From Both Sides of the Couch

A therapist reflects on her time with patients, and her time as a patient.

by Gerri Luce, LCSW

Mourning: A Rough Ride on the High Seas

My grief around my father’s death is messy. From what I remember when my mother passed away twelve years ago the experience felt much neater. There was a funeral and we sat Shiva. A lot of people came to her home. I took a week off from work. I still love her and I miss her and I occasionally sense her presence. I don’t like mess. I like order. Read More

When Our Feelings Take Us by Surprise

Last week I wrote in my post that suddenly the exchanges between my father and I had become incoherent and illogical. This observation turned out to be a foreshadowing of sorts as towards the end of this past week, my brother and I learned the reason why. My father is dying. Read More

When Our Feelings Conflict: Love and Loathing Can Coexist

For eons I deliberately held back news of any kind. I wanted indifference from my father because then I wasn’t risking anything. Unexpectedly about six months ago he started showing a newfound interest in me and showing emotion in his responses. I was stunned, then frightened for this man on the other end of the line was not the father I had known for decades. Read More

Other's Opinions: Do You Care Too Much?

In my sixth grade class the students had to take a hallway pass that sat on the ledge of the blackboard, ready and waiting. As I headed to the door of the classroom, Mrs. Dinah, the teacher stopped talking and whirled around in my direction. “Gerri are you taking the pass again? You go to the bathroom a lot.” That last sentence was said with a cruel emphasis. Read More

The Value of Friendship

Dr. Adena pointed out that spending every weekend with my mother had kept me from making friends my own age, and now that she was gone I was spending every weekend alone in my apartment. Dr. Adena was the one who pointed out that nearly all the guests at my graduation party had been paid professionals and didn't that strike me as sad? Read More

The Words We Long to Hear

David got up to read. He read the prologue from his memoir Sharp, and then a passage near the end of the book when he was closer to recovery. He is a wonderful writer, his memoir is vivid and intense; his story was difficult for me to hear — which I didn’t expect. I wasn’t exactly triggered in the sense of the word, I didn’t have the urge to go home and cut. Read More

In Therapy Silence Speaks Louder Than Words

For years in my sessions with my psychiatrist Dr. Adena I would pause and not speak for extended periods of time. I rationalized these periods of silence by telling myself that I was collecting my thoughts for a perceptive response, I rationalized by telling myself that I was an introvert and introverts think first and speak later. Read More

Grateful for the Experience of Mental Illness?

Yesterday in my therapy session I was having a panic attack over whether or not to go into work today (Saturday). I am incredibly busy and I have fallen behind in my administrative work so I assumed I would feel better if I went into the office to start to catch up. But I also felt resentful and angry at the possibility of going in. Read More

The Questions are More Important Than the Answers

I’ve come to realize that in therapy it’s not always the questions that your therapist asks you that provoke the greatest realizations. I’ve had an incredible amount of time to ponder what transpired during those 45 minutes and stretch it, bend it, and twist it around, considering it from all angles. I’ve had the opportunity to be innovative and creative in querying myself Read More

Taking Baby Steps: The Advantage of Going Slowly in Therapy

Having been in therapy for so long, I’ve found the best way to succeed is to take tiny steps. The slower I went, the more likely it was that I processed the meat of the issues that my therapist and I explored and that the substance of the sessions stuck in my head. Read More

Living Heavy: I Spent a lot of Time Keeping Secrets

I was sitting in my psychiatrist’s office yesterday morning and I kept stumbling over whether I would turn 52 or 53 next week. I think it’s because the last 25 years, the years since my first hospitalization are running together. I have wasted so much time being ill; I have been called a “professional patient” by many clinicians. Read More

What We Yearn for vs. What is Basic to our Well-Being.

I know what I need to do. Since my relapse of anorexia last August, I have encountered a series of physical challenges and to get my brain and body back on track I need to eat well and consistently, get enough sleep, start exercising moderately (not at the frantic pace of my anorexic days) and manage my stress at work. That’s a long list. Read More

What We Need to Know About the Process of Therapy

If my first therapist Nancy whom I was seeing when I was in my early twenties had told me this I would have stared at her uncomprehendingly. As she referred me to a psychiatrist for an antidepressant that would lead me down the path to anorexia, I don’t think she had the vaguest notion how deep-rooted my problems were. She opened a wound and left me bleeding. Read More

Response to an Op-Ed: "Please Take Away My Right to a Gun"

I don’t recall the gun laws of over twenty years ago; what I do recall is taking myself to a now defunct sporting goods chain store called Herman’s and trying to purchase a rifle under the guise of it being a gift for my supposed hunting enthused brother Read More

The Ubiquitous Answer

I have been guilty of uttering these three words. They sprung from my mouth (seeming automatically) when I didn’t know what else to say, when no other answer came to mind, or when I was too tired or too lazy to motivate myself to work harder in my therapy session. Read More

The Enigma of Fibromyalgia

Several of my patients have been diagnosed with fibromyalgia. I have to admit that when I first began working with them, I didn’t know much about the illness. The little that I knew consisted of bits and pieces that I had heard; questions about it being a “real” condition, questions concerning how much of it involved a physical component and/or emotional component. Read More

When One of the Problems is Telling a Family Member

Periodically when I have a conversation with my father, he will ask me if I’m still in therapy. He knows what the answer will be; I think this question is his way of telling me that I’ve been in therapy too long, to hurry up and get the hell out of the therapist’s office. Read More

Ageing Can Be Reason to Celebrate If We Let It

I looked upon my fiftieth birthday as a turning point in my life, as a fresh start. My emotional health was the best it had ever been, I was solidly planted in a good job, I had close relationship with friends and family and I had launched a writing career. Read More

Rejecting Our Inheritance

Some parents may leave their children money or the house. My father (who is still alive, but is a recluse) passed down to me a legacy of depression, addiction, and the tendency to self-destruct. I live in fear of my life ending as his is in the process of — only the female version — the elderly, crazy cat lady who lives alone in her apartment with dozens of cats. Read More

Glory Days

Occasionally, I get lost in moments of reverie. Sometimes the moments expand and I lose track of time. My favorite recollection is from my first career before I became a social worker. I was working in Manhattan in the advertising industry and since I had played softball in college, I joined the company’s softball team. Read More

Connecting a Trio of Emotional States

A couple of months ago, following a breast cancer scare which turned out to be nothing, I was sitting in my boss’s office and she offhandedly remarked that I tended to be somatic. The remark stung because I don’t like to think of myself in that way but the truth is that she’s right. Read More

For the Love of Books: Extraordinary Stories

Throughout the many years of my illness I have read memoirs written by people suffering with all types of mental illness. These stories of men and women who face similar — and sometimes not so similar — challenges helped me to feel that I was not as alone in my struggle. When I have spent long periods of time isolated, the books became my friends. Read More

The Freedom of Accepting Responsiblity

It took me a long time to be able to start accepting responsibility for my mistakes — not just automatically saying I was sorry for the sake of keeping the peace — but actually owning up to the errors I had made and acknowledging that I alone had dropped the ball and should have done better. Read More

The Quality of the Introvert Experience

I just finished reading a fantastic book. It’s titled “Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking” by Susan Cain. The book is a sublime blend of superb writing and outstanding research. I’ve always known that I’m an introvert. When I was a child, I’d be in my room reading on the most beautiful day. This would cause my mother great frustration. Read More

Setting Limits is Not Always so Clear-Cut

When the time came to apply to college I was told by my mother that I need only apply to state schools because that was I would be able to afford. “What about the money from Grandpa and Grandma and everyone else?” I asked. “How much do I have in my savings account?” “Oh we had to use that,” my mother said. I started to protest but was told that the family had needed it. Read More

The Basics of Progress

I think that with mental illness, progress looks and feels somewhat different than a straight arrow shooting up toward the sky. I like to think of the process of recovery from a mental illness as more as a dance. Two steps forward, one step back, three steps forward, one-and-a-half steps back. Everyone finds their own pace, their own rhythm. Read More

The Craft of Procrastination

We all do it — procrastinate to some degree. I procrastinated in writing this post. I think it was because I was afraid it wouldn’t be good enough. Good enough for who I have to ask? For me. For my own standards, for the ability to achieve the good results that my last post reached. I tried to remind myself that not every post can outpace the prior one, but early this morn Read More

An Open Letter to My Patients

The words contained in this letter are the words I would say to my patients about mental illness and recovery and much of what goes along with these from my experience — if I had complete freedom to disclose what I've endured and discovered. Read More

When We Fail: No, I Mean Really Blow It

Failure. Screw-up. Blunder. Gaffe. Collapse. Flunk. Crash. Those are just a few of the synonyms that came to my mind when I recently made an enormous mistake at work at the beginning of this week. “Oh my God,” I gasped. I didn’t know what to say. To say that I was sorry seemed inadequate. Read More

Cultivating Our Ideal Amount of Patience

I was an easygoing, placid child which most likely had its roots in the terror of my father’s sarcastic, cruel tongue. That his anger was not foreseeable was more frightening and caused me to be on edge most of the time; it was safer to be a good girl and that way I thought I wouldn't give him a reason to berate me. Read More