Tag Archives: shame

May 24 2011

Therapy Recap 5/24/11

I decided that today I would ask J questions. I asked him if I could ask him some questions and he said sure.

The first one was “Do you think I am making any progress.” He said I am making progress in certain areas, and others we still need to work on. I am more aware of why and when I think certain things, and I can see that I am doing and thinking certain things. He said that he thought there was a turning point for me when my cousin overdosed (I have to think about that some more). Is that when I started to show emotion in therapy? Maybe.

I asked “Do we have a goal, how do we know if I am progressing.” J said that the goals are amorphous, but to feel like I am a good enough person, and not to feel shame about being me. He gave the metaphor of a road and a car, and he said that the goal is for me to be in control of the car, that there will be potholes, and accidents, and traffic jams, but my hands should always be on the wheel in control.

I asked him if my life would get better as I progress and he said he definitely thinks it will. Of course anything can happen in life, but he thinks I will be more in control and sure of myself. I said that I got the impression from him that I should just bide my time until I become a grandmother, and he said he didn’t mean that, but just that I have things to look forward to.

I asked J if he has treated other people with my kinds of issues and if they got better. He said he doesn’t like to use the word “better” because I am not sick. He asked me what exactly I mean by my issues, and I went through the list. He said that all of those are treatable, and he has had clients who progressed. Then he gave me an example of a woman he saw a few years ago who heard voices, and she got better and she comes in every once in a while to check in and she is doing great. So even people who have more severe problems than me can be treated. That didn’t mean much to me; frankly, I was specifically interested in hearing about people like me.

I asked him about my difficulty in talking to him about certain things, and my difficulty in reacting and responding to things in the session in the moment and how can I get past that. He told me that it is not a problem to have a reaction after the session, that most of the therapy occurs in the other parts of the week, that the 45 minutes is for gathering data. I told him that if he was a regular person and he said something that bothered me, but I didn’t react until later or the next day, I could call the person or see him and talk to him, but with therapy I have to wait a week and then the issue is past. He said that first of all I don’t have to wait a week to tell him anything, and that this is how lots of relationships work, he gave the example of a married couple and how they might have a disagreement. Sometimes they come back to it, and sometimes they just let it pass. And if something happens in session that I feel is a problem, I might talk about it the next week, or six weeks later. He asked for a specific example and I gave him the example of how last week he told me he lost 12 pounds without even trying, after I had told him of my difficulty in losing weight. He asked me if I thought he was disregarding my feelings and I said that I thought he was. But I didn’t want to talk about the actual incident, I wanted to talk about why I couldn’t respond in the moment. I told him how difficult it is to talk about things so far after the fact. That I feel like I am boring him if I talk about the same things all the time. He responded, “And your job is to entertain me.” I said, “Yes exactly.” And this is related to the other part of the question, my difficulty in talking about certain things. I said that I never told him about the drinking I had been doing and how much I was drinking, but I thought it was important to tell him, and I wanted to, but it was too difficult. He said this is an example of feeling shame.

We talked about how I don’t want him to think badly of me. He asked if that is something about me, or if it is about me and him, and I said it is me, that I don’t want anyone to think badly of me. Then we talked about whether the drinking was bad, and he said it was only bad because I determined it was bad. I was still functioning, it was not interfering in my job or things I needed to do. I asked him if there is anything I could tell him that would make him think I am a bad person, and he said there is nothing. He asked if I club baby seals, and I assured him that I didn’t. He said I could try to come up with something, but he doesn’t think I’d be able to.

J asked if he could say something about himself, and I said, “Will it hurt my feelings?” He said he didn’t think so, and he told me about when he gets speeding tickets he feels very bad, but he realizes he is not a bad person and he sends in the money very quickly and then moves past it. He said a part of me that definitely needs more work is moving past things more easily. The Teflon coating. He said he sees progress, but there needs to be more Teflon.

Then, with only 5 minutes left, I asked him if he thought he could challenge me more. He asked me what challenge would look like, and I thought about it and said I didn’t know. I said that there are things that I know intellectually, but I still don’t feel or believe. He said that up until this point in therapy there is no way he could have challenged me strongly, and I agreed. I needed validation and understanding and trust building, but now I think I need real change. I said, “I’d like you to challenge me more even though I don’t want you to and it hurts my feelings and makes me angry at you and makes me not like you.” He said that he thinks my holistic health coach challenges me (he didn’t call her “your lady”!) and I said that yes she does.

So if I write in my blog about how much I hate therapy and J and I want to quit, please remind me that I asked for it!

At one point in the middle of the session J said, “It’s your song.” I didn’t know what he meant. But there is music playing out in the waiting room (I couldn’t even really hear it actually) and the song was “Landslide” by Stevie Nicks, the song I had as the background music for my slide show about my life and getting older and being alone, etc. I was kind of touched that he said that, and he thinks of it as my song. Kind of a weird feeling.

At the end I said, “This was productive” and he said “Well, we’ll see how you feel later!” But I feel good about it. I think it is a good idea to have sessions like this every once in a while, but up until now I don’t know if I would have been brave enough.

Jul 21 2010

Why Can’t I Feel Good?

Yesterday when J asked me about when I feel worthwhile, I thought a bit and then said, “When I feel needed.” And I had been thinking about how I do feel needed right now, due to my son’s medical issues.

I thought if I was dead the following would not have happened:

1. No one would have told the doctor about A’s needle phobia and that any blood that had to be drawn would have to be done in one session, because it would be highly unlikely that he would do this more than once
2. No one would have asked the doctor if he could take some Xanax before the blood test
3. No one would have had any Xanax, or even would have known the proper dosage (well, I did need a little help with that)
4. No one would have thought to use the lidocaine cream
5. No one would have called the lab to see if they had anyone experienced in dealing with needle phobias and to see if it was ok to use the lidocaine cream and how to use it
6. No one would have called the doctor’s office to prescribe the lidocaine cream
7. No one would have known how to apply the cream, with the plastic wrap and the tape (the generic version doesn’t come with the handy plastic cover sheets with tape built right in)
8. No one would have asked the technician if she could do the blood test with my son lying down
9. No one would have known when to stop him from saying, “Wait, I’m not ready” and to take control and say, “You’ll never be ready. Take a deep breath and lay down.”

Was this helpful to him? I don’t know. Maybe he would have done the blood test just fine without those things. But I felt needed. And then you know what?

I felt guilty. My son is having medical problems, he feels like shit, and I am feeling good about myself because he needs me. How awful is that? It’s actually shameful.

And, frankly, maybe instead of helping him, I actually made the whole thing worse. By making such a big deal out of his anxiety maybe I was making him MORE anxious, instead of doing things to lessen his anxiety.

Maybe if I was dead, and my husband had to handle this, he would have just showed up at the lab, and sent my son in, and he would have had the same result in the end – two tubes of blood.

I just want to know why I can’t feel good about anything. What is it about me that makes me feel like I can’t like myself, that I can’t feel proud of myself, that I can’t feel like I’ve done something right?

If it had been someone else in my situation I would have praised them for being so empathetic and caring towards their child. But, here I am, concluding that I have made things worse. I really don’t understand the way my mind works, and why this happens.

Jun 2 2010

Therapy Recap 6/1/10

When I arrived I told J that it is was my daughter’s graduation day, so I guess he thought that meant that I wanted to talk about it. I let him talk for about 5 minutes then I told him I didn’t want to talk about it anymore. He asked about other graduation festivities coming up and how I was feeling about those and I didn’t want to talk about that, but I let him talk about it for about 5 minutes then I said I didn’t want to talk about that anymore.

He brought up how we have talking in previous weeks about how I feel in regard to others, and he mentioned the Mississippi people. So I used that opportunity to tell him that I went to the party and I brought the cake even though it was ugly. He said that was good. I told him that the reason I brought the ugly cake was because I didn’t want to disappoint him and make him think that I wasn’t benefiting from his work. He asked me if that was a healthy attitude. That the whole reason I went and brought the cake was so as not to disappoint either the people who invited me or him. He seemed to be trying to figure this out himself, so I just let him to do that. I told him that sure it would nice to get an invitation to something, say yes, and go, rather than agonize about it for a week or two, but I am not at that stage of development, and yet I went. He thought it was good, that despite my misgivings I went and I brought the ugly cake. I even said to him, “I thought you would think I did a good thing” because he was questioning my motivation. And then he said he did think it was good.

This went on for a while and I got that feeling that I always get when I want to be talking about something else but I don’t know how to start. So finally I just said, “There are some things I wanted to talk about. But I don’t know if I can.” And he said, “So what are we going to do?” Frankly I kind of wish he would be more helpful in getting me to talk about difficult things, but his attitude is, well if I can’t say it, then we just do nothing. I’m not sure what he can do, but isn’t that why he is trained?

So I told him that I wrote out scenarios of the three things I wanted to talk about and would he mind reading them. He read them, and I said that I believe that there is a common theme, and he asked me what that would be. I told him I thought it was shame, but maybe not. I asked what he thought. He said that he can’t tell me what I am feeling, but he didn’t sense shame in these stories. That they were three instances of me being minimized or made to feel badly about myself. I explained why I thought I felt shame in each of the situations.

He looked them over again a few times and did come to conclude that either “I feel bad about myself”, “I am not good enough”, or “I can’t do anything right.”

So he asked me some questions about those things and we talked a little about it, but didn’t really go into anything very deeply. It was somewhat unsatisfying.

He suggested family counseling for my husband, my son, and I and I said I didn’t think that would work because the two of them won’t talk. But I’m going to suggest it to my husband. He is probably tired of spending money on my son, we just got an $800 invoice from the transition counselor, on top of the $500 deposit we already paid him. $1300 for four meetings. And my husband is already angry at me because I spent too much money last month and we are having a graduation party for my daughter on Sunday which will cost a lot.

I think I may wait a couple of week before I mention it.

And then a weird thing happened. J said, “I watched Hoarders.” I said, “What?” Turns out he thought I had suggested he watch it, but I didn’t. He confused me with someone else. He said, “But you do watch something on A&E?” And I said, “No.” Rather than express my dismay that he mixed me up with another client, I started to talk about Hoarders, which I have watched once. I told him that I thought it was sad. He told me about the episode he watched on Saturday.

What I am left with after this session is not the important stuff we talked about, but the fact that he didn’t ask me if I went to the Mississippi party after we spent all of last session talking about whether or not I should go, and that he confused me with another client.

Then I told him I would not be here next Tuesday because I am taking my daughter to her college orientation. He didn’t offer to reschedule, but in the past I have never wanted to reschedule, so I can’t fault him for that. We only ever rescheduled once and that was because I was going to miss a session and he was going to miss one also and he didn’t want me to go three weeks between sessions. But I kind of wish he had asked me if I wanted to reschedule. And please don’t tell me that he is not a mind reader, I know this. I am not finding fault with him, I am finding fault with me.

May 31 2010

It’s All About the Shame

I was at the pool this afternoon with my Kindle and I was browsing through the books I had on there, unable to really focus on anything. I saw the title “I Thought It Was Just Me” by Brene Brown, a book about shame that I read a year or so ago. I started to read parts of it again. Anyone who is suffering from shame issues due to whatever might like this book. It focuses on women and shame, and really makes you feel like you are not alone or weird. Her solution for getting out of the shame rabbit hole is to talk about it. That is not so easy. Anyway, while I was reading I realized that the issues that were troubling me last week all have this in common – they are all related to my shame.

The first thing that happened was when I was telling a friend about something that occurred and she gave me a response that was intended to be helpful, but it hurt my feelings. Then I got all babyish and pissy and wallowed in my hurt for a while wondering why no one understands me.

The second thing was when my son quit working with the counselor, and I asked my husband if he had any ideas about what we could do about my son and he didn’t seem to be interested in discussing it or dealing with it.

The third thing was calling my son’s old therapist because I didn’t know where else to go for help. However when he basically blew me off all of the old feelings came back, including remembering that he told me I was difficult to work with, standoffish, sarcastic, etc. (See yesterday).

I think all three of these involve my feelings of shame. In the first instance, I thought I was feeling hurt, but I was actually feeling shame. I was ashamed of myself because of a fear I have which is irrational and illogical, and when I shared it with my friend and she responded in a helpful way it made me feel ridiculous about myself for being afraid.

In the second instance I am ashamed of myself for everything that I screwed up in my son’s life and for my inability to get my husband involved in any way.

And in the third scenario I am full of shame, about continuing with my son’s old therapist because I was unable to terminate even though I knew it wasn’t helping, about getting in touch with him again, and remembering what he said about me.

I’m wondering if anxiety is really my major problem, or if it is shame. And I am wondering why it is difficult for me to identify emotions. I know that I feel emotions, and quite strongly, but to me a bad emotion is a bad emotion, and I don’t really differentiate all of the bad ones. Maybe I should try harder to actually figure them out, but I don’t know if that is helpful or not.

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.

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.

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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,

Oct 27 2009

Therapy Recap 10/27/09

I think I realized today that I have come as far as I can in therapy. I’m not sure if it’s me, or if my therapist doesn’t have anything else in his bag of tricks for me. I’ve known for a while that I feel stuck, that we are talking about the same kind of thing over and over. And it all comes down to J explaining the logic of situations to me, and I see the logic. I would say the same things to other people I know. But I can’t FEEL the logic. And he can’t tell me how to get the logic from my brain to my heart.

Today I printed out the October 21st entry and gave it to him to read. At first I think he understood the point of this, that I feel like there is something wrong with me. I can’t open up to people, I can’t share my thoughts and feelings with people. And looking back at my life I see this trait in myself from a very very young age. It’s a part of my personality. But later in the session he asked if I thought people can change. And then I thought that maybe he doesn’t understand the point I was making. Or maybe he thinks people can change their personalities. I don’t think so. I think people can change their behaviors or their habits, but not their personalities. J says I don’t need to still feel shame from something that happened 40 years ago. I told him that it’s now a built in part of my personality – I don’t dwell on it, I never even think about it! But it’s a part of my personality now.

He also talked, again, about being in the moment. That life is series of moments. I agree with him that living in the moment is a good way to be, but I think that the way we feel at any given moment is colored by what happened to us or around us for the trillions of moments that occurred before that moment. I don’t think we can truly be in the moment without influence from what came before. J doesn’t agree. He says if we are really in the moment then that stuff doesn’t matter.

At this point I feel like I am paying $19.40 (my co-pay) per week to have someone who looks like Brad Pitt talk to me, because this could be the only time in my life that someone like him would talk to me. And that isn’t really fair, I’m sure there is someone out there who is needing the help of a good shrink, someone who really can change. Someone not like me.

I’ll go back to my wellbutrin, klonopin, vodka, and cutting, and when that stops working there is always Plan B. But for now I think I’m done.

Oct 21 2009

A Pathetic Child

When I was young I used to yell at my little sister. Not yell, SCREAM! I would really lose it, I remember the feeling so well, even though it was 35 or 40 years ago. I hated her. I was very angry. But in addition to that I think that I had a lot inside of me that needed to get out. I never felt like I could “trouble” anyone with my thoughts, or feelings, or problems. So it got all stuck inside, and it needed to get out.

I’m not trying to excuse my behavior, I’m very ashamed of the screaming, and I know it affected my sister. I can still remember how her face looked when I did that to her, and about 20 years ago she mentioned it, but I blew it off and wouldn’t talk about it.

But it makes me sad to think of that little child with all that stuff inside of her that she didn’t feel she could get out.

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?

Oct 3 2009

Beating a Dead Horse

I’m still thinking a lot about being a good person vs being a bad person. I’m sorry I’m beating this subject to death, feel free to go read someone else’s blog if you’d like, I know this is getting old. But I tend to get stuck, you know?

OK, so a person has a few good qualities. Does that make them a good person? I was doing a little reading on Ted Bundy, the serial killer. He was not a good person, obviously. But did you know that he volunteered on a suicide hotline? He must have had some good qualities because he did have some long term relationships. Unfortunately, he was wired wrong and his childhood was very screwed up. But he did have some good in him.

How much bad does it take to make one into a bad person?

I keep thinking about two incidents that both happened the night that my mother’s husband died. By the time we got to the hospital his body had been taken down to the morgue. A very wonderful helpful nurse was able to get security to bring the body back up to the ICU so that my mother could say goodbye to him. My mom, my sister and I were in the room with my mother’s husband, the helpful nurse was there, and then there was another nurse. We had never seen her before, I guess she works nights. My mother was crying hysterically, and my sister and I were crying along with her. When I looked at the nurse that we had never seen before she had tears in her eyes. And guess what, I felt angry at her! I’m very ashamed of that. She’s a nurse, she is obviously in a helping profession and she obviously is an empathetic person, and I was angry at her. I remember thinking, “You don’t know us, you don’t know anything about us, how dare you be sad.” I just can’t believe the mean, angry thoughts I was having.

Also that night while we were in the waiting room, an Episcopalian priest (priest? minister? I’m sorry…) came in to talk to us. He was a lovely man and we had a nice conversation. Then he asked my mother if he could say a prayer for her, and since she is a little bit into religion, she said yes. I felt my blood pressure rising, but I didn’t let it show. He said his prayer and I felt angry again. Like this prayer is supposed to make a difference in what has happened? It doesn’t mean anything (and I don’t mean to offend anyone, this is just the way I feel and I can appreciate anyone who is comforted by their faith). Then I felt so ashamed that I was angry at this man of God who was trying to help us.

I never said anything to anyone in either of those situations, I just let the feelings pass. But I was not proud of myself. So, ok, I have some good qualities. But for some reason I can’t let myself think that I am a good person.

Another thing is, if you think you are a good person, isn’t there a lot of pressure? If you think you’re a loser good-for-nothing, and you screw up, you can say, “Well, I’m a loser, what did you expect?” But if you’re a good person and you have bad feelings or bad thoughts or you screw up, what can you say? “I guess I wasn’t as good as I thought I was”?