Tag Archives: hotline

Nov 2 2010

Therapy Recap 11/2/10

Today I noticed that J and I follow a very predictable pattern in our sessions. It goes like this (and the time estimates are completely and totally my perception, not reality at all.)

1. J says, “What are we talking about today?” (2 seconds)
2. I fidget, squirm, look around, try to speak, say stupid things like, “What do you want to talk about?” (2 minutes)
3. I finally speak about whatever it is I plan to talk about, or give a list of various items. (5 minutes)
4. Question and answer session, where J tries to get more information about what I am talking about, to tries to delve into the issues. (15 minutes)
5. J talks and talks and talks. He gives his insights, his metaphors (lions anyone?), his interpretations, his personal disclosures. (23 minutes minus 2 seconds)
6. He says it is time to finish up, walks to his desk, still talking, I get up, say “Thank you” and leave. Sometimes he is still talking.

It’s nice having a routine.

So we began as usual. J said, “What are we talking about today?” And I squirmed, and fidgeted and looked out the window, and around the room, and said, “What do you want to talk about?” and finally I said, “I had an appointment with my psychiatrist and it was really great.” So he asked what was great about it. Then I pulled out the notes I had made. Kind of silly to do all of the squirming, when I had everything written down. I had written down all of the things my pdoc and I had talked about last week – it took up the fronts and backs of two index cards. The problem was when I was writing it I was wearing my reading glasses, and when I was trying to read it to J I didn’t have my glasses. All I bring in with me is my car key. Oops.

So I read through the whole list. Interrupting myself periodically to say, “It would help if I could read this,” or “This is in no particular order.” My voice was shaking and I was really anxious, and I was trying to just tear through the list. I think I was talking very quickly. I peeked at J every once in a while, and he was really good. He only interrupted a couple of times, I think he knew if I stopped I wouldn’t be able to restart. I made it through the whole list.

His responses were:

He agrees with 75-80% of what the pdoc said (I asked him what he disagreed with and he said, “I wasn’t keeping track.” Hmph.)

He was glad that she said all of those things to me, because if he had said them I would not have been as positive (absolutely true, and I told him so.)

He wanted to know why I thought it was great, and I said it was because I felt heard.

He wanted to know how her responses made me feel about my therapy with him, and I told him that I thought I felt better about our therapy.

He asked me why I was seeing a pdoc if I don’t want to take meds, and I said because I do want my klonopin, I just don’t want anti-depressants. I told him that I lied to her and told her that I take 1mg of klonopin per day, when I actually take .25mg per day. He wanted to know why I was saving it up, and what stash level I am comfortable with. I told him that I like to have 75 to 100 klonopins at any given time. He didn’t understand that. I told him about last December when I really needed some klonopin, but I wouldn’t dip into my stash and I waited two days for old pdoc to call me back and get the rx filled. He said that seemed strange to him. I told him that Advil is available in bottles of 1000 – and who needs 1000 Advil? He said those are usually meant for families. I said that even if every person in the family has a headache every day, it would take a long time to go through that bottle of Advil. He asked if I had 600 Advil, and I had a headache, would I take some out of the Advil stash, or would I go to the drugstore to buy some more Advil? I said that he couldn’t compare Advil to klonopin, because klonopin is a lot harder to get. He asked if I was planning to commit suicide with klonopin and I said no, definitely not. He asked why not and I said it is too unreliable, and I don’t want to end up a vegetable or have my stomach pumped. That would be way too embarrassing. If I am going to kill myself I am going to do it completely, and not make some halfhearted attempt to draw attention to myself.

Then out of the blue, J asked about the cutting. We haven’t talked about this in a long time. I don’t bring it up, and he never asks. I don’t know why he never asks and I don’t know why asked today. He mentioned the “flowchart” collage that I created a long time ago to explain the self injury cycle and he asked me when the last time I cut was, and what stage I am in now. I told him that I remember the last time I cut, but I can’t remember when it was. I know I was at work, and I used my boss’s knife. He keeps his knives very sharp, which I noticed because I frequently make my breakfast or lunch at his house, or cut up fruit for a snack. He rarely cooks, but he sharpens his knives. I never sharpen mine, and they would not cut me very easily.

I told J that I did feel the urge to cut after our “running” self-disclosure episode, but I wouldn’t do it because I didn’t want J to be the reason why I cut. He thought that perhaps I used quitting the hotline as a substitute for cutting, and did I feel that same sense of relief after quitting that I do after cutting? I told him that I don’t think I did, because the running issue has not yet been resolved, there is no closure. He asked me what closure looks like, and I said either I reach a point where I feel that the other person understands my feelings, or we agree to disagree. But right now I feel that we are still in limbo regarding this issue. He said that in a “normal” relationship if there is a conflict a person can leave to go for a walk, or go to the store, but in a 45 minute therapy relationship you have to stay to work it out. I think that in a normal relationship you can work things out as they come up, but in therapy you can only work on them during the 45 minutes you get, and lots of things stay unresolved.

Then he brought up how I take the responsibility and blame for every relationship conflict, or every mistake that anyone makes. Yes, I know this. I think he is really trying different ways to get me to stop doing this, and I appreciate the difficulty and frustration he must feel. Because I feel it too. He thinks if I could stop the “cycle” before I get to the self-hating phase it would be helpful. I do too. But I think my feelings of self-loathing and not being good enough are so deep, so ingrained in the core of my being, that anything I do will not be able to reverse this. I told him that I don’t want to be one of those people who never take responsibility for anything they do wrong, who always blame everything on everyone else. He said, “So you are erring on the side of caution and taking everything on yourself to ensure that you don’t become one of those people?” I know it seems black and white, doesn’t it? There has to be an area in the middle that is more, well, in the middle.

Then J told me that he was late for an appointment last week. He had to go somewhere at a time of day when he doesn’t normally travel, and it would take 30 minutes if it wasn’t a busy time of day, so he allotted 40 minutes, but it actually took 48 minutes. He called when he was on his way to say he would be late. He said he felt that he did the best he could, and that he wasn’t giving an excuse. He told me that his appointment was at 7:30am. When he got there he saw other people arriving late as well, and he thought that maybe they gave out the 7:30 appointments freely, knowing people would be late.

I told him that if it was me, I would be anxious that the office staff would think I was making up excuses as to why I was late, and that they would have a negative opinion of me after that. He said that crossed his mind, but he knew that once he showed up and that he was nice, they would realize that he was just caught in traffic and it was one of those things that couldn’t be helped, that it didn’t reflect badly on him.

He could have stopped the discussion there, but he had to go on to tell me that this was a medical appointment. I don’t know why he told me that, but at that point the thought that went through my head was, “Good! Maybe he got hurt in that 5K race he did and had to go to the doctor.” Ugh. Whatever was the point of his disclosure was totally lost on me then.

Sigh. One of the things we talked about earlier was that my pdoc said that therapy is talking about the little things over and over again, and how I feel that so many things J and I have discussed are still unresolved. So something I thought of is to put each of those unresolved issues on a slip of paper to put in my box that is in his office. We have only taken something out of the box once since we came up with the idea, but I have lots of ideas to put into the box. These things fall into the following categories:

Things that I haven’t had time to bring up (ie; J’s email from last week, the lion metaphor, etc)
Things that I feel we have discussed before and I feel like he doesn’t want to hear them anymore (the January email summarizing my whole year, that he dismissed after one session)
Things that I am too uncomfortable to bring up (when he searched for “sex” on my blog)

Yeah, I hold a grudge. It might feel good to get these things out, at least on paper and in his office. I wonder if he will check the slips of paper when I’m not there. Hmm….

Oct 30 2010

My Last Night on the Hotline

Tuesday night was my last night working on the hotline. My partner had emailed me that she wouldn’t be there that night, so I worked alone. I took about six calls, but three were particularly special for me. I don’t know if I was in a different mindset knowing it was my last night, or if was the wine I drank after therapy in the afternoon, or if it was my own confusion about therapy that day, but I felt different on the calls that night.

The first special call was from Ed. Ed is angry, he is always angry. He calls screaming and cursing about whatever thing has set him off that day. The things he gets angry about are frustrating, but not life altering episodes. But he also has such a human side to him, I really do enjoy talking to him, even though I have only spoken with him a few times over the last year.

I let him rant and rave. He would go on and on, then he would apologize. I told him that there is no need to apologize, that is what I am there for. If that is what he needs, then I will sit and listen to him scream and curse. He told me that other hotline volunteers don’t feel that way, and ask him to stop screaming and cursing. I told him I don’t feel that way. That as long as he is not yelling and cursing at me it is fine. I will just listen. I validated his feelings along the way, telling him that what happened is indeed frustrating, and the fact that he can’t do anything about it is even more frustrating. I did not tell him what to do, or offer suggestions as to how to fix the situation.

By the end of the call he was calm and he decided he would go to the outing he had planned that night, despite having decided not to go earlier.

Then Alice called. She has schizophrenia and when her meds aren’t working right she hears voices in her head. This is bad enough, but she thinks that others can hear the voices too, and she is extremely paranoid because she thinks that people are constantly judging her. She wanted to know what business it is of theirs to listen to her voices, and why are they laughing at her.

This is a tricky situation because she can really hear the voices, and she really believes others can hear them too, and I don’t want to tell her that they can’t. So I tried to validate her feelings (this is what I normally do when I can’t think of anything else) and I told her it must be very difficult for her, with those voices constantly chattering in her head, and how dare anyone else listen and then make fun of her. She said, “I know! You really understand, you get it.” Which I really don’t, but I wanted to let her know that I think it must be hard for her.

After we had talked for a while about the other people and how it makes her feel to have them judging her, I brought up the fact that maybe others can’t hear those voices. I had to be careful here, because I didn’t want to negate her ideas about this. I asked her if the doctors can hear her voices, and she said they told her that they can’t. She says her parents have told her that they can’t. But she doesn’t believe them. She said a woman on her block told her that she can hear Alice’s voices, so it must be true. I said, “Maybe your neighbor has her own voices in her head and that is what she hears.” This made Alice crack up laughing. It was so good to hear her laugh. She thought it was so funny that maybe her neighbor has her own voices.

After having developed this rapport with Alice I suggested that perhaps no one can hear the voices in her head, but I stressed that I know that this is very hard for her to believe because the voices are so loud, and she sees reactions of people around her which she assumes are reactions to the voices. Alice had called her doctor that day, the dosage on her medication was going to be increased and she was going to the pharmacy the next day to pick up the new meds. I asked her to call back after she started on the new dose to let us know how she is doing. She said she would be happy to call back and she hopes she gets me on the phone next time because “You really understand.”

The third caller didn’t want to give her name, but I’ll call her Laura. She was very upset at the beginning of the call. She was having a fight with her boyfriend, he is suffering from depression and is having a very hard time right now, and she is moving on Thursday and needs him to help her. He told her not to call him for the rest of the day. He told her that his depression had never been as bad as it is right now, and she took this personally. She feels responsible, why else would he be so depressed if not for her?

Later it came out that he works full time and goes to school full time, and he recently did poorly on a couple of exams. He is very high achiever, as is she. They both set high expectations for themselves. She was crying and very anxious. I let her talk, and she did. I asked a few questions here and there, but she was able to talk without much prompting.

After she got her story out, she started to ask questions. “Why is he so depressed?” “Do you think it is my fault?” I don’t know the answers to the questions of course. But I tried to point out things in her story that would lead her to develop her own conclusions. I mentioned that he recently got poor grades on exams. That he is working long hours. She gradually came to see that even though she feels as though his depression is her fault, logically she knows that is not true.

When we got through this stage of the call, I felt confident that we could move to problem solving. She was very worried that her boyfriend would not help her move on Thursday. She said that he was worried that his car would get dirty. I helped her figure out what to say to him when she calls him the next day, first about the depression, and second about the move. We went through this a couple of times.

At the end of the call she felt more confident and less anxious. She said I was a big help to her. I felt good about that call. I felt that Laura could be me, and vice versa.

When I left that night, I knew I felt good about my calls, but I wasn’t really sure how I actually helped these people. I felt that all I did was sit there and listen to them. It’s somewhat difficult not being in the room with the person, I can’t tell their body language, or the unspoken words. It’s harder to read between the lines. And yet, the anonymity and space between us also can make things easier. Callers feel less vulnerable when they are not in the same room with us.

But writing this out I can see that I actually, perhaps, did do something. It was not conscious to me at the time, but I seem to have followed an outline with each caller. Listen, validate, develop rapport, move to problem solving if that is what the caller wants.

So that was my last night on the hotline. I’m not upset that I quit, but I’m glad my last night was a good one.

Oct 26 2010

Therapy Recap 10/26/10

This isn’t going to be good. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

To summarize: I went into therapy today feeling misunderstood, and I left feeling the same way.

J started out as always, “What do you want to talk about today?” I wasn’t aware that we were done with last week’s topic, but that is his usual MO, so I am used to it. I came up with a list:

writing class was harder than I thought it would be
I quit my volunteer jobs
I went to a reunion dinner with the Mississippi people
I ran in a race (I said, “But I obviously am not going to talk about that with you!”)

He said, “Let’s start with the first one.” So we talked about the writing class and I told him it was more difficult than I thought it would be to read my story, it was about my foster child. But it was the last class, so I don’t have to worry about that anymore.

He asked if I am relieved about quitting my volunteer jobs, if I did it as good self care. I said I am relieved in a way, but it has nothing to do with self care. Kind of the opposite, actually.

He asked why I quit my job as advocate for the foster child and I told him that I didn’t have a good reason, that everything I came up with sounded selfish. But I explained the story and he said it makes sense that this is a good time to leave. That I shouldn’t feel guilty for leaving, or feel like a failure, despite the commitment that I made to myself four and a half years ago to stay with the child until he aged out. That would have been a 10 year commitment, and the organization only requires a one year commitment. He agrees with my supervisor that it is good for my child to learn that endings can be good. He also feels that my lie (that I am going to advocate for another child) was a white lie, and despite the fact that I don’t intend to take on another case, it is still a good lesson for my child to know that there are other needy kids out there and not enough advocates. He said I should finish my story about the foster child (I only wrote about his life up until age 12, since there was a word/time limit on our stories for the class) because that might give me closure. I said I would do that. I have to do it before I officially finish, because at that time I’ll have to turn in all of my notes and paperwork.

Then we talked about quitting the hotline. I told him that was a more impulsive decision. I didn’t want to do it anymore because I was feeling bad about myself. That I quit the day after he and I had the conversation about his race. He asked me what my supervisor said when I quit, and I lied. I told him that she just asked me why I was leaving, and could I give her a week or two to find someone to fill the spot. That’s not exactly what she said. She praised me and my work on the hotline, but I didn’t want him to know that. I didn’t want to give him evidence that I might be good at the job. There was a lot of confusion in this conversation. I said I didn’t want to deal with people anymore, that I didn’t feel I was good at the job, and that I’m sure they could find someone better. He said it’s ok to not want to deal with people, some people just don’t want to, or feel better alone. Some people need to work in a cubicle all day by themselves without interacting with others. I had no idea what he was talking about, in regard to me. I said, “So it’s ok that I quit because I didn’t want to deal with people?” He said, “What’s negative about not wanting to deal with people?” I said, with a tone in my voice, “Well, I won’t have anyone to talk to, I won’t have anyone to do anything with, I won’t have anyone to support me, and I won’t have anyone to have a connection with. And that’s OK?”

Part of our miscommunication is that he thought I was alone on the hotline, just talking to callers, and he thought I didn’t want to deal with the callers anymore. I told him I wasn’t talking about the callers, I was talking about my co-workers. That I have had partners on the hotline, and I got somewhat close to them. But this is what I do, I get close to people and then I pull away. Sure I’ll miss the callers somewhat too.

He said that he feels that I was punishing myself after our conversation about his race. I left his office, I felt bad about myself, and I quit to punish myself because I didn’t feel good enough.

He said, “Can I ask you about your race?” I said, “No, not if you are going to tell me that ran a marathon this weekend in a hour and a half.” He asked if his remarks two weeks ago about his race affected my race, and I said that I was really hesitant to do the race, but I wanted the shirt. (I won’t wear the shirt unless I do the race, that’s bad etiquette.) He asked why I wanted the shirt and I said because it’s a nice shirt. He asked if I had seen the shirt before the race weekend and I said I hadn’t, but I had seen previous year’s shirts and I knew they were nice. He asked what was important about having the shirt and I said it meant that I did the race. I said, “You better quit here before you ruin this for me.” He said he wanted to say one more thing, and I said, “Don’t you ruin this for me.”

He told me that last month when he ran his race he saw one of the high schoolers after the race wearing the race shirt. He had cut off the sleeves and written his time on the front, and it was 18 minutes. J thought, “Oh man, 18 minutes.” But then he thought to himself, “Well, that’s ok, some people run faster than others.” I was started to get extremely frustrated right about now. I looked right at him (I had been avoided his eyes all along) and I said, with emphasis, “He is not your therapist!” J said, “Why does that matter?” I said, “Because he did not set you up by asking about your racing and you didn’t tell him about a bad race you had and how slow you are prior to him telling you that he ran the 5K in 18 minutes. There were 17,000 people who ran faster than me in the race on Sunday and I don’t care about any of them. None of them are my therapist!” I think he was biting his tongue right then, about to say that he didn’t set me up, etc. But he didn’t say anything. He just doesn’t get it though.

Again he said, “Why does it matter?” I said, “I don’t know why it matters. And now I feel bad about myself because I am letting it matter. I guess it shouldn’t matter.”

Then he asked if there was competition with the hotline. I said, “No, of course not, why would there be competition?” He said, “Because I do therapy, and you were doing a form of therapy with the callers, so maybe there was competition?” I had no idea he was talking about me being in competition with him, I thought he meant competition with the other hotline volunteers. I thought that was an interesting idea, once I figured out what he was talking about. I said it may be true. He said, “Why does there have to be competition?” I said, “There never was competition, until you started the competition!”

Then he gave me a whole lecture about the therapeutic relationship and the power struggle. And lions wrestling over power, and how they don’t mean to destroy each other, they just need to see who has superiority, and the others accept that and just move on with their lives, but then there may be more battles for power in the future. And if one dies in the battle for power it is usually an accident. And how the therapist shares very little of his life, feelings, thoughts compared to the patient, and that could make the patient feel vulnerable, but the patient also has power because they decide the direction of the sessions and what is to be talked about. Blah blah blah. Is he saying if I die it will be an accident?

At the end he said he wanted to read my story about my foster child and he thinks I should finish it. I’m hesitant to let him read any more of my writing because of his lack of emotional response to any of it. It’s like reading a psychological journal I guess. The New England Journal of Medicine maybe.

Yesterday my son had asked me if we could out to lunch after my “meeting” (my euphamism for therapy, used with people who don’t know about my therapy, which is everyone). So I picked him up and we went out to lunch and I had a glass of wine. Then I dropped him off, picked up my boss’s girlfriend’s birthday present and went to a bar to continue drinking. I had to be at the hotline at 4PM, so I went to Panera to have some coffee. Then I went to pick up my boss’s girlfriend’s birthday card and I came to the hotline. My hotline partner isn’t here, which is too bad, I’ve enjoyed working with her. She is going through a divorce, so I’ve learned a lot from her experiences that she has shared with me. I doubt we’ll stay in touch though. I don’t do that.

I’ve already decided what I am going to say next week when J asks me what I want to talk about today. “I want to talk about why I feel it is so hard for you to understand me.”

Yes, some people run faster than others. Why does it matter that it was my therapist telling me how much faster he runs than me? Why can’t I articulate it? I suck at communication, and he sucks at reading between the lines. So that leaves us in a mire of misunderstanding.

Oct 15 2010

Dream Hangover

Yesterday I called my supervisor at the hotline and told her I was resigning. I said I would stay until she could juggle the schedule around, which she said would take a week or two. She is very sweet. I won’t really miss the hotline, I haven’t been working Tuesdays long enough to get close to the regulars, and at first I missed my Sunday regulars when I switched to Tuesdays, and I still think about them sometimes, but it’s been a couple months so it’s ok.

Then I saw my foster child. He spent the majority of the time texting his friends on his iphone, as 16 year olds tend to do. It was hard for me to bring up the subject that I would be leaving, but I did, and I didn’t really get the reaction that I thought I would. He was very surprised. I told him that things are going so well for him now that he doesn’t need an advocate, and he said, “How about a lifelong friend?” I thought that was sweet. Then he went back to texting.

I’m not even sure I will be allowed to have contact with him once my job is over. I would love to go to his high school graduation in two years though.

Last night I dreamed about my foster child, in the dream I took him to some Army picnic. Then I dreamed about the hotline. I guess those are the three things on my mind – my foster child, the hotline, and the Army 10 miler race that is coming up. I woke up with bad dream hangover, and it’s lasting all day.

Work is busy, so it is keeping me distracted. I still have a lot to do, so I better get back to work.

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.

Mar 31 2010

Therapy Recap 3/30/10

I couldn’t believe it after J’s email on Friday which said, “Hopefully we can discuss this further on Tuesday” (referring to our email conversation about my inability to communicate leading to people misunderstanding me), but he opened our session by asking, “What are we talking about today?”

I said, “Whatever.”

He said, “So I don’t get you.” OK, so I guess he did remember the email. Why he has to play that game at the beginning, I don’t understand.

We talked about why I felt he didn’t understand me at the last session, how he asked at the very end if I wanted to send the email I was planning to send to the woman I work for to him first. I told him that negated our whole conversation because my problem wasn’t writing the email to her, it was sending it. He tried to explain that he didn’t want me to send it to him so that he could proofread it, but to give me encouragement to send it. Whatever.

Then I told him that I actually did not send her the email saying that I couldn’t work for her. That I sent her an email saying that I could work for her, and it was his fault. Because I didn’t want to do what he told me to do. He didn’t understand that. He was saying, “Well, you didn’t want to work for her and I was just helping you tell her that.” I know that. The reason I didn’t want to do what he told me to do was because I was angry that he didn’t understand me during the session. I can’t remember if I told him that or not.

Then I told him that if I sent her the email saying I couldn’t work for her she might find someone else and then I would discover that I’m replaceable and I’d be a nobody. He went into a long thing about how we are all replaceable. He did a lot of logicalizing. Then he tried to get me to see that I am irreplaceable to my kids, husband, family and friends, but I don’t really see that. Although when my father died and my mother remarried I remember telling people that you can’t replace a parent, but you can replace a spouse. Wonder why that doesn’t apply to me.

I told him about Jamie Oliver and how his experiments with the school children in West Virginia kept failing, but he didn’t see it as a reflection of himself, and he just kept on trying, where I would have quit. And how I’m so selfish, unlike Jamie Oliver. J went into a whole thing about selfish vs unselfish and how everyone is somewhat selfish, even Barak Obama and his health care reform (huh?). He said he doesn’t think I’m selfish.

I told him how I almost quit the hotline and the events that transpired there, and how it was selfish of me to quit because of negative feedback. That led to him concluding that my feelings of self-worth come from external points of view – things other people say about me, and things other people do. I think that is fairly obvious, and I believe he realized this months and months ago, but obviously I have not made much progress here.

Then I said, “Like when you forgot to answer my email last week – that made me feel worthless.” He asked me how many times we have emailed each other. I don’t know, a lot. I told him the good email exchanges don’t count; forgetting me once is what I focus on. He said he had no excuse for not emailing me. Thanks a lot. I don’t want him to lie, but that would have been a perfect time for him to make up an excuse – his kid was sick, he had a lot to do because he was going out of town, etc. Because he had no excuse for forgetting to email me I can only come to one conclusion – I am totally forgettable. Worthless.

He asked me how much my feeling of worthlessness improved after he did eventually respond, and I said, “ZERO.” He asked me how much I thought this feeling should have improved, and I said, “Lots of things should happen in this world – there should be peace on earth, children shouldn’t be starving in Africa.” And then it was time to go. Bye.

Mar 30 2010

Hotline Update

Yesterday morning I got a call from one of the other supervisors on the hotline. The supervisor who had left me the negative feedback (Supervisor #3) forwarded my email to the main supervisor (Supervisor #1) who forwarded it to Supervisor #2. I really like #2, well I like #1 also, but she is mostly involved with funding and grants and administrative stuff and doesn’t spend too much time with hotline volunteers, although it was she and #2 who did our training. #2’s office is right next to the hotline room and she has to walk through the room to get to and from her office, so I see her and talk to her the most.

#2 has heard me over the past few weeks saying that I thought feedback from #3 wasn’t productive or I don’t understand it or it is sarcastic. For example last month I got a call from a woman who was upset because she called her sister in another state for her birthday. The sister has Alzheimer’s and was arguing with the caller saying it wasn’t her birthday. Naturally the caller was distraught at her sister being in such a condition – she was sad, anxious, and angry. We had a good call and I wrote up the report. The feedback said something like, “Look at the bright side! She never has to have an excuse for forgetting her sister’s birthday or forgetting to send a gift!” To me this feedback perfectly represents #3 and the type of person he is. He is full of himself, very sarcastic, and thinks he is just a riot. How is this feedback helpful to a volunteer? I’m all for humor and I do have a sarcastic side to me but I felt a lot of empathy towards this caller and I don’t want anyone making fun of her or the situation. But again, I’m not sure if this is because I am too sensitive.

So #2 read the email I sent to #3 and said she read the report and feedback in question and she agreed that the feedback was not appropriate, but #3 did say that he misread the report and he was very sorry. #2 told me that my report was just fine. She said that #3 feels really badly about the situation, which surprised me so much. I can’t imagine him feeling bad about this, and now I feel bad that I made him feel bad. #2 told me that I am doing a great job on the hotline, if I wasn’t she wouldn’t have asked me to take on extra shifts or to help with training new volunteers. She also said that if I want to continue on the hotline that she would do all of my feedback from now on.

I was really touched by her offer and I told her that I really enjoy the hotline, that I feel I do help some people and it seems silly to allow negative feedback to stop me from continuing with the job. I told her that I would appreciate her doing my feedback, that would make me feel better. I didn’t tell her, and I should, that I still want her to be honest in my feedback though. Just perhaps in a more constructive way than #3 gives feedback.

I hate to be one of those people that throws tantrums and quits and then when everyone begs her to stay she says, “OK, fine, if you insist.” There are people like that on forums all over the place and it drives me crazy. They just want some adoration, they never really intended to quit. I wonder if I’ve turned into one of those people.

I really do feel better though, knowing that #2 will be doing my feedback from now on.

Oh, and by the way, #3 is training to become a therapist. Yikes!

Mar 29 2010

Feeling Unworthy

Yesterday was a difficult day. I was looking forward to going in to the Hotline, as I had to miss last week for the wedding. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this, but we have to write a report for each call that we take. We take calls on the county crisis hotline, as well as on the national suicide hotline, and we do different call reports depending on which line the person calls on. I was having trouble filling out the suicide hotline call reports because I was unsure of the procedure, and I was getting negative feedback on these call reports. We get feedback for each call that we take, there are three supervisors that give feedback, and it seems that most, if not all, of my negative feedback was from one particular supervisor.

A few weeks ago there was a volunteer meeting/training session and we were taught how to properly fill out call reports. It was such a relief to finally know how to do it right, and the very next time I was on the hotline I got a call on the suicide line and I was confident that I filled out the report correctly. But yesterday when I went in and checked my feedback it was once again negative. I was pretty disappointed. I mentioned twice in the report that the caller did not have a plan, but the supervisor asked me why I didn’t mention in the report if he had a plan. I wrote that he had a doctor who prescribed his meds and that we discussed visiting his doctor and we went over what he would say to his doctor, but my feedback asked me what resources I gave to the caller. The feedback also said that I didn’t mention what level I thought the caller was at; even though I did mention at least twice that the caller did not want to commit suicide. And finally the feedback stated that although my report was detailed, it was missing a lot of important information.

I just couldn’t understand why I wasn’t able to communicate to the supervisor all of the information that he needed. Once again I was reminded of how I suck at communication, and that maybe I just shouldn’t be doing this job. It’s obviously not working out, I’m not good enough. I wrote him an email stating that I’m thinking of quitting, I just can’t do it right, and outlining the feedback he gave me. He did reply by email shortly afterwards, and he actually said that he read my report wrong, that I did state that the caller had no plan. But he said I should have given the caller resources in case he can’t afford his doctor or if he has no insurance (the caller never mentioned this, and I seemed sure that he was going to see his doctor, but I guess I should never assume). And he said I needed to state what level I thought the caller was at because I didn’t explain his negative thoughts (I thought I actually did do that in the report – saying that he had obsessive thoughts in his head about killing himself, even though he didn’t really want to). But he said that he reads up to 30 call reports a day, and he gets tired, and sometimes he misreads reports. He apologized and said he would hate to see me quit because of my feedback on a call. He said we should talk by phone or in person if I want to.

Now I wouldn’t quit just because of one negative feedback, but I seem to be getting a lot of negative feedback. To be honest, I do get positive feedback as well, but I ignore that. I only focus on the negative. I just don’t know what to do. On the one hand I enjoy the hotline, on the other hand maybe I’m too sensitive and I can’t handle criticism. I know that even feedback that isn’t meant to be criticism I am taking as criticism. Is it worth it?

Then I start to think how selfish I am. I should be doing this because I want to help people, and stop thinking about myself so much. I think I am helpful to people on the hotline, not everyone, but I know that some callers have called back and asked for me, so I must be doing something for them. Isn’t that why I signed up to do this – to help people? I just feel really selfish, like I’m doing it to make myself feel good instead of to help other people feel better.

I was watching Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution last night. I really like him, I liked him when he was just a regular chef on tv, wearing a hat cooking outside. Now I really admire him. He was having a tough time on the show this week, his experiments were failing and the kids just wanted to eat more and more junk. The administrators were getting fed up with him. But he really has a passion for wanting to help people, and he didn’t take any of this personally. He never thought, “I’m a loser, I’m worthless, I can’t help them.” He never internalized any of his failures – he never thought of himself as a failure, just that his experiments failed. And he felt this was due to external forces – society, the government, others’ preconceived notions. And he just regrouped and continued on. How do people do that?

I woke up with a terrible headache this morning, did a lot of crying yesterday. Feeling worthless. Even my T forgot to email me back last week, that’s how unworthy I am. If I wasn’t paying him I wouldn’t even be worthy enough to sit in the same room with him. Yikes, I’m going to go for a long walk and clear my head.

Mar 16 2010

Therapy Recap 3/16/10

When I got to therapy today J said, “What are we talking about today?” I told him that he wasn’t playing fair, that last week I had two things to talk about, but he wanted to talk about my new job so we did. He said that we should talk about what I want to talk about, not what he wants to talk about and if I had something to talk about I should have said, “I don’t want to talk about xyz, I want to talk about abc.” I told him I can’t do that. He said that he invites me to do that. I said thank you for the invitation.

So he suggested that I talk about those two things from last week, and after hemming and hawing about it I did. First I mentioned the background check for my new job and how he asked me about that. He had asked two weeks ago what would happen if my new boss found something in my background, which I knew he wouldn’t since there was nothing to be found. But I knew that J was convicted of a crime and I wasn’t sure if he was asking about me or him. I told him that I knew about the crime and I never felt badly about knowing since it is public knowledge (in my state we can search on a particular website to see if anyone has committed a crime, or even if they are involved in anything court related like a divorce, or a speeding ticket). But I did feel bad after our session two weeks ago because I felt like I should have told him that I knew. And when he asked me about it I felt like he was asking me to tell him that I knew about his record. I told him that it certainly didn’t matter to me (it was 15 years ago and wasn’t a crime that would affect anything about therapy) and it was none of my business which is why I never told him that I knew.

He said that he didn’t mind me knowing, he knows it is public knowledge, it was a long time ago. He did say something interesting though, he said that because of that incident he chose this career path. I know that he was in pharmacy school, and maybe a person with a criminal record can’t become a pharmacist. But they can become a psychologist!

So we talked about that a little, and how maybe I felt guilty about knowing this information and how I felt he was testing me. He threw out a guess that maybe because I was worried about how he would react when he found out I saw another T, and maybe that was related. I’m not sure about that, but it’s an interesting theory.

Then I brought up the second issue, the topic of my son, and how when I went to see him 3 years ago about my son he helped me with a behavioral plan and we didn’t go into feelings at all, but this time when I wanted help with my son it was all about feelings and it turned into a big awful mess with me wanting to kill myself. He said things are different now and he can’t work on my problems without the feeling part. I still don’t get that though. So I asked him if I should see someone different specifically for my son’s problem, someone who is more objective. He went over to his computer to look up people and while he was doing that we talked more about it. He talked about me wanting someone to just tell me what to do about my son, and I said, yes, that is exactly what I want. While he was talking I just asked him, “Why can’t you do that?” So he threw out some suggestions and they were really good, and it turns out he really can do it, although he did try to get me to see that it is somewhat about the feelings as well.

I told him that when I was feeling really bad last month I called a hotline. That it wasn’t my hotline, and I wanted to see what it would be like to call them. I told him that the woman I talked to said something really good – that whatever I did in the last 19 years with my son doesn’t matter right now, that I should start from where I am right now. J said that he was watching Apollo 13 this weekend and there was a part of the movie with an explosion and everyone was arguing over who caused the explosion. Someone said it didn’t do any good to bicker over who caused it; they just needed to fix the damage and get back.

We talked about different things I could do with my son, and we went over the list I had made last month about things I do for my son, things that could be taken away or used as barters or bribes to get my son to do things. J said that if my son was 5 or 12 or 35 it would be much easier, but he is almost 20 and it’s a really difficult age. But he came up with a couple of things that could really work, and it gives me hope that maybe J can do this for me, and that I can do the things that he suggests.

I told him that I was afraid of slipping back into the way I felt last month after talking about my son, and he said we would just have to be careful. After acknowledging this, at one point he asked me, “So what makes you a good parent?” And I said, “I’m not necessarily a good parent. But I am not talking about that.” Hello? That is exactly the type of thing that sends me into a spiral down the rabbit hole. He said that was fine, but he just wanted to point out that I could have said that I give my kids three meals a day, and take them to activities, and make them go to school, etc. But instead my first reaction is that I am not a good parent. Yes, I know that. But I don’t want to go there right now.

So in the end I did talk about my two topics that I had ready for last week, and we did figure out a way for J to help me with my son, without talking too much about feelings for my sake, and with talking a little about feelings for his sake. It was good.

Feb 17 2010

Therapy Recap 2/16/10

Yesterday I went to see J. I curled up in a ball on his couch and refused to look at him. This is very unusual for me, normally I make eye contact continuously as it is the only way I know what he is thinking and feeling. But yesterday I didn’t care.

J did touch briefly on how suicidal I was last week. I told him that I had a lot of pills at home and I didn’t want to commit suicide by od-ing so I didn’t go home. He said, “So you had the urge, but you talked yourself out of it?”

We talked about my son and how it makes me feel. He tried to get me to see that I am angry and frustrated, but I wouldn’t go there. He tried to convince me that if I don’t see that what my son is doing is unfair then I won’t be able to have leverage in implementing consequences. I tried to argue with him about why change needs to be based on negatives rather than just out of my desire to help him become more independent.

J contradicted himself by starting out saying we need to deal with the feelings and then later on saying that he is trying to help me with the here and now situation of my son, but I went down another road and made it about me. I asked him if I did that and he said that perhaps we did that, and I said, “No you did that. You gave me an assignment that made it out about me rather than my son.”

He asked me why we started talking about my son to begin with and I told him that a couple of weeks ago I said that I wasn’t doing well due to some stressors in my life and he wanted to hear about the big ones, not the garden variety ones (his words) so I mentioned that I had a goal that I was going to do something about my son by the end of January and I never did. He tried to get me to say that I brought up the topic of my son because I want help with it, but now I’m turning it into an issue about me.

One thing I really liked about the session was the moments of quiet. We have never had those before. Usually J fills in all of the silences with stories. He only told two stories yesterday, one about his neighbors and their 19 year old son, and one about the clients he had to send to the collection agency recently. But there were definitely long moments of silence, and it was so nice. Maybe if we had been having those all along I would have felt safer in the office, like there is less pressure on me to fill in the space, even though it is him that is always filling the space.

I realize that it might have been the last time I see J, so I think I’m taking everything he said and making it negative so that I end up being angry at him, and even hating him. It will make the end easier. I told him I’m not coming in next week, and he asked me if he would see me in 2 weeks. I said he would.

I called a hotline last night. Not my hotline of course, but one in a neighboring county that I heard was good. And it was good. I talked about my son and the counselor was really helpful. One thing she said that was so helpful was, “Right now the mistakes you may have made in raising your son don’t matter, right now what matters is finding a solution and moving on.” We talked for 22 minutes, and I actually cried a lot on the phone, something I never do in J’s office.

Do you think it’s possible that there is an unlimited number of tears in the human body? How is it possible that they never dry up? I’ve got a lot of suicidal ideation again. I’m cleaning the house, that’s not a good thing. I haven’t run in three days, and that’s not a good thing either.