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This past weekend I was driving back to Lexington from Atlanta, GA (after attending a really wonderful party celebrating my brother and his fiancée with my family) when something rather unanticipated happened.

I broke down. Well, what actually happened was that my car broke down and then I had a momentary (5 panicked minutes on the phone with my dad) breakdown myself.

I was not afraid as I was sitting on the side of 1-75 with the northbound traffic flying past me. Rather, I was afraid of what the break down would mean for the future. How much will this cost? Is my transmission blown? I knew I should have had the transmission checked earlier! What am I going to do tonight, it’s Sunday evening and every shop around here is closed? You get the point.

Fast forward –> everything turned out just fine. I called a tow truck, found a hotel for the night, drove my car to the shop in the morning, and was back on the road by noon.

When I finally was back on the road, I cranked the music as loud as it would go, rolled down the windows, and laughed at myself (I rally did…out loud).

I have found myself in this position SO many times. I encounter some unanticipated event and immediately hit the big, red panic button.

I will give myself a little bit of credit…over the years I have learned to stop and think for a minute before hitting that button. And, truth be told, I’m glad that I hit it this time around because I hadn’t in a while and it was a nice reminder that I am perfectly capable of handling whatever it is that is thrown at me.
I can’t help but chuckle when people assume that we (therapists) have it all figured out and tied in a nice bow. We’re just like you…that’s what makes me (us) be able to do our jobs. We get it. Maybe not exactly what you are going through but we can most definitely empathize because we have probably experienced something that has brought up the same feelings in the past.I suppose that this blog is a little more on the personal side…not necessarily about therapy but maybe a reminder to you all that us therapists (just like you) are human.

Happy Thursday!

 

 

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