A View From the Couch: If My Walls Could Talk

After long days at work  I can't have the radio on during my ride home; I need the silence.  One day last week I saw ten clients in a row.  Poor planning? maybe, but due to scheduling, it is how it played out. Backing out of the parking spot at my office exhausted and heading home, my brain started to process the day and all that was discussed in my office:

Memories of sexual abuse, divorce, psychosis, anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder, adoption, grief and loss, addiction, anger management, bipolar disorder.

That is a heavy day, and yet, despite the exhaustion, I felt really good.  I am making a connection with a teen who, a few months back, literally sat in my office for an entire session without saying one word.  Through an art therapy exercise, a young woman is beginning to feel some relief and joy.  A college freshman looked bright and positive for the first time since I met him a few weeks ago while talking about his new job.  And, I got a big thank you from a woman who sat on my couch this fall sobbing about her recent separation; she is now stable on medication and reunited with her husband.

At the red light on Fairfax County Parkway, I shiverred imagining what would happen if my walls could talk.  Like the toys coming to life in Toy Story when the kids are absent, are my walls processing all that happens within their bounds?

Days like that can be emotional and wearing, but yet so promising.  I have the privilege of witnessing these beautiful transformations. People are often at their lowest when we first meet and then via baby steps, they start to feel less hopeless, perhaps even hopeful as they make their way on to joy.  It is so rewarding to be part of this process.

I do hope that my walls appreciate what it is that they get to be a part of, I sure do.