Sadramble Shutdown Strategy #1

I once had a client who made me want to claw both our faces off. 

Never in my professional career have I experienced the magnitude of neurotic looping that this fellow spun in. He was completely impossible to treat. He demanded the exact opposite of what was therapeutically advisable, but was completely shut off to suggestion. When I gently explained my therapeutic approach, he would launch into his neurotic loop, picking it up whatever track it happened to be on at the moment, completely a propos of nothing I had just said.

He was actually an interesting and kind person, and in my usual codependent, people-pleasing, ego aggrandizing way I still thought that somehow I was benefiting him. But every time he popped up on my schedule (my clients can book themselves online) I would cringe and a dark cloud would hang over that whole day. He was a sadramble fission reaction. I almost ruined my referral relationship with another therapist in town by desperately handing him over. This therapist has better boundaries than I and after their first appointment promptly dumped him back in my lap with a stern, “I’m going to get you back for this.”

Realizing that I needed outside help on this one, and because I was unwilling to fire him (due to my own sadramble) I turned to my friend "Rob" who is an enormous bear. Like an enormous bear friend that any girl dreams of, there is not a single inch of this mountainous man that takes shit from anybody. However, since he is a massage therapist like me, he has very stealthy ways of accomplishing this.

*Cue my sadramble* “Rob,” I moaned, “how do I get this [sadramble] to shut the #@!% up? Or at least listen to me? The neurotic loop is driving me crazy!! He launches into the same weird theory of why he’s in pain every time I see him, and I know that it is exactly the opposite of what he thinks it is. He’s completely hypermobile and he’s stretching himself out even more when he needs to be toning! I want to STRANGLE HIM!” 

“You know what I do? I knock them sideways.”

Notice that Rob didn’t commiserate or launch into a story of his own sadramble clients. He just went straight for the solution. I like this man.

“I have a few clients like that, and when they get into their loop I interrupt it. I stand up from my desk and I make them stand up and I say, ‘OK! Let’s have you walk around the room so I can check your gait. Great!’ And every time they orbit back to their [ramble], I just knock them sideways again.”

Knocking your sadramble sideways is one of the most effective ways to avoid getting sucked in. Picture their story as a semi truck of soul crushing nonsense rushing toward you, and you are grabbing the sadramble and launching yourselves both out of the path of oncoming destruction. You can even shout, “LOOK OUT!” in your mind and picture yourself knocking them sideways at the knees. Do a subtle little motion associated with this, like genuflecting or warding off the devil; it will help you anchor this response and cue you to interrupt and disengage every time you sense a sadramble approaching.

Shortly after my conversation with Rob the client filtered himself off my schedule, not surprisingly since “my” treatments weren’t working for him. I also have the opposite of whatever a poker face is, so I’m guessing he picked up on my contempt after 8 or so sessions. However, I think the real reason he dropped me was that I began knocking him sideways in our last two sessions and it stopped feeding the voracious sadramble inside him. He had to go off and look for another source of nourishment.

If you find you cannot immediately disengage, begin knocking them sideways. If you're lucky, you'll knock them out of your orbit completely.