Therapy and Healing: When is it enough, and how can we know the process is finished

Could it actually be that this healing is in the final stages?

I mean I don't know what to do anymore with my psychologist who just puts the discussion in my court beginning with how the week went.

I feel as though I have learned what I needed to know in order to go forward with the balance of my life in a healthy way.

It's like painting an oil painting.. it often isn't clear when the painting is finished.  Am I finished?

There are some things I would like to uncover still from childhood and in my early adult life but I don't know if this psychologist is the person to go into this with.  Perhaps I will give it a try and see how she responds.  So far when I try to uncover anything such as this, she interrupts me and tells a story that might illustrate what it is I'm trying to say.

This therapy has been a closing to the adult years of step by step emotional growth which I think makes the psychologist wonder if going into the childhood years is even necessary.

But childhood years I believe are important years in which to look especially since it is there that all of my adult illnesses are rooted.

We all need a non-stressed emotionally available care giver as children, but according to Dr. Gabor Mat'e this is a huge problem in the United States and other Western Societies.  It becomes a problem whether in an intentionally abusive family or a "normal" family because the parents are stressed with the non supporting culture of the parenting task as it no longer offers the "village" for the raising of the children.

So now not only do we deal with our own dysfunctional childhoods and caring for the inner child in our forties and fifties, but we deal with the knowledge that our own children whose early years were spent with loving, yet stressed mothers must also be in need of this work to a degree. Like the NM's, we were emotionally unavailable to a degree enough to continue the trauma, but unlike the NM's it wasn't our intention to hurt the children.

Children compensate with coping mechanisms such as ADHD and others as far reaching as DID or disassociating. I, for instance am treated for lifelong depression and ADHD, my son has ADHD, another son coped with taking control - setting boundaries... being stubborn and lazy from an early age.  My daughter took control also by being extra responsible and very early on having the capabilities that even I lacked in organization of thought and tasks that were on the family agenda.  Later, this was resented to a degree and came out in anger... unwillingness to be helpful.... a kind of self-centeredness- which I assumed was needed for her to grow.  All of these things were and some could remain as coping mechanisms in response to their mother's stress and anxieties while raising them.

The operative word here is intention.  My children know it was never my intention for them to suffer in any way.  In fact as with most mothers, in their tender years, much time was spent doing all I could to make their lives wonderful and hopefully tension-free...   All while I was still always stressed with that underling free floating anxiety, anxiety that I didn't learn to get a hold on and then get rid of until the age of 50.

Something wonderful has happened for me and even though it has taken my whole life to accomplish, it has happened.  I have figured out the puzzle of my life beginning with my birth, the child abuse and neglect, the schooling, the marriages, the life in Egypt, my children, my family in Egypt, my wonderful husband who has stood by me, and until now in therapy. I have become well. Tension free. Anxiety free. I thought this was impossible. But it IS possible!!

Funny thing is I did most of this work without formal therapy.  The therapy was introduced right at the point of finishing the process in the healing from the affects of being the daughter of a narcissistic/sociopath mother. I used writing and research...   8 hours a day for five years.

For me, if I know why what has happened in my life; I can put it to rest.  If I know why I feel a certain way, I can feel it and let it go.  If I know myself I know why others react in whatever ways they do to my actions or my words.  If I am sure of myself ... that is because I have conquered fear. Now, whatever a person says or does concerning me, while I listen and watch to understand, I no longer take it on in a personal way. I hear them, and either validate the ideas or listen, only, as a way to respect them enough to allow an opinion.

I think we are never finished healing and growing. We can never just stop painting and hang the portrait on the wall. As we continue to live and to grow, there will always be new things to add to our now colorful lives,