Monthly Archives: June 2010

Jun 30 2010

Update

Thank you to everyone who was supportive to me yesterday. To the person who was not I would like you to know that your comments upset me very much and I was very sad for the entire day. But today I took a blog buddy’s advice and emailed J this morning.

It would really help me if you could give me more notice of your absences, like you always have in the past. Well, I know you gave me a week and that is great, I know sometimes things come up. But I found it really hard when you dropped the news on me as I was walking out the door. So maybe earlier in the session next time? I realize it is just me and my over-sensitivity, but still. Thank you.

He responded:

I thought that I had mentioned my absence last week. That is how I traditionally address the issue. If I neglected to inform you last week, I apologize.

I responded:

No, you didn’t. I guess you forgot. These things happen – have fun at the beach.

This brings up a lot of feelings from the past. I always felt like people didn’t pay much attention to me. This is partially my own behavior though. As I have mentioned before both my father and my sister were sick when I was a child, and I took it upon myself to take care of myself and not to bother anyone. So people tended to ignore me knowing I didn’t need them for anything. And I perceived this as forgetting about me.

People continue to do this to me, because of my tendency to be so “independent”. But you know what I really want? I want people to remember me, to care enough about me that they don’t forget about me.

Jun 29 2010

A Letter to My T

I don’t know why I am feeling so bad right now. Well, I guess I do, it always comes back to me being too sensitive.

At first I was so angry – how dare you tell me as I’m on my way out the door that you are going on vacation and you’ll see me in two weeks. I always give you at least two weeks notice if I am going to miss a session, unless it is an emergency, which only happened once. And I know that your beach vacation isn’t something you decided on today since you asked me, “Did I tell you yet that I won’t be here next week?” When else would you have told me if not today? Last week obviously, so you must have known last week.

And our session was over, so I couldn’t even respond. I’m left to just leave feeling like a scrap of trash that needs to be taken out to the garbage pile.

But then I wasn’t angry. Because you certainly don’t owe me anything, including a specific time frame to tell me that you have to cancel, or the time to talk about how I might feel about that. You are taking a vacation, and that’s a great thing. And you gave me a week’s notice and that seems reasonable. It’s not like you called me 10 minutes before to cancel, or just didn’t show up (which if you remember from me telling you about my son’s therapist has been done to me multiple times).

Since I’m not angry, but I’m feeling bad I am trying to process this. First of all there was the issue of you having another client from my neighborhood, or social circle, or whatever. And that didn’t make me feel good. I’m still not sure what the issue there is, it’s not like I am embarrassed to be in therapy, some people know about it, and I know plenty of other people who have therapists. I once ran into a neighbor at the psychiatrist’s office, and although it was weird, it was somewhat comforting. Maybe because she seemed like such a put together high functioning person, and to know that she is getting that way through medications was kind of reassuring that it’s ok.

Maybe I just don’t want anyone else I know to be seeing you specifically. I know you have other clients, but they are just amorphous, nebulous creatures and I don’t actually picture them as people. Unless I see one of them in the waiting room, and even then I don’t know if they are there to see you. Last week I saw a teenager/young adult, totally oblivious to me listening to music and playing on his iphone. Even he was amorphous. But if there is someone I actually know, or see in my neighborhood, or even talk to, that is just uncomfortable. Especially since you will sometimes tell me about other clients, so I can only assume you might tell other clients about me. I know you don’t give out any identifying information, but still.

(And I do feel bad about not recognizing your other clients as real people with real problems. That is very minimizing to them, I realize that. And I know that they are real people to you, and that is what is important. So I hope you don’t think I’m being cold and unfeeling towards your other clients, it’s just a defense mechanism I guess.)

I guess maybe it was your casual attitude about the whole thing. I took your message to say, “I’m going away and you’ll just miss a week of therapy and it’s no big deal.” I actually could go on with the message I got, “Since you talk about the same negative stuff every week and how you are just too harsh on yourself and hold on to negative things forever, so what’s the problem with missing a week of doing that?” And even, “And you never get any better and there is never any improvement so how could missing one week possibly even cause a blip in your life?” If I was more important, or more worthwhile, or a better person maybe you would have told me last week, or earlier in the session, rather than just as a passing remark as I was walking out the door.

But I suppose it is my fault because whenever you ask me how I am I say I am fine. I try to act like everything is always ok and I just need therapy because I don’t have anything to really do on Tuesdays at 11am, so why not? But at times like this it seems the truth comes out. Well, it doesn’t even come out, it just stays in. But I recognize it at least, even if I don’t say it. The truth being I am not fine, that there are times I feel I am being held together by one strand of a spider web and sometimes I want the spider web to tear so that I can break free of holding myself together like this, but I’ll never let the strand tear because I am afraid of what will happen. I can visualize what will happen when the strand breaks and it’s not pretty. So I work all day every day at keeping the spider web strand intact. Sometimes it stretches really tightly and I do some slightly harmful behaviors, but I never let it totally break.

And then when Tuesday at 11am comes around I don’t really talk about any of that. So what’s the big deal about missing a week? I guess there isn’t any. I just don’t know why I felt so bad when I left, writing this out isn’t helping. I’m missing something, but I don’t know what it is. Or maybe it’s just my personality – I’m too sensitive.

Jun 29 2010

Feeling Like Crap

I had my t appointment this morning. Talked a lot about death – the jellyfish, the cemetery, the Jack Kevorkian movie, the 13 year old boy in my neighborhood who died. I asked J if I had told him that already. He asked, “How did he die?” I said, “Cancer. He had it when he was a baby and then it went away and came back when he was 10.” He told me that someone else had told him about this boy. I said, “What do you mean someone else? Another client?” He said, “Yes.” I said, “Are you sure it wasn’t me?” He said he was sure.

I started feeling really sick. How could J have two clients who both know this family? That means he has a client who lives in my neighborhood or something. I started asking lots of questions about this person:

Are they good friend with the family
Do they go to the Catholic church
Is their child on the swim team

All he knew was that this other client isn’t good friends with the family. I made him promise to never schedule this other client after me, and he assured me he would never schedule this client on even the same day as me. But I still feel very uncomfortable about this. He said, “You live on XXXX Street, right?”

So after our session it was time to go and J said, “Did I tell you that I won’t be here next week?” I said, “No, why not?” He said he was going to the beach. And that’s it. He said, “See you in two weeks!” And I left.

Now I feel like total shit. That’s how he tells me he is skipping a week? Is that normal t behavior? He’s never done that in the past, he has always given me more notice. I always give him at least two weeks notice if I am missing a session. And he tells me as I’m walking out the door so I can’t even respond? Obviously this isn’t a last minute decision or he wouldn’t have worded the question that way.

This is one of those situations that make me feel so bad about myself. If I was more worthwhile, if he cared about me at all, if I was a person of value, he would have told me last week. Or at least this week but earlier in the session. Now what am I supposed to do?

Jun 29 2010

Help!

I have my t session at 11am (eastern time). I don’t know what to talk about. I feel like I haven’t been there in so long, but it’s only been a week. I know I’ve been writing about things that have been going on, but I don’t know if those are things worth talking about, or if I even can talk about them.

Anyone who has been reading my blog this week – help! What should I talk about in t today?

Jun 28 2010

Stressed and Tired

I am not the type of person to take naps in the daytime. Even if I am working on little sleep. Last week at the beach I found myself falling asleep every afternoon around 4PM. That is when the beach cooled off a bit, and people were starting to leave. It’s my favorite time of day at the beach.

Remember the chest pain episode that took me to the hospital last month? Friday night I woke up at 3:11am with terrible pain in my back that spread to my chest, my neck, my jaw. At this point I know it is not my heart, but if I hadn’t known that I probably would have thought I was dying. I sat up, laid down, tried different positions, but it would not let up. This went on until 4:45am, and then I had to get up at 5:30am to run with my group. Later that day I fell asleep at the pool.

Today I worked until about 1PM, then came home and had lunch. A thunderstorm rolled through, and this terrifies my dog, so we climbed on the bed together. At 2:45PM I fell asleep and slept for 2 hours! This is crazy. I don’t know why I was so tired. I hadn’t drunk any alcohol or taken any drugs, I swear!

I think I’m just stressed. All of this discord with other members of my family is stressing me out. I want things to be nice and pleasant and everyone getting along. And to get to that point I either have to suck it up and push all of my bad feelings away, or talk to my husband. I don’t like either of the choices.

Jun 27 2010

Some random things:

A friend was telling me that her daughter is going on a weeklong mission trip to North Carolina with the local Methodist church. I told her it sounds like the people who I met in Gulfport, Mississippi when I went there for Habitat for Humanity. She asked me who I went with and I told her I went alone. She said, “That is just amazing! That you wanted to do something and you just went all by yourself!” People say this sort of thing all the time. I know they really do think it is amazing, and unusual, and that I am “the most independent person they have ever met in their entire lives.” I don’t feel it though. I feel that I am doing these things to isolate myself, or to run away from problems, or because I am searching for something and I don’t know what it is.

On August 1st it will be one year since I started on the crisis hotline. I made a one year commitment and I am trying to decide whether or not to continue. The main factor in this decision is that I got this new job in February and it is working out to be about 25 hours a week. Plus 5 hours for my other job, and another 5 or so per week seeing my foster child. So there isn’t a lot of time left over. Selfishly I also really want a day in my week when I don’t have to set my alarm clock. During the work week I get up at 6:30, Saturdays I get up at 5:30 or 6:00 to run, and Sundays I get up at 7:00 to get to the hotline. Then I was thinking of switching to another shift, but the weekdays are so busy already. I enjoy the hotline, even though I don’t really feel like I am doing much. I will have to think about this some more during the next month.

Yesterday I was having a pretty nice day. Got up really early, went for an 11 mile run down to the zoo. Then my running group went to a coffee shop and I sat with another woman who I have been running with for the last 3 weeks or so. She has a son somewhat like my son, and she is divorced, so she is interesting to talk to and we have some things in common. I actually worked with her when I was a substitute teacher, but I didn’t know her well. Then I came home, and spent the day at the pool. Swam, and read, and napped. Talked to people who came and went. Around 6PM I went home to shower and change so that my husband, son and I could go out to dinner.

I went into the bathroom. Noticed there was no toilet paper on the roll. Got annoyed. How hard is it for whoever uses up the paper to replace it? There is plenty more under the sink, you don’t even have to move to get it. So I replaced the paper. Went to the bathroom (sorry for too much information), flushed the toilet. Turns out the toilet was clogged by the last person who used it and now the water is overflowing all over the bathroom floor. I grabbed the towels and threw them on the floor. Not enough. Ran into the kids’ bathroom and grabbed all the towels there (they have tons of them since they never bring them down to the laundry room, just keep taking new ones), and ran back to my bathroom to throw them on the floor. Ran back to the kids’ bathroom to get the plunger and run back to my bathroom to plunge the toilet, which takes all of 3 seconds.

Now I have an unclogged toilet, but the floor is full of sopping wet towels and rugs. I take the plunger back to the kids’ bathroom, throw it across the room, and slam the door. Go into the linen closet to get a clean towel for me and slam the door. My son asks what is wrong. I ignore him. My husband comes upstairs and asks what is wrong. I scream at him, “Someone left the toilet clogged and now I am the one cleaning up the mess.” He says nothing, turns around, and leaves.

This same exact thing had happened a couple of weeks ago. After that time my husband went to the linen closet because I had used all of the towels in the bathroom to soak up the water, and he got himself a fresh towel. Didn’t bring one in for me though. I said to him at the time, “I see you got yourself a clean towel, but didn’t get me one.” No response. So this time I got myself a clean towel and didn’t get him one.

I piled all of the wet towels and rugs into a laundry basket and it was outside the bathroom door while I showered and changed. My husband came upstairs to change his clothes. Walked right by the basket full of wet towels into the closet to change. Walked right by the basket of wet towels to go back downstairs.

I am feeling rage. I get these feelings of fury, of rage, and lately they have been happening more often. It happens when people in my family do things like leave me a big mess to clean up, act like I am the maid, pretend they are stupid and don’t know how to do anything, don’t admit they made the mess, etc. I guess they are making me feel devalued, and my response is rage.

Sometimes it gets really bad and I throw things. I used to do this a lot when my kids were little and there is a lot of shame there. My little kids would see me have terrible tantrums and throw and break things. I don’t do it as often now, but I still feel the rage. It is horrible. A couple of weeks ago I broke a bottle while in a rage (cleaning up a mess my daughter left), and picked up a piece of the broken glass and slashed my arm with it.

I can’t even write about this anymore. I’m still doing the damn laundry for the towels and rugs from the overflowed toilet. And I am still furious at my husband.

Jun 24 2010

Killing Jellyfish

This morning when I got to the beach I saw two little girls crying really badly and looking at rashes on their arms. I immediately knew that they were stung by jellyfish. A little later in the morning two men nearby me were stung. The water was somewhat warm and jellyfish like the warm water.

Then I saw a couple of guys scoop a jellyfish out of the water and lay it on the beach. A bunch of people gathered around to look at it, it was big. They were pouring water on it. Then one of the guys dug a hole in the dry sand and buried it.

A couple who had been over there watching walked by me and I asked them why those guys killed the jellyfish. They said, “Well if they put it back in the water it would sting again.” I said, “Yes, but there are hundreds of jellyfish in the water, so what good is killing one of them?”

Later on I heard the two guys bragging that they had killed five so far. If I had witnessed another jellyfish death I was going to move to another section of the beach.

I realize that jellyfish sting and that it hurts, and if someone is allergic to a jellyfish sting it could be life threatening. But does that mean that we can fish them all out of the ocean and kill them? I just don’t understand the logic.

When I came back to the guest house I told the owner what happened and that I didn’t understand it. He said, “Some people are sadists.” And sadly, I have to believe that is true. Maybe they really thought that they were doing a good deed by killing the jellyfish? But I kind of doubt it.

Jun 24 2010

Beach

It’s been kind of weird being here at the beach by myself. I think I am the only person who is at the beach alone. There are many families, couples, groups, friends, adult children with parent combos, etc. And me. I do a lot of people watching, reading, listening to podcasts (This American Life is my favorite), napping. It is very hot, but the water is very cold. As the day goes on, one must go in the water and it feels really good. My beach is very crowded, but the last two nights I’ve gone over to the state park which is pretty deserted. I hung out for a while there last night and took some photos.

I feel sad being here alone, which I know is stupid because I wanted to come by myself. I just feel isolated, which is what I have done to myself over the past year. On the one hand it feels safe, on the other hand it feels empty and without connection.

I feel stuck. But if one is going to be stuck there is no better place to be stuck than at the beach.

beach

beach

beach

beach

beach

beach

beach

beach

beach

Jun 22 2010

Therapy Recap 6/22/10

I asked J about the Purell. He said his hands felt kind of dirty. I told him that every single week the minute I walk in he Purells. He asked me if I don’t want him to do it anymore, and I said, no, it’s ok. He said he is always touching stuff on the desk and the keyboard and his hands feel dirty. I think he has ocd personally.

You know what I noticed? I just realized it today. He doesn’t say, “So what are we talking about today?” anymore. And he’ll mention something we talked about the week before. These are things I’ve written about on my blog that have been bothering me, but I haven’t mentioned it to him. I wonder if he is reading my blog without showing up on the statistics. It’s easy to do that if he is using an rss reader, like Google Reader. And later on in the session he mentioned how I express myself so well on my blog and in email. Interesting…

So first he asked if I am still thinking of leaving and going to Iowa, something we talked about last week. We talked about that a while, and how I know I would never do it, it is just a fantasy. But I did tell him that I am going to beach as soon as the session is over. I told him that I packed all of my meds. The whole stash. We talked about that for a while. He said sometimes people will bring him their meds to hold for them. But he didn’t ask me for mine, and I didn’t volunteer to give them to him. He asked how I would feel if I didn’t have my stash. And he asked how often I take more than I should. I told him I never take more than I should and he scoffed. He didn’t believe me. He said that there have been times when I have emailed him and told him I took too much. I said that is not true, I emailed him once when I took some extra, but it was still less than the therapeutic dose. I take 1mg of klonopin per day right now. He asked how often I take more than the usual amount and I said never, I haven’t done that in a long time, like almost a year. And I told him that my plan does not involve overdosing, but I just like to have my stash.

Then he thought of an analogy of being trapped in my marriage, my family, my life and trapped in my thoughts of suicide. We talked again about being good enough, and he compared it to our country (the United States) and how it is a pretty good country, but it has its flaws. And he said everyone has flaws and he has flaws (hmm, I have to think of his flaws. List to follow). This is an ongoing topic for us.

We spent time discussing my guilt over going to the beach, and spending the money especially since the hospital bills are coming in from my visit to the er a few weeks ago. And that was a good chunk of cash and there wasn’t even anything wrong with me. If there had been something wrong with me it would feel better somehow. He said that there must have been times when I have saved money, so that offsets the times that I spend money. He said I have probably thrown away $2000 worth of lunch meat in my lifetime. Then he told me a story about getting his air conditioner fixed. He started to tell me, then said, never mind, but I said, no tell me. So he did.

He tried to convince me that I deserve this trip. He asked who I was going with and I said no one. That I used to go with a friend, but we aren’t friends anymore.

And we talked about how I didn’t have the discussion with my husband that I wanted to have. And the envelope that my husband didn’t open. J said I should email my husband and ask if he read that info yet that came in the envelope. He said in his experience counseling couples that he recommends some of them communicate via email, and that would be good for me (since I express myself so well in my blog and in email to him). I said, you know it’s not even so much about whether my husband read the information. I want to know why he didn’t open the envelope. J said that my husband feels that is my “department”. He said that in relationships there are precedents, and these habits become ingrained over the years and then are hard to change. I asked how a parent could be so uninterested in their child’s college education. J said maybe he is interested, just not in the paperwork. I said, “So he is interested in parents weekend and football games?” And J said maybe he is.

I said that I want him to be the kind of person who would open the envelope. And J said, “So you want him to change.” Yes, exactly. But that isn’t going to happen, is it? And discussions initiated by me aren’t likely to happen either. But we didn’t really get into why that is.
Lots of surface stuff this week, which is fine. I left afterwards and drove to the beach, which is where I am now. Staying in a very cute bed and breakfast one and a half blocks from the beach. Unpacked, changed, went to the beach for a couple hours. Sitting on the beach suddenly realizing I am alone. And I felt lonely. I read. Got some French fries. Then came back, changed and went for a long run. I ran down an interesting looking road and came to a state park right on the beach. Very desolate. Perfect place to commit suicide. I had been looking for a place like that at home. It put scary thoughts in my head.

I also ran by a cemetery and walked around in there for awhile. There were people buried there who were born in the 1800s. Then I came upon a little grave, for a baby who was 6 months old. And she was a twin. There were small rocks on the grass in front of her headstone and they were painted with sayings like “We love you Megan”. I sat and looked at that for a while.

I had been thinking suicidal thoughts prior to getting here. What it would be like to die here instead of at home. Much better. But I’m not going to kill myself. I just think about it all the time. Like all the damn time. Something needs to change here. J says I only think about the negative – of myself, of my life. Never the positive. Or I notice the positive, but it is fleeting. The negative sticks forever. Is this a choice I make, is it part of my personality, what is it? Is it something I need to get to the root of, or is there a way to change my thinking?

It seems like J loves to work on this day to day stuff, and maybe that is what I need. I’m always trying to get so abstract and that obviously hasn’t helped much.

So anyway, he told me to enjoy the beach and I deserve to be able to go and have a good time.

Jun 21 2010

Forget the Purell

Yeah, the Purell thing is just keeping my mind off of the real issues. But it’s not even really doing that, so now I’m thinking about the real issues and the Purell. Which really sucks.

I never said anything to my husband this week about the things I wanted to talk to him about. At first I was thinking it was because I couldn’t remember all of the words that J gave me to say. But it’s not the words. It’s me and my inability to say the words due to all of the baggage that I am carrying around all the time. And it is getting heavy.

Tomorrow I am going to the beach for three nights/four days by myself. The last few years I have gone with a friend, the same friend each time. But now we are not friends anymore. However, I found out yesterday that she is going to the beach this week with another of her friends. I’m sure I’ll run into her, it’s not a very big beach. I am not happy about this, I just wanted to get away, not deal with anyone, be by myself, forget everything going on at home and in my life. Now I’ll spend the whole time keeping an eye out for her. Of course I’ll be totally polite and nice when I see her, and I’m sure she will be the same to me. It’s sad that we are not friends anymore, but in a way it is better.

She is a Purell addict herself. Maybe this is how I can divide up people in the future – people I want in my life and people who I don’t want in my life. Purell avoiders/Purell addicts. When I meet someone new I’ll ask their opinion of Purell. Weed out the negatives right away.