The day I made my therapist cry

How my trauma egg brought my therapist to tears

Draw an egg, she said.

"You’ll be writing all the traumatic events that have ever happened in your life inside this egg,” my therapist explained.  

I better draw a pretty big, frickin egg, I thought to myself as I stared down at the blank canvas of white paper in the middle of the floor.

“Do you have a bigger piece of paper,” I asked, half-joking. 

So I had my instructions. Draw an egg and list all the trauma I’ve experienced in my life. I had two hours. I was afraid we’d need more time. A lot more time!

The concept of the “trauma egg” was introduced to me a few of weeks ago during one of our sessions. According to the pamphlet, the trauma egg represents the “Original Feeling Child.” Inside the egg, you list events which caused pain, fear, rejection and so on and so on.

The pamphlet included examples of traumatic events.

“My dog died.”

“My best friend moved.”

If this is what my therapist was expecting, she was in for a shock.

When I first asked why we needed two hours, my therapist explained:

- The first hour will be used to list all the traumatic events

- The second hour will be used to analyze them 

I was to start by listing the earliest memory of trauma at the very bottom of the egg and work my way up through the years. The greatest hits, so to speak. (Pun intended.) It was a way to establish my trauma history so that my therapist could better understand my make-up.

This is going to be so awesome! (Not!)

But first a warning from my therapist! She said some people, as they remember the trauma, are so overcome with emotion, that they break down and relive the emotions they felt at the time it happened. She assured me that she would help work through these emotions in the event that this happened to me.

Yeah, more awesomeness! 
 

Doing this exercise was supposed to help us identify patterns of trauma and coping mechanisms. So I grabbed the black marker and started writing.

Age 5, my uncle dies…

Age 8, the abuse starts…

Age 9, abuse continues…

Age 10-17, still getting abused over here…

My therapist asked questions specific to the event each time I added a new line. I answered every single one of her questions in a very matter of fact way as I wrote them down inside my newly formed “trauma egg.”

Meanwhile, my therapist was puzzled.  

“How are you not falling apart?”

“How are you keeping it together?”

“Why aren’t you in the corner in a fetal position sucking your thumb?”

Kidding! She didn’t really say it like that. 

On a serious note, she was concerned by my lack of emotion.

“I just don’t understand what’s holding you together. At some point, we need to look into your cultural make-up.”

Ah ha, the race card! There it is!

Again, kidding… But, yes, Latinas are strong women. That stereotype is true, folks.

Well, with the exception of one of my aunts on my dad’s side. She cries if you use your outside voice inside. She married into a family of loud mouths. Good luck with that…

So my therapist was puzzled. In her eyes, I was an enigma. In my eyes, I was a survivor. 

“But as you remember these events, how does remembering them now make you feel?” she asked.

“It happened. I survived. Life goes on,” was my response. And it was true. These events happened. I survived all of them and life continues to go on.

And then I continued…

Life doesn’t stop when something bad happens to you. You deal with it at that moment, figure out how best to handle and move on. (And then you cry yourself to sleep after the kids have gone to bed. See! Problem solved.)

Then she asked: “Do you ever find yourself dwelling on any of these experiences?”

I laughed with a hearty, “Ha!”  

I quickly explained why this was funny to me, mostly so she would stop staring.

“I don’t have time to ‘dwell’,” I said, using air quotes. “I’ve got way too much shit to do. I barely have time for this. But I know I need to do this for me and for my daughters. ”

In other words, let’s keep this party moving, shall we?   

"Can I get you some water?"

As I continue to list each trauma and give a brief summary of the actual event, I can feel my therapist cracking.

It started with some sniffling. Next came the covering of the mouth with both hands. Then there was the shaking of the head with the “you poor thing” look on her face.  

I eventually grabbed the tissue box and handed it to her as she wiped her tears from the corner of her eyes with her fingertips.

“Are you OK? Should we take a break? Would you like some water?” I asked her.  

We were only halfway through this trauma egg business and here I was comforting my therapist. I started to wonder if I could bill her for the session.

“Again, I don’t understand how you’re holding it together,” she said, in between wiping her tears and blowing her nose. 

Great, I think my therapist needs a therapist. And it's all because of my trauma egg. 

I shrugged my shoulders and kept writing and writing and writing until the session suddenly came to a halt. 

Sorry, but we're out of time... 

“We’ll have to stop here,” my therapist suddenly announced. “We’re out of time.”

As I stare at my half-empty egg, I realize that we didn’t even get through the 80s, which causes me to blurt out, “But we didn’t even get through the 80s!”

That’s OK, she said, and then explained our new game plan. 

1. Schedule a two-hour session to work on the 80s to the present.. 

2. Then schedule another two-hour session to analyze the trauma egg.  

3. Then schedule another two-hour session to work on improving coping mechanisms in order to deal with future trauma.

Let’s see, that’s two, four… six hours! Are you frickin kidding me! Six more hours of trauma egg!

But as quickly as the panic sets in, the control and the calmness take over.

Alright, let’s do this. I’ll survive. Let’s move on.