Good morning @CheerBear @Former-Member @Former-Member and anyone else out on the ocean today.
I just got home from seeing TTT. She is SO definitely the person I have been looking for, for the past two years. I so super badly wish I could clone a copy of her to send to you @Former-Member.
A little thing that meant a super lot to me was that when I went in, along with the things she always has on her table she had the particular fidget toy that I had chosen out of the box last session. Yep, she definitely has a super strong sense of how to help someone feel safe. 
It is SO HARD starting all over again with someone who knows nothing about my story. Mostly we talked about Fred and about my turtle whisperer dumping me. I felt super validated by how much she said it wasn't ok that my turtle whisperer had dumped me in the way that she did. She agreed with me that this had done very significant harm. She's also freaking out a bit about the ethical dilemma that Fred presents...and I haven't told her that much of the story yet. 
The following exchange between us was my favourite bit of the session. The context was that she was saying she has no intention of dumping me but can't totally guarantee it because we can never know the future. I asked her if she was planning to have another baby and from there the conversation went like this...
TTT: I'm not planning to have another baby, but you never know, I might fall pregnant, I can't guarantee that I won't.
Me: Er...yes you could, you just need to not have sex. 
It turns out that TTT isn't committed enough to her clients to abstain from having sex with her husband.
I really super like TTT. I found her!!!!!!! Two-and-a-half years after leaving Fred and twelve brain-destroying therapists later, I FOUND HER!!!!!!! 
Good morning @Phoenix_Rising
I'm so glad you had a great session today with TTT. Great to hear that you are feeling safe there and connecting with them they way you are 🙂
This is how I'm imagaing you now..........
Super big thank you @Former-Member @CheerBear @Sans911 @Catcakes @Former-Member @Former-Member @Former-Member for helping me celebrate my super positive news of having finally found someone who I believe can actually help me. I super like being able to share cool news...and it has been a bit thin on the ground in my world lately.
@Former-Member I did look just like that picture you posted! And then of course after feeling so super high, I crashed because even though TTT is awesome, her awesomeness doesn't negate the challenge of having to go through the whole darn story yet again!!!! I know it is going to take quite a few sessions for her to get her head around the many layers of my muddle.
@Catcakes Thank you for asking about Fred. I feel sometimes that I need to write out all the bits of the muddle that I choose to share here in Forum Land, on a new thread because I know my story is super scattered all over the place.
Fred (not his real name) was my psychologist for 16 years, from 1999 - 2015. The relationship was extremely atypical and not what a therapeutic relationship should look like. He was very verbally abusive and occasionally physically violent. In July, 2015 there was a final great showdown in public where bystanders called the police. To anyone looking on, it would have looked like a domestic violence situation, which clearly is not ideal between a therapist and his client.
After that, my uni counsellor moved heaven and earth to help me find a new psychologist. She finally found therapist-take-one and I had high hopes that I was going to be able to start unmuddling my muddle. Five months after starting with me, therapist-take-one decided to close her practice because she suddenly got the urge to become a foster parent. And that is how it was that I began therapist shopping in February 2016. I then churned through therapists take-two to take-twelve (number 12 being my turtle whisperer who dumped me in December) and here I am in January 2018 with therapist-take-thirteen (TTT).
Sigh...that really does make for a crazy story doesn't it!!!!! And of course, all this muddle comes after the stuff that originally led me to be in therapy with Fred in the first place. Definitely a super-sized muddle!!! Oh well, I'll just keep swimming.
Hi @Phoenix_Rising, so great to hear that you have hope for what is to come with your TTT. I can imagine that you may be one happy turtle at the moment 🙂
@CheerBear Ooooh we are here together but not in real time!!!!
Do you want to know something super funny? You started your post with this: I was having a quick sneak out for a sit in the garden and I read it a bit too quickly such that I saw an "h" after the "s" in the word "sit." It made me do a double-take and then I giggled A LOT.
I was reading over there --> this morning that today has dawned a bit brighter for you. I'm super pleased about this. I can only imagine how scary it must be to be losing that piece of paper and I can see how superly duperly hard it would be to sit with that out-of-your-control muddle. 
I also read over there about how it was a person in blue who got the piece of paper even though you asked them not to. I have big issues with that whole idea that people in blue can do that. I can imagine how horribly scary and disempowering that would be. 
I am super glad one of the LF reminded you last night about how not ok they would be to stay at the other place for longer than they really needed to. Silly mashed banana brain for suggesting otherwise!
I didn't desquish any squishy toys today! I cuddled turtle, teddy and weighted toy all session. I started off snuggled under the blanket, but as I got more settled, I was moving around a lot and may possibly have finished up kind-of doing the legs up the wall thing against the wall behind the couch.
I did play with TTT's magic toy and explained to her how the "magic" worked. I super like that toy.
I'm seeing her again on Tuesday as we do that tricky thing of finding a regular appointment time. The appointments will be a bit all over the place for a few weeks, and then we are aiming for a regular Monday morning time slot.
Re-telling the story is SO hard. However, most of my muddle is written down in various places so it's more a matter of TTT getting a general gist of it from the written information and then me just filling in the blanks. Having stuff written down helps a LOT!
The ethical dilemma of Fred is definitely tricky and right now TTT is struggling a little with it. However, this is why Fred is called Fred. So long as she doesn't know his name, TTT can't report him. I explained to her my reasons for choosing not to report him and at this point she has put it in the "we will keep revisiting this" box. Given how little of the story she knows right now, methinks we will be opening that box fairly frequently for a while. However, she definitely understands my reasons for choosing not to make a complaint and I feel safe that she wouldn't super complicate my life by going down that path even if she could. But yes, it is scary and tricky needing to talk about something but knowing that doing so is super risky! I can well imagine how much you understand that, CheerBear.
@CheerBear knowing you read your blue sentence the same way as I did makes it doubly funny. Yay for being able to have a super big giggle together but not.
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Help us push aside the stigma and discrimination surrounding complex mental health and change the way people talk about, and care for, mental illness.
SANE acknowledges the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as traditional custodians of the land on which it operates. We pay respect to Elders past, present and emerging, and value the rich history, unbroken culture and ongoing connection of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to country.
SANE values diversity. We are committed to providing a safe, culturally appropriate, and inclusive service for all people, regardless of their ethnicity, faith, disability, sexuality, or gender identity.