What a rotten night!

My head was busy – after the talk on Saturday, when my husband had told me that he wanted me to find a couples counsellor, I did the usual internet search and came up with a shortlist of three people. I think they were the same three we’d look at last year (or the year before!)

They are all women, although I wanted to have a man in the mix. Until recently, whenever I’d had therapy, it was with a woman (and always an older woman). The last two therapists I’ve had have been men. I’d have liked a specialist in LGBT counsellor, and whilst each of these claim to have skills in LGBT, Trauma, ASD, PTSD, Bipolar, Gender Identity, and so, I don’t get a strong feeling for any of them.

So, once my husband has read their credentials, I’d like to arrange to take up each of them on their free thirty-minute introductory session.

So why am I so anxious about it?

In previous couples counselling, I have felt “ganged up on”. My husband thinks that was my fault because I didn’t say in the session. That is true, I must have some responsibility for that.

However, I now believe that I have some level of autism that made couples counselling even more difficult than one-to-one therapy. This is something I need to establish during the first session and explain what happens when I become overwhelmed. I can also own my rigid thinking and demand-avoidant-personality (where I will sometimes react with irrational anger when asked to do something or challenged).

I think the problems with previous couples counselling were that I didn’t understand just how difficult I found conversations, especially with multiple people. And with my husband being a therapist himself, it felt at though he and the counsellor were allies. I want able to identify, package, and express my thoughts and feelings quickly enough to get myself heard, so it was as though only my husband was speaking and he was the one who was heard.

We had one counsellor who got close to the problem when she asked whether I was disappearing into my brain trying to find the perfect answer. Close, I’m disappearing into my brain trying to understand what is being expressed, both the words and the emotions, then I need to decide how I feel about it, which I don’t always know in the moment.

I know that my husband finds my slowness and sometimes I just don’t know what I think or feel about something; I imagine that’s very frustrating for him.

I can imagine that when I tell the therapist about my self-realisation of ASD, that my husband will roll his eyes very loudly. I have to say what I need and then trust the counsellor to chair the sessions in a way that works for both my husband and me.

I know we need this, but I am not looking forward to it.

---

He’s sent me three other counsellors to look at because he’d previously spoken to them (I think he might have been embarrassed). They look good, as far as I can tell.

I asked whether he had any favourites and he complained at me, although I don’t understand why. He’s angry about something.

What with his being pissed off at me, and the frustrating day at work, and a migraine from a bad night’s sleep, I just want to scream and go back to bed.