Tag Archives: collage

Jan 5 2010

Therapy Recap 1/5/10

During my session today we talked about the email covering what I learned in therapy during 2009. There was a lot of stuff to cover, J says it could take a couple of weeks to go through it all. At least I won’t have to come up with therapy topics for a while. He did say the email was great and perfect.

Today we focused on holding on to negative thoughts and feelings, and validating feelings. So looking back at my journal I saw that I don’t treat myself well, I don’t do anything very bad, I even do some good stuff, but I have negative thoughts and feelings and because of that I think I’m negative. And I hold on to those thoughts and feelings, without holding on to comparable good thoughts and feelings. J says it would be good to resolve this on a more immediate time schedule, rather than annually I guess. So for example if I have a negative experience I should process it, look at it objectively, without judgement, within a shorter time period.

Apparently on the Biggest Loser, which starts tonight by the way, the contestants will be wearing some sort of arm band which will keep an up to the minute display of calories expended and taken in. I’m not really thrilled with that system for some reason, I’ll have to come back to that. But the point is if I had a “real time” notification system of when I am doing something negative, and if I can deal with it right then, it would be beneficial. Maybe a flashing red light with a buzzer?

I’m not really sure this is possible however (not the flashing red light, the process). When I’m “in the moment” emotionally, I don’t really think very logically. I guess I wouldn’t have to wait a year to figure things out, but I don’t think I can do it in real time either. It’s like being stuck in a forest. All you can see are the trees around you, or if it’s winter perhaps some trees a little farther on. But you are just focused on those trees and finding your way through them. If, however, you are in a plane or on a mountain, looking down at the forest, you might be able to see a path leading you out. So when I’m in the moment I’m in the forest. A year later I’m standing on the mountain looking at the forest. Does that make sense?

J thinks if I am writing these entries on a regular basis it would be helpful to therapy for him to read them. He said that he had another client who had a blog and he would send him a link so that he could read it. He said this client made his blog private, but had some public entries and those were the only ones J could read. I’m not sure about this.

First of all, I don’t want to make my blog private. I want my readers to find me, they are helpful to me, and I feel a rapport with them. Making it too difficult will be a deterrent.

Secondly, I am very honest in this blog. Hey, I even got an Honest Blogger award once. The reason I can be so honest is because no one IRL is reading this. Somehow it is ok to have people reading if I don’t really know them for real. I guess I would feel okay with him reading this if I never saw him again. Computer therapy?

Third, and this is related to number two I suppose, I don’t want to subconsciously censor anything I write. I’ve never said anything terrible about J, but I have written some embarrassing things about him, as well as some things that could be construed as negative (i.e.; the fact that he talks so much) which for me aren’t necessarily negative, but I don’t know how someone else will read it.

He also said that I can email him selected posts. That would be hard for me. I wouldn’t know what to choose because I don’t know what he wants to see. Maybe some things that I don’t think are significant, actually are. Or vice versa. And then I would think I’m bothering him if I send him a post that isn’t relevant to anything. Plus email has been unreliable for us at times and I don’t want to be anxious about sending him an email and wondering whether or not he got it. So I don’t know about that idea either.

I know that Aqua lets Dr. X read her blog (Aqua – are you there? I hope you’re ok!) Does anyone else let their therapist read their blog, or send them posts via email? Any opinions or advice would be appreciated. Pete or Tony if you are reading, do your clients let you read their blogs? Would you want to?

The other thing J picked out of the three page email was the paragraph where I state that he doesn’t validate feelings. He mentioned this one a few times. I asked if this hurt his feelings and he said no, but I’m wondering why this jumped out at him. He asked me what validating feelings looks like, he gave me a couple of examples which weren’t validating at all. I told him that not only were they not validating, they were actually invalidating. I know he knows what feelings validation looks like, and I guess he wanted to know what it means to me, but I think it means the same to everyone, doesn’t it? I didn’t press the issue and just told him what I thought a good statement would be to validate someone’s feelings: “That must be hard for you.” Not: “You’re not a bad person, you do x, y and z, and you should do a, b and c to make yourself feel better.” I hate that. Then not only does a person feel bad about something, but they feel wrong about feeling bad. What’s wrong with saying, “That must be hard for you.” I told him that a statement like that makes me feel that someone has empathy for me, that they understand I am feeling badly, that they are not judging me, and that they are there for me. All that from six words.

J said he doesn’t validate feelings. Yes, I know that, I figured it out pretty quickly. I didn’t like it, but I got used to it. He says it doesn’t serve any purpose to validate feelings; I guess in the long run it doesn’t fix anything, but it can make a person feel understood. That’s something, I think. I validate feelings a lot on the hotline, but I’m not doing therapy. He does a lot of normalizing feelings, which I don’t care for, but I know it’s helpful for other people. We didn’t get into that.

And we talked about whether it is necessary for a person to have their feelings validated, I said I didn’t think so, it’s just a nice thing. He said I could validate my own feelings. Sure, maybe one day. In a different galaxy. But it’s something to work towards.

I gave J my collage. One thing he does that is so different from me is that he focuses on every little detail. Like he saw that there were 12 photos, and he said the photo in the middle was significant and the placement of the photos was significant. When actually the placement of the photos was dependent on the shapes of the borders in the collage, including the photo in the middle. He doesn’t really see the big picture, not at first anyway. He was trying to discern what each photo meant, when really it was overall theme I was going for. I thought the collage would help him understand my mind, but I don’t think it worked.

So that was it for today, nothing terrible to feel badly about which is nice. I would love to get advice on what to do about making my blog available to J.

Jan 2 2010

Things I Learned in Therapy in 2009

I spent the day yesterday reading through the 245 pages of my journal/blog, and what I read was so fascinating to me. I decided to tell J the discoveries I have made by reading a year’s worth of writing, and here is part of the email I sent him today.

*****************************************

I originally started my journal by hand, but in December of 2008 I began writing it in Microsoft Word. It is now 245 pages long (don’t worry, I’m not sending it to you). When I saw that I thought, wow maybe I should stop writing and start living, but I spent the day yesterday reading over it (a good thing to do on January 1st) and so many things became clear to me, and I learned a few things as well. So I’m sending you this email because there is no way I will remember it all on Tuesday. Maybe you can make some sense of it and figure out what to talk about next week.

Many of my journal entries are self indulgent, self pitying, hard to read. I feel like I am reading about someone else, although I know I wrote this, I remember writing most of it. My first reaction in reading these is to delete them, but I didn’t do that. I think I might want to read them every once in a while to remind myself that I am striving to NOT be that person anymore. I kind of feel sorry for the person who wrote these entries, she doesn’t seem like a bad person.

After reading about myself over the period of 13 months I see that in that time I didn’t do anything bad. I may have caused people to become impatient with me, I may have confused people, but I didn’t actually do anything bad. (Thoughts don’t count here). Seeing this in black and white is really eye opening. I do a lot of good things, and I have some good qualities, and some good talents. Maybe I’m not really bad after all (not counting old parenting issues, etc.)

There is an entry in February when I was considering dropping out of my flying group. I wrote about how I’m not a perfect flyer (there are certain airports I won’t fly into, certain airlines I won’t fly, and certain types of planes I won’t get on), but I’m a good enough flyer. I thought you’d like that.

I really can see how I have way too high expectations of myself sometimes. There was an entry in May where I write about how I painted the whole bathroom, including the ceiling, over the weekend. And then at the end I write, “I’m so unmotivated lately.” I think I’m much more aware of doing that now.

I also am trying to be nicer to myself. I was cooking something a few weeks ago and I got a little messy and spilled something on the stove. My thought was immediately, “I am such an idiot.” But then I thought that if it was my husband or one of my kids who did that I would never say they are an idiot. So I did a take back and told myself that I’m not an idiot. Reading the journal makes it so clear about how hard I am on myself. If I was reading this and it was written by someone else I wouldn’t understand why she is so mean to herself.

In May I wrote that you said progress would be if I could move from shame (mentioned 65 times in the 245 pages) to low self-esteem (60 times) to acceptance. I think I might be in the low self-esteem category now, so I’ve made progress. This is where I would normally make a sarcastic comment like “at a snail’s pace” or apologize for taking so long and so much of your time, or say what a loser I am for making such a tiny step in a whole year. But I won’t do that. I don’t do that anymore.

And guilt was only mentioned 27 times, so maybe soon it will be shame mentioned only 27 times and guilt 65 times. That would be progress too.

I didn’t realize how much you liked the cutting collage, or you seemed to anyway. I wrote that you looked at it a lot, and brought it up a lot. I guess it must appeal to your sensing function. I made another collage this week, I’ll bring it in Tuesday.

We talked many times about me being a bother to you, being boring, not having anything interesting to say, how this only costs me $19.40 a week so I should probably only get 1/7 of the attention you would give to a full paying client. The word bother appears 30 times in the 245 pages. I wrote a lot about feeling bad that you are so nice to me.

I wrote quite a bit about how I wasn’t able to communicate things very well to you and it led to me feeling misunderstood. Email worked when it worked, but it didn’t work very well sometimes. I would like to be able to communicate better, not just with you. I’ve been noticing I have this problem with other people, and maybe that is why everything is just on the surface.

Reading the journal I realize that food and weight issues are part of the reason I stopped seeing friends (the other part being I was just isolating and avoiding stress). At this time last year I was going out with friends all of the time. But then I became fixated on food issues, and it was too hard to keep doing that. The words food/eat/eating/weight appear 201 times. And I don’t think we’ve ever even talked about this.

I wrote a few times (12) about having my feelings validated and how you don’t do that. I think that was the cause of having hurt feelings and anger at the beginning. You do say that feelings aren’t good or bad, they just are, so in general you are validating feelings. But in specific instances you don’t do that, and I’m used to it now. I guess I missed out on feelings validation when I was a child or something, but I’m trying to be the kind of person who doesn’t need her feelings validated by a third party.

About the bell curve (mentioned only 11 times, although maybe the find command didn’t catch the times I called it the bell f***ing curve), I understand that for all of the aspects of me that cause me to feel different, or weird, that I am somewhere on the bell curve. Not necessarily in the middle, usually not in the middle. But isn’t everyone on the bell curve, even those with extreme differences? They are on there, just over at the ends.

It seems as though you had to walk a fine line between my desire to be like everyone else, and the fact that in some regards I am not like everybody else. There were times you called me or something I do strange, and times when you said something about all of your other clients doing or feeling something totally opposite of me. I would usually get offended by those things. But reading the journal has made some things clearer to me in this regard; although I still have some confusion as well.

I’m actually not sure what it is about me that makes me feel different. You’ve pointed out some things, for example how all of your other clients feel safe in your office and I don’t, how your other clients are impressed with the way you remember things they’ve said and I find fault when you don’t remember things I’ve said, how your other clients’ therapy is more linear because they have a specific problem and I don’t, how a lot of clients come to see you to learn how to have stronger boundaries but I’m in the minority, that I’m the only client who has ever told you that you are intimidating, that you frequently explain why you are doing something or your motivations for doing something to me and you don’t do that with most clients. I wrote that maybe you are trying to get me to accept all of my weirdnesses (differences would be a better way of saying it) instead of trying to change to become normal.

Which brings me to the cyclical nature of my feelings towards you. At first it went like this: I liked you one week, you made me mad or hurt my feelings the next week, I liked you the next week, etc….. Now it is more like: I like you one week, the next week you make me mad or hurt my feelings, the next week I realize it’s not you who did that but it’s me projecting, I like you the next week, etc…..

Some troubling things –

Naturally, I have forgotten some things we talked about, but when I read what I wrote about them it comes back. There are a couple of exceptions though. In December 2008 I wrote that I gave you a letter I had written. I have the letter in my journal as well as in the document folder on my computer. But I have no recollection of writing it, giving it to you, or you reading it. The same with an email I wrote in May that I have no recollection of writing, but it’s in my sent mail folder, so I guess I really did send it. Forgetting about things we talked about is no big deal, but forgetting about things I actually did is unsettling.

It appears that there are times when I am in total denial. For example in January I got angry at you because you asked me the same question two weeks in a row. A few weeks later you brought up the fact that it made me angry, and I said I didn’t know what you were talking about, I was never angry.

In December 2008 we were talking about the same issue as we talked about in December 2009 – intrusive thoughts. And the same things about the intrusive thoughts, like what’s the payoff. We never resolved anything and I guess that topic just got put on the back burner. It’s kind of discouraging that we are having the same conversation a year later.

And it seems I started to feel not so well in January, maybe because I went off the wellbutrin in middle of December 2008? I started it again at the very end of October. It dismays me to realize that I might really need the wellbutrin; I went off of it because of the side effects. I have a lot of trouble sleeping, and it makes my head buzz. And with everything that is already going in my head, the buzzing is not welcome. Now that I’m taking it again I’m getting the same side effects. So this is somewhat of a challenge.

So that is it for 2009. Thank you for everything you do for me, I really appreciate it even if it doesn’t seem so and even if you don’t have any toys in your office. See you Tuesday,

Dec 29 2009

Collage

So it turns out that my blog word document had a lot of page breaks in it. I took them all out and it is actually only 241 pages. I had only printed out December 08 – March 09, so I sent the rest to the FedEx copy store to be printed out and I picked it up today. I keep it all in a binder. I’m not sure why.

I made a collage of the intrusive thoughts that have been in my mind for the past couple of weeks. It probably doesn’t make any sense to anyone, but I think it helps me to confront the images more directly.

collage

Dec 15 2009

Therapy Recap 12/15/09

Went back to therapy today after a break due to J’s vacation. It was hard to be back. Lots of anxiety, didn’t know what to talk about, felt like I was starting all over again. J started with saying he thinks he sees some changes in me – I’m less critical of myself, less judgmental, as evidenced by the meatball episode. He brought up the situation with my husband and I told him how underwhelmed I felt about talking about that two weeks ago. I told him that I don’t feel any emotion when I’m there with him. He mentioned barriers and what do I think I’m protecting myself from. I told him I’m like the third little pig, all safe in my brick house. He said in one version of the three little pigs story the third pig lets the other two into his house when their houses got blown down by the big bad wolf. He wanted to know if my house had a door, and I said it does, but it’s locked. He asked if it has windows, and I said, no, no windows.

He thought maybe my protective house has been built as a response to the experience I had with my son’s therapist. He asked if we could talk about that a little. So we did, we went over how my son’s therapist, D, didn’t treat us well, promised things and never followed through, we’d show up for appointments and he wouldn’t be there, he didn’t return calls or emails, and in general crossed a lot of boundaries. Plus he criticized me. I couldn’t remember during the session exactly what D had said about me, but when I got home I looked it up. He said I was “standoffish and sarcastic” and when I asked him about this he said, “oh, and also argumentative and pessimistic.” He was actually very difficult to work with, and after doing some reading I have come to see that he has a very narcissistic personality. This therapy came to a bad end.

So, yes, perhaps my brick house has been built in response to how D treated us. But I think the house was built long, long before that. J asked if anyone has treated me like D did prior to that, and I said I had a relationship once a long time ago that was similar. But my parents did not treat me that way.

J says I compartmentalize, which sometimes is a good thing, but also can be bad. For example if a man is driving to work and ranting and raving about the traffic, he isn’t thinking that perhaps his anger is due to the fact that this is his last day of work because he was laid off. That things affect other things and if I know why I’m so protective it would help me to understand it. As far as I know I’ve been like this since I was a child, so I think it is just my personality, but I don’t know.

He asked me about the cutting, and when I last cut. I told him that I don’t really remember, but I think it was about 2 months ago. He asked me where on my cutting flowchart I would put a picture of me dissociating from my feelings, which totally confused me because my cutting is very emotionally charged, and is not a result of feeling numb like I know is the case for some self injurers. So I’m not sure about that, and I tried to explain that I only seem to not feel my feelings when I am in session with him, but maybe I do that in other situations also.

We talked about the wellbutrin and if I think it is helping, and I said I don’t think so yet, but I feel the side effects already.

Then he asked about the book he lent me, and how I liked it. I said I liked it. He wanted to know what I liked about it. I didn’t tell him that I hated having his book for three weeks. That every time I picked it up to read I couldn’t concentrate because of the stupid obsessive thoughts I got about spilling something on his book, or ripping up the book. I was so happy to give that book back to him today and I hope he never offers to lend me anything else. But I didn’t tell him any of that.

I did mention that I thought the concepts of Flow and Mindfulness are better suited to people who have more control over their thoughts than I do. I was so busy thinking about all of the horrible thoughts I have had over the past few weeks while I was working on being mindful that I wasn’t paying much attention to what he had to say about this. He did ask me about the thoughts and I wouldn’t really elaborate, so he said something about depressing and anxious thoughts. I wish that was all that they are.

It was approaching the end of the session and there was something I really wanted to tell him, something I’ve never told anyone because I was afraid I would be hospitalized or my children would be taken from me. I just feel badly that he thought I was making improvement and now I was telling him this very negative thing about myself. So I guess I looked really anxious and/or upset and he asked me if I felt ok. I said I was fine (as usual – I’m always fine!) but I wanted to tell him something. Then I paused and he said I could tell him or not. I said I wanted to tell him. So I did manage to tell him, it was really only one sentence. But it is something horrible about me and it’s a secret that I have carried around for over 19 years. It involves intrusive thoughts. After I told him I said I don’t want to talk about it, and anyway it’s time to go. As I was walking out the door he said, “This is more common than you might think.” I said, “I don’t think so” and I left.

And lately my intrusive thoughts have really been getting out of control. I’m not sure if it’s due to working on mindfulness – it seems when I try to clear my mind that is when bad thoughts pop in – or maybe the wellbutrin is too stimulating to my mind. I know I should talk to J about this, but when he started the session by saying he noticed positive changes in me I didn’t want to invalidate that by telling him that my thoughts are so bad that I think I’m going crazy. I know going crazy means having a psychotic episode, and I also know that is not what is happening to me because I know the thoughts are in my mind and not real. But I really don’t know if I will act on these thoughts, sometimes the urges are very strong. I just don’t know what is wrong with me, and it’s very scary. It’s even scarier telling someone about it.

It took about 15 minutes after the session ended for the emotions to come to the surface. And I’ve been holding back tears all day. Right now I’m focusing on the screen and the keyboard and trying to figure out what I’m going to do for the next 6 hours until it is time for bed. Something to do that doesn’t involve negative coping strategies. I feel pretty awful right now. I guess I’m not always fine.

Oct 14 2009

Therapy Recap 10/13/09

Wow, it’s been a few days since I’ve written. I’ve been blah, what can I say? Yesterday was therapy day, same as every Tuesday for the last year. Year? Yes, year. I’m really concerned that J, my therapist, is losing patience with me. Granted it took me at least 6 to 9 months to start actually talking to him, so I guess he realizes I’m not going to be a quick fix. But still, it seems like we talk about the same thing every week.

He started with the usual question, “What are we talking about today?” And as usual, I was quiet. I did have things I wanted to talk about, namely cupcakes and wellbutrin, but I was unable to get started so there was some silence. Either J doesn’t like silence or he assumed I had nothing to talk about. Why would someone go to therapy if they had nothing to talk about? Hmmm… So he said, “I’m curious to know, where are you on your flow-chart of guilt and shame?” I’m so sick of this flowchart! I’m sorry I gave it to him now, because that is all he is focused on. I told him I wouldn’t be cutting anymore. He asked me why. I said I didn’t want to disappoint him or make him feel like a failure. I said I was sorry I ever told him about the cutting because now I can’t do it anymore. He pointed out that I have cut since I told him about it, and I responded by saying that I don’t think I can do it anymore. His feeling about me is a deterrent to cutting. Darn.

J asked me what I am currently feeling guilty about, and I said that I feel guilty about the dread I feel in having to talk to and visit with my mother more often now that her husband has died. He asked why I dread spending time with her and I told him it’s because she is critical. Then we had a looooooonnnnnggggg discussion about why I shouldn’t feel guilty about that. And that guilt is comprised of expectations and anger. If one doesn’t meet expectations one can feel guilty. However these expectations might not be based on reality. For example I feel that I must talk to my mother every day now that she is alone, whereas before I would talk to her about once a week. And if I don’t talk to her every day I feel guilty. Who’s expecting me to talk to her every day? Is that an expectation I have created in my mind? Or did I get it from my mother, or my sister, or society? J said what if it’s ok to talk to her two times a week? I asked him if he would call his mother two times a week if his father died, and he said yes. I said, “You would not.” He admitted he wouldn’t, but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong to call her twice a week. There can be extenuating circumstances, for example one’s mother could live far away and it would be expensive to call. I said, “We’re just talking about my circumstance, not what if’s.”

This went on and on with examples about recycling, and toys left lying around by a two year old, and cars getting scratched. Ugh. Then he explained about the anger part of guilt, but I got totally lost. He says I’m angry about something. I don’t know. I guess I’m angry that my mother’s husband died because now I have to fill in the space in her life. But I’m not angry at him for dying. I don’t what I’m angry at.

I didn’t talk to J about this, but I am angry about the fact that my plans have to change due to my mother’s husband death. I had my emergency exit all worked out. But I can’t do this to my mother. I can’t imagine her telling her friends, it would make her look bad. Anyway, not to digress.

We ran over by 5 minutes. I said, “It’s time to go.” He said, “I know.” But he kept talking. He was really trying to make his point about feelings and how we can’t control our feelings and they aren’t good or bad, and we have to differentiate feelings about a situation from feelings against a person. I don’t even know what he was saying by the end of the session. I would say that he talked at least 75% of the time.

I think, in a nutshell, he was telling me that I shouldn’t feel guilty about not wanting to spend time with my mother. Yet, on the other hand he said we can’t control our feelings and they aren’t good or bad. So that seems hypocritical. I am going to take this seriously however. My mother is critical and judgmental and difficult to be with. Just because she is my mother doesn’t mean I should be overjoyed by having to talk to her and see her all the time. It’s ok to have some dread about it. I’m ok with that.

After I left therapy I went to spend the afternoon with my mom, she wanted me to read some papers from her lawyer and spend some time with her, which I was happy to do. However, it was a mistake to do this right after therapy. After therapy I just want to crawl in a hole and die for a few days, and being with my mother was not a good after therapy activity. I patiently put up with all of her criticisms and judgments (not about me for a change). At one point she was judging my cousins, two girls in their 20’s who aren’t exactly the most mature proactive people quite yet, and I said to her, “Your expectations are too high. They are not going to do what you want.” She didn’t want to hear that, but I felt good saying it. I think I might do that more often.

One thing that did freak me out during my session was when J told me I was angry “with that social worker who was your son’s therapist.” I never told J that my son’s therapist was a social worker. All I told him was his first name and the kind of therapy he did. I asked J a few months ago if he thought he knew this person, and J said he didn’t think so, but since he didn’t know his last name and I wouldn’t tell him he couldn’t be sure. I have to ask J about that next week. My biggest fear has been that J and my son’s old therapist are friends, or acquaintances, and I would just die if they are.

I never got to talk about the things that are on my mind. Not that what we discussed isn’t important. I’m not sure how this is supposed to work, do we talk about what’s on my mind or do we talk about what J thinks is important? For the past few months it seems he’s directed the therapy. About an hour after I left this was on my mind, so I sent him an email saying that when he asks me what we are going to talk about and I don’t answer, it doesn’t mean I don’t have anything to say. It just means it’s hard to get started. He replied within a couple of minutes saying, “OK, thanks.”

I guess cupcakes and wellbutrin are trivial, and I realize that we need to talk about big things in order to have progress. But all of this talk about big issues is making me feel worse and worse, do I have to do it every week? After every session I think I need to quit, I cry all day, I feel like shit for at least 3 or 4 days. Is that the way therapy is supposed to be?

Sep 29 2009

Therapy Recap 9/29/09

I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep last night. I haven’t been sleeping well in general, and last Monday night (night before therapy session) I couldn’t sleep at all. So last night I took 1mg of klonopin before bed. I hated myself for doing it. I’ve been tapering off the klonopin for about 4 months now, and I was finally down to ¼ of a .5mg tablet. Last week I finally stopped taking it, I couldn’t cut the pill any smaller or it would crumble. I started having trouble sleeping when I got down to that last low dose, but I thought I could tough it out and my body would adjust. It has to adjust eventually right?

But last night I couldn’t stand the thought of being up half the night and I took the klonopin. I slept great. I didn’t budge until 7am when the alarm went off. I disgust myself. I finally got off the stuff and I took it again, and it worked like a charm. Argh.

I got to therapy and there was the usual question, “What are we talking about today?” He said the things he is interested in are where I am on the self injury flowchart and how my job at the hotline is going. I have no idea why he is obsessed with those things, they barely register on my thinking on a day to day basis.

I told J I hate that question, it causes me to panic, and that I woke up at 6am yesterday morning thinking about that question and what I was going to say. That led to a discussion of what I am afraid of. We talked about how I am waiting for “other shoe to drop” (and J explained the origin of that expression because I never knew what the hell it meant, even though I use it all the time). J asked me if there have been any relationships in my life where someone left me because they found out something about me, and I said no. But I never tell anybody any of this stuff about me, this is the first time. J told me that he has had to terminate (bad choice of words, mine not his) three patients. Two came on to him (women I’m assuming), and one threatened him to the point where he was glad that the police station is across the street.

I would not do those things (I could never come on to someone who looks like Brad Pitt and is 10 years younger than me) of course. He assures me there is nothing I could say that would make him kick me out. I guess I’m more afraid that the more I tell him the more repulsed he will be by me and he just won’t want to see me anymore, or he won’t have empathy for me. How could someone who knows all of this stuff about me want to even look at me?

Somehow this led to a discussion of my marriage and how I’m also waiting for the other shoe to drop with my husband. We talked about my marriage, how it is, how my husband I relate. My husband and I don’t spend a lot of time together. He does his thing and I do mine. It works really well for both of us and my husband claims he loves me and wants to stay married to me. I asked him, I said, “Now that the kids are older and you don’t need me do you still want to stay married to me.” He said, “Of course, why wouldn’t I?” J asked if my husband loves me and I told him that he says he does, but what does that really mean? J asked how I could improve my marriage and I couldn’t really think of anything. It really does work. We never fight, but we never really connect either. That’s just me, I don’t really connect to anyone anymore.

I told J that I “overlook” a lot, and that is what I think makes the marriage work. He asked if I hold back from confronting my husband because of my fear that he will leave me. Do I do that? I don’t know, I have to think about it.

Then we talked, again for the gazillionth time, how I am hard on myself, I don’t see anything positive about myself, etc. J asked why my husband loves me and I don’t know. He asked me about good qualities about my husband and I listed a whole bunch. He asked me if I think I’m a good wife and I said no. He asked me what is good about me in my relationship with my husband and I said that I don’t have affairs, and that is good. He said that is the absence of negative, it is not a positive. Anything good about myself would be the absence of negative – I’ve never killed anyone, I don’t steal or cheat on anyone, etc. He asked me if that’s due to my mom, and I told him I felt bad about everything I said about my mom last week because she is not a bad person. He said he knows that and I asked how he knows that, because I didn’t really tell him anything good about her. He said he doesn’t mean to stereotype me, but I’m pretty typical for a daughter of a mother like mine. He said my mother was anxious, and had high expectations, and wasn’t supportive, she didn’t think my worth was due to me as a person, but more because of what I did. He said everyone messes up their kids, even parents who are 99% perfect. There is always going to be that time that they weren’t there for their child when the child needed them.

He once again asked me to state something good about myself. Somehow we got onto the subject of me being reliable and I grudgingly admitted that maybe, sort of, I guess I’m reliable, sort of. He wanted me to forget the maybe, sort of, I guess and just say I’m reliable. It doesn’t mean I’m 100% reliable, because no one is perfect. But I’m a reliable person. Ok, I admitted that I am a reliable person. He said my homework for this week is not to think of good things about myself, which I seem to have confused with good deeds, but to reinforce to myself that I am a reliable person and to come up with another thing about me that is good.

I asked him if he was done with my DVD, and it turns out he never watched it. It was still in his computer, but for some reason he couldn’t watch it on his computer – who doesn’t have Windows media player (he doesn’t have a Mac so there goes that excuse)? He gave it back to me and when I got into the car I broke it into lots of tiny pieces. I never knew it was so hard to break a DVD, netflix doesn’t seem to have that much trouble breaking DVDs. I guess he wasn’t too interested in watching it, even though every week he asks me where I am in my flowchart of self-injury.

I feel really sad now. Therapy brings out all of these things. I knew all along that I can’t think of anything good about myself, but having to admit it out loud makes it so much more real. Who can’t think of one good thing about themselves? Not like “I’m a good cook”, I have that stuff. I mean something good about myself as a person. How pathetic am I? Everything about me is fake, that’s what it feels like. And I realize that parents influence their children, but I am 49 years old and I’m still being influenced by my mother. That is so…..I don’t even know.

Therapy makes me feel like shit. I’m glad J isn’t a cheerleader, my son’s therapist was like that and it didn’t feel genuine. I knew it was fake. I’m glad J doesn’t do that, actually today he started to tell me that I’m perseverant, that he has patients who come 2 or 3 times and quit because they aren’t willing to make the commitment to work at themselves, but I keep coming week after week even though it is incredibly anxiety provoking. But then he said, “I don’t want to point out your good qualities to you.” I guess he wants me to discover them for myself which will be so much more meaningful, right? He must see something positive in me. I know that I show up every week, I never miss my appointments, I pay my bill within minutes of receiving it in the mail. I wonder if he sees anything more than that? Sometimes I wish he would give me a clue.

Sep 1 2009

Therapy Recap 9/1/09

I don’t even feel like talking about therapy today. When I got there J asked if I wanted to talk about the hotline or cutting. I asked if those were the only two choices, and he said, “Or something else.” The whole thing from last week was like no big deal to him. I really blow things out of proportion and worry about them all week, and to him it’s a little blip on the radar screen and he moves on. I need to learn from him.

We talked about the hotline, and cutting, and how everything has been so intense for me lately, and about my fantasy of being dead, which I refuse to label “suicide ideation.” So all day today I’ve been thinking about SI, and ideating like crazy, and it’s making me feel crazy. When I drive around I have these fantasies – for example, today I was visualizing my mother getting the phone call saying I died, and she asks how I died, and whoever it is on the phone tells her I committed suicide. And I was crying in the car.

I’ve cried more than once today. I keep thinking about the broken dolls and the little girl with the bandaids on her knees in the slideshow I made. Oh, and J said he got the DVD with the slideshow, but he didn’t get it until yesterday since he was in his other office and his computer wouldn’t play it so he has to bring it home and watch it on his DVD player and his TV.

Everything has been too intense. I told J that, and he said it can’t be intense all the time because intense is relative. I don’t know, it feels intense all the time. I need a way to numb the intensity – something constructive. Not SI, not drinking, not klonopin. If anyone has any suggestions for how I can decrease this intensity I would love to hear them.

And I had my root canal yesterday, but the dentist couldn’t complete it because the tooth is still partially infected, so I have to go back in two weeks. Meanwhile it is hurting pretty badly, and I’m taking a ton of Advil. A friend gave me some tylenol with codeine to take tonight so I can sleep, last night the pain woke me up at 4am.

Aug 31 2009

A Slideshow and Some Observations

So remember this collage? I had given it to J, and he talks about it a lot. He pulls it out of his filing cabinet every once in a while so we can talk about it. He once referred to it as “your beautiful collage.” This collage is actually a slide show, with music, etc. I like to make slideshows. I thought since he liked the collage so much he would appreciate the slideshow, so I put it on a DVD and sent it to him. I could have brought it to our next session, but I didn’t want to watch him watch it. I wanted to post the slideshow here, but I can’t figure out how to do it. And when I put it on youtube they stripped the music, since it’s copyrighted. Oh well.

So I never wrote about my last week of hotline training. The last night was last Thursday and we had a pizza party and watched a movie about cutting. The pizza was going to be an issue for me. I don’t eat pizza – I haven’t in a couple of years I think. I don’t think there is anything wrong with splurging every once in a while, but when you haven’t eaten that type of food in a long time it’s not a good idea to splurge on it during a training session with lots of people. Spending the whole session in the bathroom didn’t seem like a good way to end training.

It turns out that one of guys in the group is a vegan. I love this guy and I’m so lucky because he is going to be my shift partner on the hotline every other week. I went online and found a vegan/vegetarian pizza restaurant 10 minutes from my home. So I picked up pizza for him and me from this place. It was great because my pizza was basically whole wheat crust, veggies and a bit of feta cheese. Nothing greasy or tomato-y to upset my stomach. And no one seemed to think it was strange that he and I were eating our own food, actually they seemed kind of jealous!

Then there was the cutting movie. It was specifically about teens and cutting, and it wasn’t too bad for me to watch. It was kind of nice, to be honest, to hear professionals who know what they are talking about when dealing with cutting. The hard part for me was the discussion afterward. One of the new trainees said, “I get the impression from the movie that if a cutter calls the hotline we don’t call the police immediately?” I thought, “UGH!” Can you imagine, I’m sure some of you can if you SI, calling a hotline because you are thinking about self harm, and all of sudden the police show up? At least the trainers set him straight. And the label “cutter” bothers me as well. Not everyone who self harms cuts.

The discussion was bothering me, and I forced myself to zone out. I ripped off parts of my pizza box, and tore them into little pieces, and made little nonsense origami things out of them. It’s surprising how easy it is to tune everything out.

As for being on the hotline, I don’t feel triggered. I had my first shift Sunday morning, and I was all alone with the telephones for four hours. I felt pretty confident, and I feel like I helped a few people.

Today I had a wonderful surprise. A blogging friend, Ethereal Highway, wrote a post for me! What an incredibly kind, thoughtful person she is. I’ve been writing about how people think it’s odd, or unusual, or just downright weird, that anyone would want to be a crisis hotline volunteer and she wrote a post about her own experience with a hotline. Go check it out.

Mar 24 2009

Therapy Recap 3/24/09

Warning – this post could be triggering. Beware…..

I really need to process this. I feel so not understood, kind of like betrayed. Last week when I went to see J, my therapist, I brought the collage/slide show thing with the photos that depict the cycle of SI. He seemed to really get it. He understood the cyclical nature that the photos represented. Feel bad – harm – feel better – feel bad, lather rinse repeat…..

But today when I went in there he was asking me how I’m doing with us talking about the SI, and I said I’m doing ok. (Which isn’t really true, sigh.) He asked, how ok? And I said some days are better than others. I explained that I’m thinking about it a lot more, that before we started talking about it I would go weeks or months without thinking about it, but now I think about it all the time. And that I feel angry with myself for telling him, that I can’t handle it myself. He asked if I was feeling vulnerable too, like now that my secret is out. I was getting to that, he beat me to it, but yes I do feel that.

He wanted to know what was triggering my feelings about harming myself. I said that it was just us talking about it, and that I had told him about it that is making me think about it a lot. He didn’t seem to understand that. He said that it’s “strange.” I didn’t appreciate that word at all and let him know it. He said that he could understand if I was stressed about something like the economy, or my son’s grades, but the SI itself is triggering the SI. He redescribed it as “unique”. I said I didn’t think that was so unusual.

Didn’t we go over this all last week – how it’s a cycle. How SI can cause one to feel shame and guilt and fear, etc. How just the act of SI can cause all of these emotions, even though it might feel good at the time? But now, it’s “strange” or “unique” that what’s causing my emotional grief isn’t the economy?

I don’t understand how he could be so understanding of this last week, and now be totally clueless. It was like being with a different person. But I guess I didn’t see what was going on. I mean, I know I was confused, but I didn’t see why until after the session. I thought I had done something wrong, maybe I described my feelings wrong, maybe what I thought what I was feeling isn’t what I was feeling. I didn’t want to talk about it anymore so we decided not to talk about it anymore.

Then we had to talk about something else. I told J about how I told my friend that I didn’t want to be a model in her fashion show in August. I told him that I did it by email, a cowardly way to communicate and he said that I never miss an opportunity to beat myself up about something. I really do think it wasn’t very nice of me to talk to her by email, but it was hard enough to tell her, and I took the easy way out. I told him that I saw photos of myself from the last fashion show and thought I looked terrible, and that when he told me that I’m not special it made me feel like I could tell her and she wouldn’t be angry. I told him that I appreciated that he said “You’re not George Clooney” rather than saying “You’re not Jennifer Aniston” or “You’re not Cameron Diaz.” I can handle being compared to George Clooney a lot easier. But it’s true, and everything he said was very logical and objective and it made me comfortable enough to tell her. So I guess that is one success I’ve had in therapy!

But then we continued on talking about physical appearance, another topic I am not comfortable talking about. We talked about how subjective I am, and other people are more objective. When I looked at the photos of myself from the fashion show I was very critical, but everyone else said I looked great. I just don’t believe they are telling the truth, but J says I’m just not objective. Then we talked more about the bell curve, of course it wouldn’t be therapy without mention of the bell curve, and striving for the 51st percentile. I asked him if he strives to be a 51st% psychologist. He talked about his strengths and weaknesses as a psychologist and knows he could never be a psychologist who does research or gets up and presents papers at conferences, but his strengths are more in the areas of relating to people and helping them directly. So it evens out in his opinion. I find it hard to believe that anyone would strive for 51%, but it’s something I guess I should consider. When I am working for someone I get very upset if I make a mistake. I’m not 100% perfect and that bothers me and I also believe that it will make my boss angry and perhaps tell me to get lost. But objectively that is ridiculous, everyone makes mistakes. But I don’t know, is 51% enough?

Somehow we got to talking about gastroenterologists and urologists and how they decide to go into those fields. And how if you are a patient waiting for your colonoscopy, laying on a gurney in a little thin gown that barely makes it around, you feel so exposed and vulnerable and anxious. But everyone else working in the room is just doing their job, not concerned with how you look, how they are about to shove a tube up your ass and look at your interior private parts on a big screen. So J wants me to imagine the colonoscopy patient and doctors the next time I find myself being subjective. He wants me to find more objectivity in my judgments.

That’s another thing. At the end of every session he tells me to think about something, or do something. But he never mentions it again. Does that mean he forgets what he’s told me to do, or it doesn’t really matter to him – it’s just for my benefit, or what? I used to do the “homework” obsessively but since he never mentions it I don’t really do it. Last week I did read my diary and I came up with some things, but when I went in today he started talking immediately about SI, and last week’s homework never came up. I want to talk to him about this next week.

So when I came home I was busy for a while, then I started thinking about what transpired during our session and his apparent lack of understanding of something I thought he understood. I started spiraling down pretty badly. I felt physically sick, I couldn’t tell if I was having a low blood sugar attack or a panic attack, or something. The thought of cutting was intense. Then my daughter was having problems with the computer printer and it said paper was jamming, but it wasn’t jamming and she was telling me in an irritated tone of voice to fix it because she doesn’t know how. I was getting very angry, with her and with myself and about everything. I took the back off the printer and threw it on the floor, and the paper wasn’t jammed and I told her in an irritated tone of voice that I couldn’t fix it, there was nothing wrong with it. I got totally emotionally overwhelmed, feeling like I was going to burst into tears.

Then I made my decision. I got calmed down. I cleaned up the whole kitchen, emptied the dishwasher, filled it up with all the dishes I had used to make dinner, scrubbed the counters, put everything away, and decided what I would do. I finished the kitchen, went upstairs and cut my hand. We’re going to Florida in a week and a half, and I’m assuming it will be hot there. I didn’t want to have to wear long sleeved shirts and long pants and socks the whole time if it’s 80 degrees. So I cut my hand. I figured if anyone asked I could say I accidentally cut it on a knife when I was emptying the dishwasher. Normally I don’t make just one cut, but I couldn’t lie my way out of three or four cuts on my hand could I? So I just kept cutting the same place a few times. I laid on my bed, applying pressure to my hand, and I felt better. J, my therapist, said it’s ok for me to do this. I specifically asked, “What are the rules?” And he said there are no rules, but based on my past experience it’s ok. He would never recommend that I go home and cut myself if I’m feeling emotionally overwhelmed, but if I need to do it, it’s ok. And now my hand hurts like crazy. Which is a good thing – it means I’m human.

And I guess I have a lot to talk to him about next week. After next week’s session I get a week off since I’ll be away. I think taking that break from therapy will be a great thing.

Mar 17 2009

Therapy Recap 3/17/09

sad girl

I gave J a print out of the collage I made last week (remember? If not see it here). I’ve since made it into a slide show, with music and more photos, which I put up on You Tube, but they disabled the audio due to copyright issues. I guess Matchbox 20 doesn’t like me putting their music into my slideshow. So, oh well, it’s not the same without the music. But I have it on my blackberry so I can watch it whenever I want. I’m a visual person, I love putting together photos and pictures and music.

Anyway, J looked at the photos for a long time and asked lots of questions. I didn’t realize he would take such an interest in this. He was making connections between certain photos, and following the path of the events that the photos represented, and comparing how many “painful” photos there were versus “calm” photos. And he asked how I made the slide show and how long it took and what I was thinking. He said he loved it and we talked about it for awhile. Then later in the session he picked it up again and stared at it again for awhile, and asked more questions. He thought that the middle section, the SI section, could be lifted out and replaced by something else. Yeah, that would be ideal. And we talked about how most people would get to the failure part and rationalize to themselves that they are not so bad, that they do the best they can, that they are really good people. And thus would never progress on to the SI part. But I don’t do that, I just keep spiraling down and down until I have to hurt myself because I am bad and need to be punished.

J said he didn’t like his “homework” much. He had taken a book off of his bookshelf at the last session and said it was his favorite psych book in school and he wanted to read the section on SI again. But he wasn’t thrilled with it. He said the book referred to this behavior as “self-mutilation” and that it is a common component of borderline personality disorder. And everything he read didn’t ring true to him in my case. But he asked me if I feel angry at myself, if anger is a part of why I SI. I have to think about that I guess. How does one separate out guilt, shame and anger? They all kind of merge together. I suppose I am angry at myself for things I have done in my life that I feel are less than perfect, or even less than average. I’m not sure that is why I hurt myself, I thought it was more a matter of self hatred. But anger certainly makes sense as well. I’m not sure it matters, though, does it? I mean, feeling bad about oneself means feeling bad about oneself, whether the “bad” is anger or hatred. But I guess it’s worth considering.

We talked about when I started to feel like a failure in my life. J knows I feel like a failure as a parent and asked me if my husband would think that if someone asked him. I know that my husband does NOT think I’m a failure as a parent, as a matter of fact, he is probably relieved that I did all of the parenting and he didn’t have to do much of it. We talked awhile about my parenting and how I’m hard on myself. I’m bored with that discussion actually. We went back in time some more and talked about college, and how I felt like a failure in college. Even though I graduated – basically on time (I had to take 2 classes after the official graduation in order to officially get my degree). But I had a lousy GPA and felt like I wasted my parents’ money and partied too much. And I should have gone on for an advanced degree, because I couldn’t do anything with my undergrad degree, but I didn’t want to go to school anymore. J told me about a patient of his who got a PhD from Harvard and downplayed it. I don’t know if I would do that, but a BS from the College of William and Mary is certainly no Harvard PhD!

I told him about the bad report card I got one semester and my mother told me she was disgusted with me. I don’t blame her, I would be disgusted with me too! J asked if I’m disgusted with my son because he is flunking out of school. I’m not disgusted with him. I’m disgusted with me – I take a lot of the blame for his lack of success. J thinks I take too much of it. But he doesn’t understand the last 18 years and the difficulty my son has had, and how I was unable to help him. Because I didn’t try hard enough. I can’t seem to convince J of that.

So this week he wants to me think back as far as I can to see when I started to feel like a failure. I happen to have my diary that I started when I was 9 years old. I’m not sure I felt like a failure at that time in my life, but I felt different. I knew I didn’t fit in. I wasn’t a “normal” child, I knew something wasn’t right. Somehow I started to put a lot of pressure on myself, I became a perfectionist, I had to be perfect. I don’t know how that happened. How would that happen? See that girl up there? That’s how I felt as a child.