Tag Archives: wellbutrin

Dec 29 2010

Tossing and Turning

2:30am. Wake up. Look at clock. Damn, I don’t usually get up this early. Next thought – therapy today sucked. Why would that be the first thought in my head? Think about it for a while. Look at clock. 2:45am. I feel nauseous. How many glasses of wine did I drink tonight? Uh-oh, three. One more than my allotted amount. But it was in a five hour period. Did I eat? I went to a friend’s house to watch the hockey game, he didn’t have any food. I asked for string cheese, he didn’t have any. He found a block of cheese and I saw some little tortillas in his fridge, so I cut up the cheese and stuck it on the tortillas and melted it in the microwave. It was good. I ate. Look at clock. 3:15am. Is that a headache I feel coming on? Behind my left eye. Therapy sucked today. Why didn’t I talk about what I want to talk about? Is it my t? Do I need a new t? I feel nauseous. Should I get up and try to read? I don’t want to open my eyes. I am comfortable. Can I take more Nyquil? I took 30ml at 10:00. But that would mean getting up to go get it. I don’t want to get up. Look at clock. 3:30am.

5:00am. Wake up. I must have gone back to sleep. I am hot. The dog is sleeping right next to me, stretched out along my legs. Why can’t she sleep at the foot of the bed? Take off covers. I’m cold. Put covers back on. Look at clock. 5:15am. Therapy is so awful, what am I going to do? How am I going to bring this up next week? Oh no, I just remembered I was supposed to call my boss yesterday afternoon to help her with Microsoft Word. I forgot.

6:30am. Wake up. I must have gone back to sleep. Boss is away, so I wasn’t planning on going to work until 10:00. Try to go back to sleep. Therapy sucked. I hate myself. I’ll never get better if I don’t deal with these issues. Do I have a headache? Not sure. It’s dark out. When is my next pdoc appointment? I didn’t write it down. I have to call her today and check.

What a night. I know a lot of this is the wellbutrin causing insomnia as well as racing thoughts. Why do my racing thoughts have to be about therapy?

Maybe I’ll try the Eckhart Tolle method and not think about it. Yesterday is over, I processed it, I learned my lesson. There is nothing more I can do with it. And there is no point thinking about next Tuesday, unless to plan how I will bring up my topics, or make them into more concrete terms so that J will understand them. But I don’t have to do that now. I’m going to try not to think about yesterday or next Tuesday. Have you ever told someone not to think about a zebra? What do they think about? A zebra.

And another thing about not thinking about something – it doesn’t make it go away. It’s still there. Maybe it will come out in other ways, self destructive ways, physical ailments, etc. My stomach hurts. Can I tell my stomach to stop thinking about it?

But really, this is something I don’t need to dwell on. I have a week, I don’t want to spend a week of my life ruminating about this. I am not going to think about it. I might write about it, as a way to get it all out, but once the writing for the day is done, I am not going to think about it.

Feb 8 2010

In The Spiral Again

On Friday, before the snow started, I sent J an email with my homework assignment. I was supposed to figure out what a parent’s responsibility is for their adult child. Basically what I said in the email was that I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to write about parents in general, or me specifically. If it was about me specifically, then I feel a lot of responsibility towards my son because of the things I didn’t do properly during his childhood. I gave him a link to a post on my blog where I wrote about my son and the difficulties he had academically, and what I tried to do for him, and how I ended up messing things up pretty badly. I also told him that he was welcome to read other posts on my blog about my son, but he didn’t have to if he didn’t want to.

Then I told him that thinking about this has brought up old bad feelings that I don’t want to deal with. I would rather focus on the problem. And don’t I have responsibilities for my daughter, my family, and myself? I told him that I just wanted to solve the problem without it being about me.

And I told him my son’s name.

And then I mentioned the insurance company difficulties, and how I am concerned that I had to lie to the insurance customer service woman, and now I am concerned that they will find out that I lied because of whatever paperwork J has to send in to them with my claims. And that was about it.

I wasn’t really expecting a reply, since I didn’t ask him anything, and this was just an assignment that he asked me to email to him, and the last time I emailed him he didn’t reply. I’m glad he didn’t send me back an email because I had enough to deal with over the weekend with the weather situation.

But this morning I did get an email from him saying that I bring up some good points and that this assignment was a prelude to coming up with a plan for my son. He said he would be happy to develop a plan but whatever he suggests would be just that – a suggestion, but he wanted to conceptualize my role first.

I felt really stupid once again when I read the email, and I was even more happy that he didn’t send it to me last week, because I would have been thinking about it all weekend and thinking about how I suck at therapy and here I am messing things up again. Of course he had a plan, why would I think he didn’t have a plan? And here I am saying I don’t want this to be about me, I just want suggestions for dealing with the problem and I don’t want to think about my feelings and all he was asking was for me to conceptualize my role in order to be able to make a plan.

And then he addressed the insurance issue – he said that he can handle it with minimal disclosure and he can show me what he submits to them. I don’t understand this at all, I really asked him if I could just pay him, and not deal with the insurance company at all. Why would he be opposed to that – maybe he thinks I don’t have the money to pay him and he’s afraid my check will bounce or something.

He didn’t say whether he read the blog post that I sent him the link for.

This morning I was talking to my husband about how I am “sharing” my friend’s personal trainer. We signed up for 12 sessions – which is 6 weeks – and he asked how much it was costing. I told him it was $55 per session, but it is a onetime thing, I’m only doing the 12 sessions and that is it. He said, “$100 a week???” OK, I guess that is a lot of money, but he has a gym membership that is $100 a month. Yes, that is $300 a month cheaper, but he has been going for a couple of years and I only want to do this for 12 sessions. After that I can do the workout on my own, or with my friend.

This afternoon, right after I got the email from J, my husband finally got around to asking how my workout went this morning, which I was surprised about since he never asks me how anything goes in my life. I told him that I had to pay the trainer the full amount in advance, so could he put $600 in my account. He got really pissed off and scowled and finally mumbled, “Fine.” Then I felt like a real piece of shit. Here I am using my family’s money to work out with a personal trainer 12 times, a real luxury, and how dare I do that? He plays golf all summer, which is expensive, and belongs to a gym, and my daughter has her own horse that we pay for board and lessons and horse shows, etc etc. And I want to spend $600 on a trainer and he gets pissed off. Just thinking about it is making me upset. I hate having to ask him for money.

I really want a new job. I’ve been answering job ads on Craig’s List, but no one ever gets back to me. I guess I have no marketable skills that anyone wants, and I have no way to make any money. The people that I normally work for haven’t been calling me because their workloads have dwindled lately, and they don’t want to spend the money on me. Or maybe they just don’t like me, who knows.

I just really feel like a worthless piece of garbage right now. And I have gained 5 pounds recently. It seems every day when I step on the scale there is another pound. I’m not sure if it is due to stopping the wellbutrin, or maybe I’m drinking more. I do keep track of all of my calories, but maybe I’ve been cheating too much. I really need to get my act together. I even bought some diet pills, but they don’t seem to do a thing. I certainly don’t feel any different or eat any less when I’m taking them. That was a waste.

This evening I got an email from the trainer asking, “How was today?” That was all he asked, and I started to read all kinds of things into it: He doesn’t want to work with me, he thinks I’m lazy, I complain too much, I’m not strong enough, I’m too fat, I’m too weak. I emailed him back asking, “I thought it was fine. Did you think it was ok? Did I complain too much?” He replied that I did fine and he wanted to be sure he was addressing my needs. Now I’m wondering what he really means, when maybe what he really means is what he really said. My mind is just totally spiraling out of control at this point.

Tomorrow is therapy and I get to go in there and feel like an idiot again. Isn’t therapy supposed to make me feel better about myself? When does that start happening?

Jan 15 2010

Lack of Confidence

I noticed in my bucket list update yesterday that for the items I completed I considered them “complete”, but for the items I did not complete I considered them “failures”. Poor choice of words, but typical of me. So I need to change “complete” to “success” or change “failure” to “incomplete”. And maybe I’ll change #1 to unsure, thanks to your comments.

I went to see my new client yesterday. I met with her and her husband, and they are both very nice, and intelligent, and just overwhelmed with stuff they don’t have time or energy to do. I felt badly for her, as she had told me she is suffering from depression. She is actually a lawyer, but hasn’t been able to work for a long time due to her mental health issues. Her emotions were really close to the surface, and she started to cry a few times as we talked. Her husband runs, so we talked about that too. She asked me if she could put my info out on an email list that she is on for moms in her neighborhood (it’s a big neighborhood – they live in the city), and I said sure.

Within a couple of hours I got an email from a financial planner/accountant saying that he saw her post. He was wondering if he could meet with me to talk about referring clients to me so that I can work in conjunction with him in helping them get organized prior to them meeting with him, because he just handles the financial planning aspect, and people frequently can’t get their information together and therefore can’t take advantage of his services, or he can’t help them because they don’t have the correct information.

I haven’t responded to him yet. This guy is a real professional, with a real business. His email has the official IRS disclosure and confidentiality stuff that people in his profession use, he has a whole bunch of letters after his name, and he seems to think that I am some kind of professional as well – that I might actually know what I am doing. I hate when this happens. I hate not having confidence. I’m avoiding answering him, because I don’t know what to say. My choices are:

Tell him I don’t have time in my schedule to meet with new people, although he’ll know that is not true because he saw the post on the email list

Avoid answering at all

Meet with him and fake the fact that maybe I have no idea what I’m doing, which actually is what I usually end up doing, but it causes a lot of anxiety

I also got another email from someone asking about my services. This one I know I can handle, it’s a woman whose paperwork is in disarray, and she has a small business. I checked out her website, she is belly dancer, but her business is as a Certified Wellness and Sensual Lifestyle Coach. I’ve never heard of that before, but it sounds pretty interesting. I’ll definitely get back to her, dealing with papers in bags and boxes is the kind of stuff I can do.

About the wellbutrin. I really don’t think it’s doing anything, except causing the head buzzing and sleep problems. I woke up the other night at 1am because my head was buzzing so loudly, and I couldn’t get back to sleep. I had the goal of continuing the meds until the end of January, then I’ll re-evaluate. I really wish it was doing something for me, but judging by my emotions lately I don’t think it is.

Jan 13 2010

I Think I Figured It Out

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

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

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

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

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

Maybe in therapy 5 positives = 1 negative also.

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

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

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

I also wrote in the email about:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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,

Dec 24 2009

Pdoc Update

Pdoc called me back at 7:00PM last night. He asked me what’s been going on and I explained everything to him. He said it sounds like my anxiety is getting out of control, and he doesn’t think the wellbutrin is contributing to my problems. We talked about klonopin and he called in an rx for me. Picked it up this morning on our way to our little vacation at the beach. I took one about 11AM and feel asleep in the car soon thereafter. Then I felt pretty good today, even though there are a lot of people here at the beach and lots going on. I just have to remember to breathe, and get away to my room when things get overloaded. It will be fine though.

Yesterday I read a little bit of my blog from last year. I’ve been writing this blog for about a year now, prior to that I handwrote in a journal. What’s disturbing is that last December I was talking about stuff in therapy that is exactly the same as what I’m talking about now. How discouraging! Have I made no progress? I read December through February’s posts, and I do think that I have made some progress in some areas, but seem to sliding backwards in others. I am working hard on overcoming the perfectionism, being less critical of myself, and trying to focus on my strengths and talents. It’s not always working, but a lot of times it is.

But the anxiety and the intrusive thoughts don’t seem to be diminished at all compared to what I was talking about to J last year at this time. I also find that last year I was spending a lot of time with friends, going out to lunch and dinner and having people over. I have been isolating myself for quite some time now, and I have basically one friend left that I talk to and see on a regular basis. So that is a step backward.

So I’ve made forward progress in one area, no progress in another area, and reverse progress in a third area. That is discouraging.

Dec 22 2009

Therapy Recap 12/22/09

First let me say that I hate therapy. I had to get that out of the way.

We start the session same as always, How are you? Fine. How are you? Good. Good. What are we talking about? I looked around the room, like I usually do. I asked J if he ever thought about having some toys in the office. He said, “For you?” I said, “Not just for me. Don’t your other clients want toys?” He said there were some blocks in the other room for when the therapists see children. I didn’t think blocks would be what I needed, unless I could sit on the floor with them. I said, “Do you have a slinky? Or some play-dough?” He got up and went into the other room and came back with a squishy ball that was black and white like a soccer ball. I took it. I got to squish it the whole time.

I told J that I didn’t know what was wrong with me lately, that I think I have a brain tumor. He said he thought he had a brain tumor a couple of days ago because he was mixing words up. But then he decided he was just tired. He asked me why I thought I had a brain tumor. So I gave him some examples of what’s been going on.

First I told him that I hated having his book that he lent to me. I was afraid something would happen to it. It was too hard for me to come right out and say, “I was afraid I would purposely ruin it.” And since he is not a mind reader he didn’t get that. He said, “So, something could spill on it, or it could get ripped. What’s the big deal? That sounds like anxiety to me.”

Then I gave him the example of having the urge to steal things at the Container Store. We talked about the details of that a while. And I gave him the example of shopping in the grocery store with the portable scanner and how I accidentally put something in my bag without scanning it, and then I became somewhat obsessive about checking every item 2 or 3 times to be sure I scanned it, and now I don’t use the portable scanner anymore.

He told me that everyone has thoughts like this. I just hang on to them. He tried to find out what I thought would happen if I actually did put something in my pocket at the Container Store and tried to walk out with it, that the management would stop me and ask me to pay for it. I wouldn’t get arrested, the worst that would happen would be I wouldn’t allowed to shop there anymore. And he asked me what would be the benefit of stealing things and hiding them in my house. I couldn’t figure out the benefit of that, but he came up with a couple of lame benefits. I still don’t see the benefit of hiding things one would steal, I mean if I was going to steal things, which I’m still not certain that I’m not doing, I would want to use them. Isn’t that the purpose of stealing them?

And about his book – he said if I did ruin his book he would weigh that against the fact that I am a good client, my check is always the first one he gets when he sends out the bills, I’m never late, I never miss an appointment unless someone has died, my checks never bounce, etc. So what if I ruin his book?

I was getting the impression that he just wasn’t getting this. So I came right out and asked, “Why would I want to destroy your book?” He said, “Accidents happen.” I said, “It wouldn’t be an accident, I wanted to ruin your book.” He said that maybe it is because I have issues with him. I told him that I don’t have any issues with him. He said that perhaps in my subconscious I do. He knows that therapy is difficult for me. Perhaps I was angry because he loaned me the book and now I had homework, and it’s not a very interesting book and maybe I am mad. Maybe I think that therapy is supposed to be a collaborative effort and here he is giving me something to do on my own and maybe that is making me mad. Now, I have not felt any of those things. Maybe I do in my subconscious, I don’t know.

Then he brought up the matter that I disclosed to him at the last minute last week, this was also about bad thoughts that I had. But this was 15 to 20 years ago. He said he bets that if he asked 100 people, 85 of them would say they had those thoughts at one moment or another, and the other 15 probably had them but wouldn’t admit it. That’s very nice, but I didn’t have those thoughts at one moment or another, I had them all the time. For years.

I have to interject here. J talks a lot. A LOT. It’s because I don’t say much, because it is very difficult for me to talk in therapy. Which is ridiculous because that is the idea of therapy. I used to email him, but I don’t feel very comfortable with that anymore since the email debacle in August. So today we talked about toys for 5 minutes, I talked for about 10 minutes about the examples, and then he talked for the remaining 30 minutes. I know it is not his job to make me talk, but I wish he had some techniques to get me to talk more. But that isn’t his job, it’s my responsibility to say what I have to say.

Sometimes I find that he is talking and talking and he gets to something that I want to respond to, but it takes me a few minutes to formulate my response and by then he has moved onto something else.

An example of this is when J made the comment about 85 people having bad thoughts from time to time. I wanted to say, “I didn’t have them from time to time, I had them ALL the time.” I heard the words in my head and they were on their way to my mouth, but there is some sort of time delay and the words didn’t come out right away and then J had moved on to his next thought. Sigh.

Then J said that as I know he works with many substance abusers. Sometimes when they are in recovery they have dreams about using, and then they are worried that having a dream is just as bad as actually using. And he assures them that a dream is just a dream as long as it doesn’t lead to action. At this point I wanted to ask him if it is normal to have dreams and nightmares when I’m awake, because that is what happens to me. This happened last night, I had a waking nightmare that involved a car crash, and blood all over a highway and snow, and it was a highway that I had driven on yesterday and there was snow. But the words didn’t quite make it out again.

So J summarized the whole thing by saying that everyone has these thoughts, but everyone else just moves on from them and I hold on to them and use them to prove to myself that I am a bad person. Well, so I guess that’s it. He said he would like to continue this conversation and talk more about drives and impulses. As I was leaving he said that no one can control their thoughts.

The feeling I get from this, today anyway because my feelings change during the week as I process things, is that I am the same as everyone else. Everyone else has bad thoughts, and I just happen to be a person who makes a big deal out of them. I shouldn’t be wasting my time dwelling on these thoughts. It’s just anxiety, or my unconscious. And I’m wondering if he brought up the substance abusers as if to say to me, “hey, there are people out there with real problems, why are you wasting my time with imaginary thoughts?” I know he would never mean to do that to me, but if my subconscious could be angry with him for giving me a book to read, then couldn’t his subconscious be angry with me for wasting his time with trivial problems? If all of our subconsciouses are directing our behavior how do we know what is true and what isn’t?

I am left feeling stupid. I’ve been wasting my time being terrified of these bad thoughts for most of my life. J seems to be saying, “Everyone has them, why can’t I just be like all of the other people out there and forget about them?”

All of the things he said that were intended to make me feel better did not make me feel better. I’m trying to think of what he could have said or done that would have made me feel better. I don’t know if he is minimizing my problems (due to me not completely explaining them or because he truly feels they aren’t serious) or if I make too much out of things. I know I am over sensitive, and when violent thoughts blast through my mind they freak me out. I can’t help it, and maybe I just need to get over it. I am very confused right now. And my head is buzzing from the wellbutrin, and I don’t know what to think, and I’m completely emotional because I feel like I can’t get the help I need because I can’t even talk in therapy.

I called the pdoc at 4:31PM, but they close at 4:30, so I missed them. I’ll call again in the morning, I think I need some klonopin or something. I don’t want to have any more panic attacks, I don’t want to have thoughts about highways and car accidents and blood and garbage disposals and stealing and destroying people’s property. I don’t care if everyone else in the world has these thoughts, I don’t want to have them anymore. I have a stash of klonopin, but I don’t want to dip into it. I’ll get in touch with pdoc tomorrow and hopefully he’ll call me in a new rx.

Dec 15 2009

Therapy Recap 12/15/09

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nov 28 2009

Darn Meds

Yesterday I increased my wellbutrin to 300mg which is the therapeutic dose. I was on wellbutrin for a few years, up until last December when I went off of it. While I was taking Wellbutrin I had serious insomnia, and my head was always buzzing. Guess what – it’s no different now. I think I got about 3 hours of sleep last night. I couldn’t fall asleep and I kept waking up, even though I took some benadryl, which usually does the trick. And my head is buzzing so badly I think I might go crazy. Is it possible that the side effects could get worse when you resume a medication? I’m going to give this two weeks and then re-evaluate.

I wanted to write about an experience I had last week when I asked a friend for help, but my head is buzzing too badly to think. But you would all be proud of me – I did ask a friend for help. As it turned out, I didn’t need her help after all, but I did ask. And she was happy to help!

Nov 3 2009

Therapy Recap 11/3/09

I feel pretty good about my session today. I’m actually functioning and not a crying, devastated mess. First thing I asked J if we could talk about little things occasionally, instead of big things all the time. He said, of course, that it’s actually important. He asked me why I felt that way and I told him how difficult it is for me when I leave after talking about big things. That I walk out the door and he just goes on with his day, while I’m a mess and what am I supposed to do with all of that? I told him that I started the Wellbutrin again, and took a little klonopin last week too.

I asked him if he remembered during the last session he mentioned that if he had a flat tire he would call a friend to help him. He didn’t really remember that, which is understandable, he said it totally in passing, but of course it’s something that made an impact on me and I remembered it. Before I even mentioned why I was bringing this up he tried to explain that he would call a friend to help in certain situations, I think he was nervous that I was accusing him of something. But it was just a lead in to my situation, where I had to pick up my daughter’s car from the body shop and in order to do that I would have had to call a friend to take me. This caused me a lot of anxiety and I wanted to talk about that.

So we talked about that for a while, and J said it’s actually also difficult for him to ask for help. I’m not sure how I feel about this after he so clearly told me last week that if he had a flat tire he would call a friend to pick him up. But I appreciate his honesty in telling me how he really feels about it.

We also had a discussion about how I aspire to be like him. After all, I really don’t know much about him. He doesn’t tell me the bad things about himself, so to me he is perfect and someone to idolize. He seemed surprised that I felt this way, which surprises me. I think this might be a common thought for clients of therapists – that their therapist is up on a pedestal. I know that no one is perfect, of course, and I’m sure he has issues just like anyone else. I just don’t know about them.

A couple of times J started venturing into “big things” and I stopped him. I said, “You’re talking about big things again.” He respected that and I was appreciative. Especially when there was five minutes left in the session and he tried to veer the conversation into another big thing and I said, “no, especially since we only have 5 minutes left.”

Towards the end he again asked me if I ever meditate and he talked about being in the moment. I said that I don’t believe that someone can truly be in the moment without the experiences of the trillion moments that came before influencing how they feel in that moment. He disagreed and said that one can truly be in the moment. Not all the time, of course, but at times. He said, “Look at this moment, right now, you have nothing to feel guilty about right now in this very moment.” I replied, “Actually I do. I feel guilty for keeping you four minutes over our scheduled time.” He said, “Well I am choosing to stay over.” And I said, “If I wasn’t here you wouldn’t have to make that choice.” He said, “Well you are here.” I told him that I was starting to feel really anxious that the session was running overtime. He said, “OK, go.” I said, “Leave?” He said, “Will it make you feel better?” I said, “Yes.” He said, “OK, no problem. I’ll see you next week.”

I was kind of proud that I told him what I needed throughout the session, without worrying TOO much about what he would think. It did cross my mind plenty of times that he would think talking about little things would be trivial, or I was being too demanding, etc, but I didn’t let that stop me from saying when something bothered me.

One thing I wasn’t crazy about was his assertion that I can choose not to feel guilty. I told him that was Oprah-ish. If it’s that easy to choose to feel a certain way then we wouldn’t need shrinks, right? I’m not so sure it’s a choice.