Exit Strategies

I'm not fixed. I'm not saying I'm fixed. I will never be the Mental Health Poster Child. I'm comfortable with that.

But, lately, at therapy, I feel like I'm spinning my wheels. Worse than that, actually. I feel like I'm spending an hour a week catching up with a friend--not even a good friend, more like a close acquaintence--except that she doesn't talk about herself. I tell her about what's been going on, how tired I am from working so much, how I'm still enjoying the work, how I'm feeling badly about Baroy still not being able to find work. I tell her how the kids are doing, spend some time obsessing about how sad N's going to be after next week, when WeeyumWise is leaving preschool. (I knew it was coming.) I tell her about the various strategies I'm going to use to help him through. She nods, sympathizes. I start feeling a little bored with hearing my voice drone on and on.

I'm not having major panic attacks any more. I think my meds are working fairly well, for one thing, and for another, I know what to do when anxiety starts to get the upper hand. I don't spend much time at all obsessing about Stalker Girl these days, most likely because it's been more than months since she's been in our faces at all. Most of my other issues--especially my job dissatisfaction and my unhappiness with my life--have been resolved. No, not resolved. They've been shifted into an arena in which I feel like I can deal with them on my own. My therapist has really helped me move forward a great deal, in ways I find it hard to verbalize. But that's done. I have to take it from here.

So now, I need to figure out how to gently extricate myself from therapy. I don't know whether she sees a point in the near future where I'll go from weekly to every other week to monthly to not at all. I don't know how to ask. I don't want to hurt her feelings (see above about knowing I'm not fixed), and I worry to some extent that she sees a vulnerability where I think there's nothing but strength. Or maybe she just sees money coming in from my insurance company for as long as they'll allow it. I doubt it, but I suppose that's a possibility.

So, I don't know. But I have to say something, soon. Because if I don't, if I can't, then it would belie my assertion that I'm better.

Anyone have a good "breaking up with your therapist" script they could send me?