misery

[Twoapenny]

Hi CB - Funny thing is that the case resembled me in a lot of ways. I've kept darker stuff hidden even in therapy, mostly because we've just not really gotten down to it.  I am the person who "refused the remedy", so its hard to hold him responsible if I failed at therapy or improving my life.

I'm climbing out of the crisis. I just try to stick to doing the three things I need to do and stay busy with that. I just get very easily discouraged and then can stop functioning.

Thanks CB for your understanding and sympathy. I'm getting more good things and concern from this board than anywhere else.   

Ales, I am very convinced that our bodies know what we need and tell us - we just aren't always very good at listening to what they say and often block them out with medication, drink, junk food, etc etc.  If your body is telling you to eat better and improve your physical health then I would always say listen to that.  You might not be ready to deal with your 'dark stuff' yet - there are things I haven't talked to my T about yet and I trust her and feel she really 'gets' me.  But I'm just not ready to say the words out loud yet.  I think I'm slowly starting to understand that it's more about learning to live with what happened rather than fixing it.  I'm starting to feel that there isn't an end point, more a point where I'll be comfortable more often than uncomfortable, feel safe more often than unsafe, have healthy boundaries more than I have unhealthy ones and so on.  For me, seeing a T that wasn't hearing what I was saying would be very difficult - I've spent my life being unheard and invisible and I really don't like being around people who aren't listening to what I'm saying.  Trust your instincts and do what feels right for you. 

[Ales2]

Picked up the phone to call my T and ask him to refer me to someone else (aside from the psychiatrist he wants me to see for the anti-d's) . I've been thinking this is what I've needed to do. I dialed, it rang and then I got voice mail, but I couldn't do it. It occurred to me as I dialed that if I ask to see someone else, I risk not being able to see him or trust him again, so I hung up.

Anyone else have this problem? Wanting help but just not knowing what else to do?

[Hopalong]

if I ask to see someone else

Hi Ales,

Do you actually need his permission?

Or is that the inner child feeling afraid?

A good T would not be angry if a client decided to talk to someone else...

but perhaps there's some medical insurance complication of some sort, where you have to have his approval?

(A good T would not be punitive. Ts are human and he could disagree or something, but...)

Don't you have the right, like any other adult, to go talk to whomever you choose?

If so, and if there's not a practical obstacle I don't understand...how about making an appointment with someone new?

You could discuss it with this T later.

xo
Hops

[Ales2]

Thanks Hops for your post.


No practical obstacle - other than I would not know who to go see. I only went to T because I really thought this one would be the end all, he's considered an expert on NMoms. My reason would to ask him would be that he just knows me and how I am to a certain degree and maybe he could make a better choice for me than I can make for myself. Everything I choose seems to work out badly for me so I thought input would help.

I dont really think he would be punitive, but I've known him long enough to know he has feelings too.

[Twoapenny]

Hi Ales,

I have often found myself wanting help and not knowing where to turn!  How is this T other than the anti-d issue?  If you had a really clear conversation with him - along the lines of "I trust you and find talking to you helpful but I have made my mind up that anti-ds are not right for me at the present time so I would like it if we could leave those out of the conversations for the time being" would that help at all?  I mean is it just the anti-d thing that is a problem or are there other things about him you don't find helpful?  Might be that you can tweak what you have with him rather than changing?

If not, are you able to get a list of therapists in your area and contact them directly?  Not sure how your system works over there.  I've seen two therapists here (through my own choosing), both of whom I contacted myself and then the usual method is you meet for an initial session to decide if you think you are suited.  Anyway of doing something similar so you feel comfortable with who you are talking to?  Maybe there is someone who is more suited to your natural drug free way of dealing with things?  Perhaps that's more important than someone who knows a lot about NMums?  I think the damage through abuse is similar, however, you've received it, so maybe focus on what you need rather than what your mum has, if that makes sense?

Sometimes I find if I leave things for a few days the answer sort of pops up - I see an advert or read a book or overhear a conversation - you know those times when it seems like someone is hearing you and leaves you a little clue about what to do next?  Anyway, I hope you find someway to move forward fairly soon xxx

[Ales2]

The answer that is popping in my head is that I need a motivational therpaist who can understand where my N wounds get triggered adn I react in a way that sabotages my efforts. Its hard to not be understood or be able to get advice that is truly geared to my needs.  I notice in work for example that I keep ending up in certain managerial jobs that I dont really care for, because I'm a people pleaser and need acceptance that happens in collaboration with people. But, I'm truly a creative person. But I cant be creative when I am down on myself, my work then suffers. So I gravitate toward something not really right for me, abandoning the work that will make me successful.  The later, when someone above deosnt like me, I've already been demoralized

Its like I have to fight to keep myself on track to do my best work, so that peoples approval of me wont matter much, and if it does, I will then have sound, good work to fall back on. Make sense? 

Oooohhh--- this is an epiphany for me right here!

[Twoapenny]

Makes complete sense I have been similar for most of my life, always thinking about other people, having to be 150% good at everything just to escape a sense of complete failure - I still battle with it now.  I did cleaning jobs for years despite the fact I had a good degree because I just didn't have the confidence to do anything else and, I suspect, I didn't want to do a better job than my mum (who also cleaned for years).  My T has done quite a bit about triggers and reactions with me - something happens and you react as a wounded child rather than an intelligent, well educated woman.  There's also that underlying sense of all those old messages playing over and over again.  I really hope you are able to find someone that can help you soon xx

[SilverLining]

The answer that is popping in my head is that I need a motivational therpaist who can understand where my N wounds get triggered adn I react in a way that sabotages my efforts. Its hard to not be understood or be able to get advice that is truly geared to my needs.  I notice in work for example that I keep ending up in certain managerial jobs that I dont really care for, because I'm a people pleaser and need acceptance that happens in collaboration with people. But, I'm truly a creative person. But I cant be creative when I am down on myself, my work then suffers. So I gravitate toward something not really right for me, abandoning the work that will make me successful.  The later, when someone above deosnt like me, I've already been demoralized

I sure recognize this process Ales.  I always worked myself into the ground to get some shred of outside approval.  Then because I did such a great job, I would succeed in getting some approval, and promotion to supposedly better managerial jobs.  Then I'd have to put up with a ton of crap for a few dollars more pay than the lower level employees.  I'd burn out and then have to start over in something else.   It seems I was replaying the FOO situation over and over, trying to get some sort of validation I never experienced from my parents. 

[Ales2]

SilverLining - you hit the nail on the head. Its a FOO pattern that repeats. But its addicting! There are some times I  am not even consciously aware that I am vulnerable to it. I have to insist on my autonomy and ability to say NO otherwise I leave myself vulnerable. 

[Ales2]

This is the weird new feeling.

T couldn't solve my problems or seem to help me with them. I left T feeling more wounded and insecure than ever.  I feel like if I go back with a new job and a new relationship and some weight loss - basically getting back to more of my functional self, it would be only superficial because nothing about me or my past would really have changed.
The outside would look different, but the insecurities and wounds would still be there.  Does this make any sense to anyone?

Its almost like I cant succeed now for any reason, because I really wouldn't be different. And, I want to be different, to have progressed in T so that I would know that I could sustain any new life I find for myself.  Does this make any logical sense to anyone? 

Reading this over, I guess I wanted some kind of acknowledgement or validation from T that I had changed and progressed, so I could be done with my insecure and wounded self.

Does this make any logical sense to anyone?  (sorry I'm asking for the 3rd time!)

[Twoapenny]

Yes, yes and yes!  It makes perfect sense.  My first bout of depression came when I had finally got it all - great flat, great job, nice car, plenty of cash and v good looking fiance.  I had all the things that I was sure would make me happy (which also included being super skinny, naturally) and I still felt like c**p.  That was when it all started caving in.

The T may have done more than it seems, in the sense he may have stripped back or opened up a few wounds which is why you feel worse now than you did when you started?  I know that sounds daft but I've found my T has had to keep chiseling away at my veneer to start to let it all out.  There have been loooong periods when it's felt like nothing's happened but when I look back I can see that she was chipping away at all the blocking out stuff to let the real me start to come out.  My homeopath also commented last time I saw him that sometimes it's like grains of sand slipping out slowly rather than big, cathartic changes.  Little tiny things are happening all the time, so small that you barely feel it.  But one day you do something that you wouldn't have done a year ago, or someone says something and it doesn't set you off in the way it would have once upon a time.  And then you realise you did that and think "Wow!  That was different".

I think the wounds and insecurities can take a really long time to heal, and sometimes as they heal more wounds and insecurities start to show up and you have to wait for them to heal as well.  I think I see it more now that I need to accept my wounded insecure self as part of who I am, I guess in the same way that people have to accept other illness or disabilities.  As I've gone along, I am finding that I have longer spells of life being better, and I'm making healthier choices about people, friends, relationships etc.  It's not all the time, sometimes I have really bad spells again, but my whole life used to be one big bad spell and it isn't anymore.

I don't know if any of that makes sense!  I think it comes, but it takes a long time, lots of false starts and sometimes it's happening without you even realising.

[sKePTiKal]

Reading this over, I guess I wanted some kind of acknowledgement or validation from T that I had changed and progressed, so I could be done with my insecure and wounded self.

Gosh, Ales... we all want this!    Even after "graduating" from therapy, I want this. I didn't get any certificate signifying that I had overcome any neuroses, that I was cured of anything, that I was done with insecurity or wounds...

Because I wasn't. Therapy was skills training for me. Learning things about myself... including what and where those wounds were... why they hurt... why "I was the way I was". I called it "emotional forensics" - where I could, with help, recreate the original "crime scene" through feeling and memory. Making some baby-steps into new things and reporting back to my T, getting validation... help looking at what I did... and whether my fears/concerns about them were consistent with the real experience.

Learning how to change from the inside out... I heard that loud & clear, Ales and you know - that's how therapy functioned for me. The process however - was me talking, talking, writing, writing, thinking/feeling, thinking/feeling, remembering and putting two and two together to finally get 4 instead of 5... until I finally realized what the "answers" were for ME. Not what someone else thought was right for me - not what was some arbitrary definition of "normal" - but who Amber is, for real. It seemed to go on forever - and then too soon, seemed to be over. I didn't have anything to say... and we just sat there comfortably looking at each other... then chatting about nothing important.

It was shortly after that, when my T said I needed to think about when it would be OK to stop meeting... that I'd be OK "finishing" all the changes I wanted on my own, without help. And you know, I did go back for 1 or 2 "update" sessions after that... it was hard for me to let go of that relationship... where I got reassurance, validation... but mostly where she gently pushed me to open up to myself and recognize my SELF - the actual details and content of which, only really matter to me, you know?

There isn't any right/wrong way to BE... and any outside changes will have to come from the center of the real you, from a "want to" place.

LOL... don't give up too soon! It'll be all right... talk therapy isn't as fashionable as it used to be, Dahling... but for my money, it's the ONLY thing that really works and gets us to a lasting difference, real change, from the inside out.

[Ales2]

The T may have done more than it seems, in the sense he may have stripped back or opened up a few wounds which is why you feel worse now than you did when you started?

Yes, I think this is where some of the problems are. New experiences keep bringing up wounds I have not talked about before and I can see where I get stuck and then make the wrong decision and sabotage myself. There just isnt enough time to address them all. We never get to the newer issues. I keep applying for work, but when that old stuff comes back, I will just drop whatever I am doing and call it a lost cause. I cant go back to where things were and dont have much guidance in moving forward.

I think the wounds and insecurities can take a really long time to heal, and sometimes as they heal more wounds and insecurities start to show up and you have to wait for them to heal as well.

  - TRUE TRUE

There isn't any right/wrong way to BE... and any outside changes will have to come from the center of the real you, from a "want to" place.

I was hoping that I would grow in therapy, but didnt - even if I know there is no way to be, I know I cant be the way I am and expect to have anything good change in my life.

don't give up too soon! It'll be all right

 I did give up. Last time I went in it was all about anti-depressants, so I cant go back. I had not seen him in six months. I canceled the last appointment because anti-ds was all he wanted to talk about. When I left he told me please dont cancel,  because he knew I would. cant go back now. I'm probably a "troubled" therapry patient now. Like I wasnt before.

Thanks for the input everybody. Its just another dreary sunday and I'll muddle through.

[BonesMS]

It seems that either these "professionals" try to continuously ram drugs down our throats that are useless to us or they try to ram us into a "pigeonhole" for their own convenience.  It begs the question:  "When do these 'professionals' really LISTEN and HEAR what we are saying or are we just as VOICELESS in their offices?"  What gets me is that these "professionals" ARE BEING PAID TO LISTEN and they ARE NOT LISTENING!

The last psychiatrist I saw was obsessed on me "getting a man and having sex" because, in his view, that would solve all my problems.  (Yeah. Right!  Fool!     Just what I need.  Someone else's baggage on top of my own!)

I kept repeating:  "If I can't have a healthy relationship with myself, how in the hell can I offer someone else a healthy relationship?!?!?  (Dumb jack-ass!)

He simply did NOT want to hear that from me because, "in his country", all women are supposed to have men.  He kept ignoring the fact that we are NOT in HIS country and American women don't think the way he decrees women should think!

He also tried to go the route of pushing anti-depressants on me after the first batch stopped working and blew my weight up like crazy.  Then he told me that I was fat from eating too much!  (Can we say set-up for eating disorders?)  He was also aware that I'm a recovering alcoholic and recovering drug addict.  His response to that was:  (a) trying to order me to stop attending AA because he's "jealous", (WTF?   ), and (b) trying to push benzodiazepines on me with the excuse that he "will control my addiction for me!"  I managed to maintain my sobriety because I ripped up his prescriptions and gave the confetti back to him.  Finally, I realized that he would NEVER hear me and fired him!

Made me wonder how many of these so-called "professionals" have delusions of god-hood?!

Bones

[sKePTiKal]

New experiences keep bringing up wounds I have not talked about before and I can see where I get stuck and then make the wrong decision and sabotage myself. There just isnt enough time to address them all. We never get to the newer issues. I keep applying for work, but when that old stuff comes back, I will just drop whatever I am doing and call it a lost cause. I cant go back to where things were and dont have much guidance in moving forward.

OK... maybe each of these experiences contain different issues; that together just feel overwhelming ... until you find someone with the patience to help you unravel one color of yarn from the tangled ball, at a time. You don't have to solve everything all at once, ya know... and your T should know this, and tell you the same, too.

Maybe there is a "common thread" or theme in all these experiences, too... a way in which a very small moment of each of the experierences involves the same kind of action, emotion, or response from you. These can be important "forensic" clues in your quest to start with a.) why am I like I am?? and b.) how do I start to change that??  There is a feeling; a sensation or awareness of a switch being flipped in ourselves... when we are able to finally stop telling all the story/experiences... and find a big enough table to put it all out on at once - like a thousand pieces of stained glass - and reassemble it into a coherent picture. THEN, it's possible to move forward...

and then, there's practice - like you're doing with running - only with emotional things. You can definitely apply that kind practice to mental/emotional habits... (which a lot of our responses to life are, really)... and get to something new and different; the kind of new and different you're looking for.