Tag Archives: different

Apr 14 2010

Family Issues, Anger, and Being Weird

Yesterday morning I was in a really bad mood. It was April 13 – one month until my birthday. I was feeling really down about not getting “better” – my goal was to feel better by my birthday. I’ve been therapy for 1 1/2 years or so? Am I getting better? I don’t think so.

On Monday I had decided to invite everyone to my house for Mother’s Day (May 9th in the US). Mother’s Day is always difficult – we have to juggle two families, the holiday itself, my son’s birthday and my birthday. I don’t like to combine my family and my husband’s family because they don’t really get along, but it’s hard to split the day and go from one family to the other. It’s great that both my husband and I have caring mothers, judgmental as they may be, and close families. But logistically it’s difficult sometimes.

So I emailed everyone, and immediately got replies from my mother, sister and aunt. Of course. My husband’s family? Nothing. Still haven’t heard. I called his mother last night to talk to her about it directly. She asked if I talked to S and A yet – my sister in laws. I said that I emailed them. She said, well we can talk about it on Sunday. Talk about it? What’s to talk about? You either come or you don’t. But that is how they are. They have to consult amongst themselves before they will commit.

Then there is my mother – the ESTJ. “ESTJs thrive on order and continuity. Being extraverted, their focus involves organization of people, which translates into supervision.”

She calls me up on Monday to tell me what we will make, what we will buy, when we will do all the work, that she will come over the night before and help. I’m not even in that mode yet! I just invited everyone, I’m not planning anything yet. I don’t even know who is coming. But I went along with her, because now that I understand the ESTJ mentality (psychosis is better term) I know that I just have to go along with what she says. For now anyway.

Then yesterday morning my sister calls. She says “I talked to Mom about Mother’s Day. She says we need cakes. A cake for A (my son), a cake for you, a cake for Mother’s Day.” I say, “We don’t need any cakes.” (I always make myself a red velvet cake for my birthday, and I love to bake, so any cakes will be made by me!) She said my mother was telling her to make cakes. I said, “We don’t need any cakes!” She said, “Well mom says we need cakes.” I yelled, and I mean yelled, “WE DON’T NEED ANY CAKES!” I was losing it.

But my sister is clueless. She had no idea I was getting angry. She started to laugh. “Yeah, mom says we need cakes. You really opened a can of worms, didn’t you?” I said, “I have to go get in the shower.” She replies, “Well it’s 53 degrees and it’s supposed to rain later!” I don’t need a personal fucking meteorologist too, thank you very much.

Last night my son asks me, “Who were you yelling at this morning?” I told him it was Aunt A. I said I was mad at her, but she couldn’t tell. He said, “I could tell and I was in the other room.” Yeah, she is so clueless.

I have often felt this rage towards my sister. I used to yell at her really badly when we were kids. I haven’t felt it in a while though, and I’m sure it wasn’t really directed at her. It’s me and my frustration about everything. Stressed out right now.

And I had a terrible night. I couldn’t sleep at all. That usually happens after unfulfilling therapy sessions. I wonder what I really wanted out of the session. I think I wanted J to help me figure out what exactly is weird about me, so that I can either come to grips with it or change. But he says he doesn’t think I’m weird. That’s very nice, but a lot of people have said otherwise. Yes, come right out and said it. The word “weird”. Nicer ones have used terms like my “idiosyncrasies” or “differences”. Some use phrases like, “No one has ever said that before” or “it’s never bothered anyone else before”.

Now that I think about it J himself has told me things like this. Of course I write about every session so I can go back and read my notes. He has said he says or does things in my sessions that he doesn’t do or say with others. And that my anxiety in therapy is very unlike his other clients who feel very safe and comfortable there. And I’m the only one who has ever told him that he is intimidating.

Do those things make me weird? No, of course not. But this shows that there seem to be differences between me and “most” people, at least in this situation. And is it that uncommon for a person to compare themselves to “most” people? I think it’s pretty common. So maybe he was telling me the truth when he said he doesn’t think I’m weird, but I didn’t ask him if he thinks I’m different.

A couple of times I said, “Don’t you think I should just accept the fact that I’m weird and learn to live with it somehow?” But he just kept on trying to convince me that I’m not weird. I don’t know what to think now.

Apr 13 2010

Therapy Recap 4/13/10

This will be quick. I talked about being weird. Feeling weird and different my whole life. Not quite sure why, I can’t put my finger on it. J tried to convince me that I am not weird. I asked him if he thinks I am weird, he says no.

That’s it!

I’m wondering how this could have gone better. His profound comment of the day? “One only thinks they are weird if they compare themselves with everyone else.” No kidding.

Jan 13 2010

I Think I Figured It Out

So while I was laying in bed last night unable to sleep even though I had taken a klonopin (which I promise myself is a one time thing, I am not going back to the days of klonopin = sleeping pills since it took me 4 months to break that habit) I thought about what I was feeling yesterday. I think it goes like this:

Build up a little trust – take a risk – see what happens

If what happens is positive I get to take one baby step forward, like in mother may I.

If what happens is negative I get to take 10 giant steps backwards, plus even losing a turn.

Yes, the positive reinforcement has much less of an impact than the negative reinforcement. Maybe that’s why in a marriage 5 positives = 1 negative. (Look up Dr. John Gottman if you want to know more about that.)

Maybe in therapy 5 positives = 1 negative also.

I have difficulty with trust, and with making myself vulnerable. But I force myself to make disclosures every once in a while, and sometimes it ends up well and sometimes I’m left wondering what the hell I just did.

When I sent J the email about the recap of 2009, I took a big risk. I tried to make that letter as honest as possible. I know it was intense and it was long, and maybe I should have broken it down into smaller pieces over a longer period of time, but it was what I was thinking and feeling and I just wrote it all down. And J said it was great and perfect, but you know sometimes what people say and how they behave are different things.

We talked about the email last week, covering the section about having negative feelings about myself, and about the section in which I wrote that he doesn’t validate feelings. He said that didn’t bother him, but he mentioned that paragraph a couple of times, and of all the things to talk about from the email that’s the one he chose. Which is fine.

I also wrote in the email about:

My problems with communication and feeling misunderstood
Not seeing friends because of food issues
Being on the bell curve and being in the middle vs either end
Feeling different, not really knowing why I feel different, why am I different
Forgetting things I’ve done or said
Medication issues
The problem of intrusive thoughts

Yesterday I just thought perhaps there was more to talk about from that list of concerns. We did talk about food and eating which ties into #2 on that list, but isn’t exactly the same thing. I think what I’m feeling is that everything else besides negative thinking and feelings validation isn’t worth talking about. I don’t want to say I feel minimized because that implies I have some degree of importance, and I don’t think I have any more or less importance than anyone else (I probably feel I have less importance, but I’m working on getting over that.) So now I’ve taken 10 giant steps backwards, and I guess I’ll be losing a turn. Or maybe more than one.

Why would I make myself vulnerable at this point after experiencing a negative response last time?

I think this must be another example of me being too sensitive and taking things too personally and holding on to negatives. I never know whether it’s me being those things, or if a situation really warrants those feelings. I need some kind of ruler to carry around with me so that I can make objective judgments about my reactions.

But that is how I feel, and feelings aren’t right or wrong, right? But feelings aren’t facts either.

And I emailed my friends to tell them I couldn’t make it for lunch on Friday. One of them emailed back and said she totally forgot about it and she can’t make it either, so then they decided to reschedule and make it dinner instead! I really couldn’t say no, so we agreed to have dinner next week. But it’s ok, I’ve been thinking about it and I haven’t seen them in two or three months. One of these friends I have know for 26 years, and the other for almost 20 years. I think I can handle one dinner, it will be good. I just have to put on my thick skin before I go.

Dec 16 2009

Two Theories

I have come up with two theories. The first one explains why I have been having crazy thoughts and why my mind won’t stop thinking and imagining and driving me crazy. I must have a brain tumor. Those are the symptoms of a brain tumor, right?

The second theory explains why I have always put a barrier between me and everyone else. I believe this began when I was young and I realized that I wasn’t like everyone else. I was odd, different, weird. And if people knew that they would, at best, not understand me, and more likely ridicule me. No one likes to be ridiculed, so I just shut down. That was simple.

Dec 1 2009

Therapy Recap 12/1/09

My husband did something very stupid. It’s unethical, immoral, and I thought it was illegal, but he tells me it’s not. He told me about this on Saturday, probably only because a lot of people know about it and he thought I might hear it from someone else. What he did has destroyed his social life, and severed friendships. It’s the result of an addiction, an addiction that I didn’t know he had. I don’t really feel comfortable saying much more about it here, but he realizes that he was wrong and he wants to change.

The first thing I wanted to do when I found out about this was to talk to someone. That is unusual for me, I don’t normally turn to others for this kind of thing. But since this was about my husband I didn’t feel comfortable talking to anyone, because I didn’t want to spread the news. Yesterday when I went to work I said to the woman I work for, “I guess you heard about what my husband did.” I was under the impression that her husband knew more about my husband than he actually does. She said, “No, I haven’t heard anything.” Well, since I started the conversation I ended up telling her. I cried a little too, but she was very understanding and helpful actually. I was glad I told her.

Today when I went to therapy I was kind of relieved that I had something to talk about – my husband’s situation – although I really would have preferred that this situation didn’t exist. When I got to J’s office I sat down, and noticed a leaf on the carpet. I picked it up, and he said, “I noticed that leaf.” I threw it away, sat down, and said, “I feel better now.” He said it had been there since late yesterday afternoon. I half apologized for my obsessive nature, and we talked about that for awhile, what makes it obsessive, whether my tendencies interfere with my life, etc. Most times they don’t, but I do find that people make remarks about me and my obsessive nature, and these hurt me because I’m quite sensitive. J did make me feel like I am not so abnormal though.

Then I told him that I didn’t really like that last week he told me that my check is always the first one he receives after he sends out the bills. He said he was sorry, and then kind of reneged on the statement, saying that two or three other clients also send their checks in quickly. He asked me why I don’t want to be the first one to send in my check and I said, “Because I want to be like everyone else.” This led to a discussion of being “good enough”. I actually had a “good enough” situation last night, and I didn’t even realize it until I talked about with him today. He asked me when good enough would be good enough, and I said, “When you can get away with it.” He asked for an example and I told him that last night I was making spaghetti and meatballs for my kids for dinner, but I got home from work at 6PM and didn’t have time to make meatballs so I used premade ones from the freezer. My daughter thought they were OK, my husband even ate a couple without comment, but my son questioned me about them and said he didn’t like them. So I basically got away with it. J thought this was a positive step for me. Imagine – I’m proud of myself for using frozen premade meatballs.

Then J talked about an article he read in the paper this morning about “green showers” – how we shouldn’t use very hot water or take long showers. And he thought of me because I tend to be a “green” person. I told him this is why I don’t read the paper, I don’t need another thing to worry about. I said we hardly have any guilty pleasures left in life and I would like to enjoy my showers. He thought that was a good attitude, and a change from how I might have been a few months ago.

Then I asked if we could change the subject and I told him that my husband did something very bad. I told him the whole story, and he asked some questions, and we talked about some questions I could ask my husband, and a little about addictions.

But, you know, after looking forward to talking with him about this problem I can honestly say that I was totally underwhelmed by the whole experience. J didn’t do anything wrong, we had a nice talk about it, but I didn’t feel anything. Where’s that feeling of catharsis that I’ve heard so much about? I didn’t feel relieved, I didn’t feel guilty, I didn’t feel anything. I think I’m just the kind of person who doesn’t need to talk to other people about problems, who doesn’t feel better from talking about them, and who just works things out alone. Or maybe because I talked about this with someone else yesterday I didn’t need to talk about it again. J is going on vacation Friday, so I won’t see him again for two weeks. I’m glad we didn’t touch on anything too serious today.

Nov 30 2009

Being the Perfect Client

Last week at my therapy session, J, my psychologist, told me that when he sends out his bills at the end of the month, mine is always the first check he gets. We talked about that for awhile, how I want to be the perfect client, and I know I suck at the therapy part of therapy so I’m trying to be really good at the logistics part of therapy to make up for it. We talked about what it would be like if I didn’t drive the check to the post office the day I get the bill so that he’ll get my check the next day. I get paid on the last day of the month, so it makes sense that I would pay the bill then also, but I do agree that I am somewhat obsessive about getting it to him quickly.

However I’m not sure I like that he told me this. When I left last week I had conflicting feelings about it. At first I thought, “Wow, mine is first, I must be special.” Then I realized I don’t want to be special, I want to be like everyone else. And I don’t want to feel like I have to be the perfect client. I know what you’re thinking – just wait a day or two before you send in the check. But it’s not that simple. It’s never that simple, is it?

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.

Aug 29 2009

Been So Busy

I’ve been so busy this week! Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evenings were crisis hotline training (the last week!), I worked, someone asked me to make and decorate 4 dozen cookies, I volunteered at the high school staff welcome back breakfast, visited my foster child, had my last observation for the hotline and took about 4 or 5 calls, had dinner with a friend, ran 6 miles this morning for the first time, went around town looking for new running shoes and finally got fitted for a pair I think might be really good, went to a fashion show, etc etc. These crazy weeks happen occasionally, and I think I do it to myself on purpose, but unconsciously. Like I don’t want to leave myself time to think.

Things have been intense lately. Everything seems to be magnified – thoughts, feelings, conversations with people. I’m not sure why this is, maybe it has something to do with being in therapy and the constant self awareness, and coming up with insights into why I do and think things. One interesting thing is yesterday when I worked on the hotline, I was with another volunteer who has been working there for 17 years. She was very talkative and the four hours seemed to go by quickly; we had some great conversation. As we walked out I asked her if her friends know that she works at the hotline, and she replied that some of them do. I said, “Yeah, I tell a select few.” She seems so confident in herself, and has been doing this for so long, and yet she is selective in who she tells. This made me feel a couple of things. First, sad that we can’t shout it from the rooftops, that this is the type of work we like to do and everyone should be glad we do it! Second, I felt somewhat more normal, I thought I was the only person who feels the need to be selective about who I tell.

And a therapist update. On Tuesday I send a short email to my therapist, J, saying I felt uncomfortable about how we left the session and wondering what he was thinking. He sent me back an email saying that he thought the first 80% of the session went very well, “but it seemed to fall apart at the end as you felt that I was minimizing, or devaluing, your feelings. I was trying to offer additional information (how/what others might be feeling) as a means of helping you understand your feelings within a broader context – not minimizing feelings, just looking at the situation from a larger perspective. I have some more thoughts that we can discuss on Tuesday…”

I sent another email saying “Yes, it was that 20% I was talking about. I’m sorry I did that, I know I’m too sensitive and you were helping me and I shouldn’t tell you how to do your job. And you had a lot of good things to say in the last five minutes before things fell apart, but unfortunately I wasn’t able to listen to you because I was trying to think. I really want to hear what you have to say, so I hope you remember what it was and maybe you can tell me again.”

He replied, “Yeah, we should talk about that again on Tuesday but, overall, I think it was a hiccup in an otherwise good process.”

I thought, a hiccup? It felt more like a full blown gallbladder attack to me. Well, I’ve never had a gallbladder attack but I hear they’re painful. I’m never sure if he is minimizing, or if I am blowing things out of proportion. I don’t know what normal is, what moderation is. Where’s the emotion guidebook, I must have misplaced it.

Aug 25 2009

Therapy Recap 8/25/09

I have so much to process from today’s session, I don’t even know where to start. I feel so uncomfortable with the way J and I left things at the end. I’m hoping by writing this blog entry I’ll have the backbone of an email to send him.

We started by talking about how I felt about what we talked about last week, and I expressed my anxiety about thinking he would “turn me in” due to my SI behavior. He assured me that he did not do that, he will not do that. Based on my history and pattern of SI he doesn’t feel that I am in danger of hurting myself (well, other than the type of hurting that SI causes, the non-lethal kind in my case) and he has no reason to think that I will in the future. And in our state he says that it takes more than a person to say “I’m going to kill someone” or “I’m going to kill myself” – the therapist has to believe the person will do it. He did mention a couple of times that if I said I was suicidal, or if he believed I was suicidal, things would be different, and I didn’t really confirm or deny feeling any of that.

Then we talked about what is going on with the crisis hotline training and I said I’m concerned about our last training night which is going to be Thursday. It’s a double whammy – a pizza party and a cutting video! We talked about my concern about the video. I mentioned how the trainer stated that cutting is a behavior associated with adolescent girls, and now, more frequently, with adolescent boys as well. No mention of middle aged women. We talked about what I thought would be in the video, and how I would respond if I got a cutter on the hotline. I think I would be understanding and empathetic if I did. I mean I wouldn’t say, “You’re a cutter, so am I!” But I think I bring a knowledge of the subject to the caller, more so than someone who isn’t a cutter. But I believe that anyone can be empathetic, one doesn’t need to have the exact experience in order to understand someone’s pain or emotions.

We talked some more about why I’m doing the hotline because I told J the story about my mother not being supportive of my decision to work on the hotline. I talked a little about my reasons for working on the hotline, but I didn’t want to delve too much into it for fear of discovering that the only reason I’m doing this is to make myself feel good, instead of because I really want to help people.

We talked about whether I feel competent on the hotline, and I said “Definitely not yet,” but J asked if I thought I was capable and I said that I do. I’m just concerned I might get too emotionally involved with the callers, but that is something that remains to be seen and I’m not going to obsess about it.

Then this led to a discussion about how people think it’s weird that I want to work on the crisis hotline, my mother included. J asked what I tell people when they ask why I’m doing it, and I replied that I say I want to help people. But there are very few people that I tell, so it’s not too much of an issue. J said, “Well how many people live in our county?” I didn’t know. He said, “Let’s assume there are 500,000 people living here (I looked it up, there are actually 950,000 people). What percentage of them work on the hotline? What percentage of them even know there is a hotline?” I said, “I think a very small percentage.” He said, “Perhaps that is why people think it’s weird.” He said that I feel very passionately about things – about the environment, about animal welfare, about human suffering, etc. He said based on my values it’s not surprising I would want to work in this type of job. I should just tell people that I think it’s a valuable service that the county is offering to people who are in distress and I want to keep that service available to these people.

At this point I kind of shut down. I was thinking during the week, that whenever I tell J about a situation where someone says something to me that hurts my feelings he comes up with excuses or reasons why they would say such a thing. This leaves me feeling like I’m being hurt because I’m too sensitive (something that’s been drilled into my head for 45 years) and that I’m wrong for feeling this way. Then today, when I say that people think I’m weird for wanting to work on the hotline, he comes up with another reason why people may think that. He doesn’t really validate my feeling that I’m hurt, or feeling like an outsider, or feeling weird.

Now there are 10 minutes left in the session and J is talking and talking and talking, and I’m trying to think back to what he was saying about the percentage of people in the county who know there is a hotline. I’m wishing he would shut up for a minute so I could think. I vaguely hear him in the background telling me that he thinks I’m going into the hotline job with a good attitude about why I’m doing it and what to expect, blah blah blah. I know that he talks a lot because I don’t talk much, but I really needed silence right then. I wasn’t listening, and it would be good for me to hear what he said, but just at another time.

Finally I guess he paused and I said, can we go back to when you asked how many people are in the county? He said, “Sure, I think it’s about 500,000.” I said, “No, I’m not concerned with the number. I’m trying to think. You said that a small percentage of people know about the hotline and that is why most people think it’s weird that someone would want to work there. It seems that whenever I mention an instance where my feelings are hurt you come up with excuses and reasons why they would say whatever it was they said. It makes me feel like my feelings are wrong, and you say that feelings aren’t wrong or right, they just are.” He said, “It’s true, feelings aren’t right or wrong.” Then he said a bunch of stuff, about why he comes up with reasons that people say things, he could say they are rude or ignorant, or he could just say nothing and let it be. I said, “What would be wrong with saying nothing and letting it be?” He said that he thought I needed to hear reasons in order to make things more logical, but there is nothing wrong with saying nothing. At the end I think he said, “I don’t want you to feel weird.” I can’t believe he would say that, but I swear that’s what he said. I replied, “I don’t want to feel that it’s wrong to feel weird.” And he said, “Good point.” Then I got up and said goodbye and left.

All of that took place in the last 5 minutes of the session and I feel very discombobulated from it. I didn’t like leaving things like that. I definitely caught him off guard, and it was very apparent that he wasn’t expecting me to come out with this. I feel badly, because I’m not expressive and there is no way for him to know what I need and I expect him to just know.

I think he really gets that I am passionate about things, and he gets that I am sensitive about things, and I appreciate that. He doesn’t make me feel weird or unusual for feeling strongly about my values, and I appreciate that also. But when someone makes me feel uncomfortable and I tell him about it, I don’t really want him to give me reasons why they would say that. I guess I want him to validate my feelings, and maybe later when I’ve processed my feelings about it, then I can logicalize the situation. I don’t know, does that make sense?

I wouldn’t go into a physician’s office and say, “I have a headache, I need a prescription for antibiotics.” So I don’t think it’s right to tell my therapist, “I have a hurting soul, I need you to validate my feelings.” I don’t want to tell him how to do his job. He’s been working with me almost a year and I think he might know best what I need. Maybe I think I know what I need, but I’m wrong.

I just don’t know. I only know I’m left feeling very uncomfortable with our session today.

Jun 16 2009

Tres Miserable

I spent the afternoon with my mom in the hospital. Her husband was brought in yesterday morning with severe pulmonary edema and was put on a ventilator and had immediate dialysis. My sister spent yesterday with her, so today I spent the afternoon with her.

This was hard. My dad, who died 11 years ago, had the same type of illness as my mom’s new husband. I swore I would not go through this again, he has 4 children, they can spend time in the hospital with him. My dad was sick and in and out, mainly in, hospitals for 8 years before he died. I don’t want to do that again. I didn’t realize how hard it would be to be in that hospital today.

But before I went to the hospital, I had my therapy appointment. Remember that email that J never answered? He claims he never got my email. That brought back a flood of emotions due to my son’s old therapist who always claimed that he didn’t get my voice mails or my emails. He had a lot of unethical behaviors with my son and me, and I’ve written before about him and how I thought about him all the time and how he occupied my mind 24/7 and how hard it was to get over him, which I don’t think I have yet. So J telling me he didn’t get my email was like getting hit by a truck.

He did read the email, which I showed him on my blackberry, and we talked about how he made a poor choice of words in saying that the session two weeks ago was our first “regular” session, and he made a mistake in comparing me to his other patients. But, after saying that, he claims that all of his other patients feel totally comfortable in his office, they think of it as a safe haven where they can talk about anything. I, apparently, am the only uncomfortable patient, I can’t even walk in the door if he is standing near it. Knowing that does not really make me feel any better.

When I left J, I drove the one hour to the hospital, crying the whole time. Spent a few hours at the hospital, then drove the one hour home, crying the whole time. Luckily I had my running group tonight, running clears my mind. I had serious SI cravings, so bad that I was going to call the county hotline, but I didn’t have time and now my husband is home, so I can’t call. I really really wish I had someone to talk to.

Then I wrote another email to J, explaining why I was so bitchy at our session today because of the fact that I was feeling like he was my son’s old therapist and projecting my feelings for him onto J. And that I was stressed about the hospital, and my son flunking out of school, and I should have spent the session talking about that, instead of being a bitch about him not getting my email.

I’m wondering if I should just quit therapy. But I know, from comments others have left on this blog, that there are other people out there who don’t feel comfortable in therapy, who wonder what to talk about, who feel like they may be judged for what they say. I know that there are others like me out there. None of them are J’s patients apparently. The razor blade is calling me so loudly, it’s hard to shut it out.