over my emotional hurts, and this whole process is going to rip those band-aids right off. It needs to be done, sure, but I have a feeling that it's going to really suck.

Also...although my insurance will cover counseling sessions at this facility, it only covers sessions with specific professionals at this facility. Which is no big deal, except that all the counselors that I am permitted to see are men.

Men with penises.

With no uteri or vaginai or cervixi amongst the lot of them.

And I wonder how much I will actually be able to open up and eventually absorb, in a tiny 8 x 8 room with a 45 year old man who has never given birth.

I don’t know if I am being unreasonable here (which is very likely) or what, but I guess I just always assumed that when I began treatment, it would be with a female counselor. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I don’t think a man would be an excellent counselor. It’s just that for this particular type of therapy I am a little doubtful that…I don’t know. That a person of the penile persuasion is the most appropriate option.

Am I being weird here? Or do I have a legitimate concern?

We shall see. But it’s obvious to me, in any event, that help is needed.

Exhibit A: I had to drive past a hospital on my way to the freeway a few days ago and nearly had a panic attack. This wasn’t the hospital where I had the baby. This wasn’t even a hospital that I have ever been in, for crap’s sake. Just some…random hospital. And I immediately started hearing the voices of the doctors and smelled blood and felt such a wave of shame, fear and self-loathing that I almost pulled off the road to calm down.

Exhibit B: I had to call the actual hospital where I had the baby last Friday and order my medical records. I was told by the case manager (now back from medical leave, sporting a brand – new, artificial hip none the less!!) that my medical records, detailing the birth and aftermath would be a “helpful tool in assessing the series of events that you will be chronicling with your therapist.” And I was shaking and sweating the whole time I was on the line with the nice folks from the Department of Patient Records.

Fun.

Erk and sigh and oh my flipping Joe Pesci.

So, help is apparently on the way, even if it comes with a penis.

(in case you wanted the final count, the word penis was either referred to or stated outright a total of three times)

(four, counting the above sentence)