Give Your WRAP to Your Shrink

We're in the middle of another 8 week WRAP session. Different volunteer facilitator, different set up, larger group, so I wanted to do it again. We keep getting good ones. Last night she gave us an assignment to come next time with the name of someone we plan to give our WRAP to. I really like that she did that. It's easy to conceptualize that WRAP is something that you do for yourself and yourself alone. But it isn't. WRAP is a working document that is meant to be shared. Especially the crisis / post - crisis plan part. Like mine has the name of the person designated to do my laundry. Generally these people should know these things...

Some people had these blank looks on their faces, so I piped in and said "I have a WRAP I did previously and the first thing I did after I wrote it was make a copy of it and give it to my therapist." I think I saw some wheels turning. Apparently this isn't as obvious of a thing to do as I thought it was.

I don't take notes during WRAP like most people do. I'm more of an auditory learner. Writing would be too distracting. Nor did I work on it in between or have I read any of the now 3 copies of the red book that I have (I may have given 1 to my shrink, can't remember). The way it worked out for me last time was that I was having a bad day, I think it was 6 weeks into the last WRAP session, I can't remember what was going on that day, but I do remember that I wanted to do anything to keep myself from going home and crawling into bed, so I sat outside the library at school (it was a nice day in April or May) and wrote it out in 1 sitting. Then I immediately went in the library and made a few copies, went to the student union and bought a big envelope, took it over to the school post office and mailed 2 copies, 1 for my shrink and 1 for my pdoc. While she would have copied it for free in her office, for whatever reason I wasn't going to see her for a week and a half or something (I wonder how close I did this to the spring action, can't remember) and I thought it was best for her to have read it in advance of our next appt, especially since it was so far away. Then I let both of them know to expect mail, as I unfortunately didn't have the option to scan / email it.

We had a really good session that week, talking about 'when things are breaking down,' 'early warning signs' stuff. Things that I thought she picked up on back when I started seeing her in 2007, but that apparently she missed. Like the fact that when I feel really bad I tend to dress up, put on make up. Because the last thing you want when you feel like crap is for people to ask you if you're OK. If you look good and people give you compliments you have the option of just saying "Thanks," or saying "Thanks. I feel like crap," depending on who it is. If you look like crap and say "I'm fine," they know you're lying. This isn't a conversation we would have had if I hadn't mailed my WRAP, and it was a conversation we needed to have.

Why wouldn't you share your WRAP with your shrink? One of the main components of WRAP is the concept of having 5 supporters. Why wouldn't your shrink be one of your supporters? They're not going to come over and do your laundry, but if your shrink can't help support you with the other stuff, you need a new shrink.