Some have noticed I've been MIA for a while now and so I thought I would give an update on where I've been/what's been going on for me, for those that are interested.
Six weeks ago I got a challenge from my T to start journaling my obsessive thoughts when I started spinning on stuff (which has mostly always been about her) and to stop all impulsive/compulsive behaviors that were the results of those thoughts. Well, any of you who know how much I've struggled with my OC issues about my T would also know that this challenge would seem practically impossible for me, and that is exactly how it felt. I had three weeks from that session until the next session and I knew that I had to write out all my thoughts, stop my behaviors and write about what I did instead (which was supposed to be writing in the journal instead of doing the behavior), and then I was going to have to go in and read all this journaling to my T (or so I thought)
.Week one was hell. I wrote a lot of stuff in that journal about my T, censored a bit of course, that I felt I needed to get out of my head and onto paper. I just wrote and wrote every night. As for the behaviors, I have several old voice messages she's left on my cell phone that I would listen to when I felt disconnected and missed her. I quit that cold turkey. I have photos of her on my hard drive that I would look at for the same reasons as above. I quit that too. But then I was left with one last thing. Sitting outside the hospital in my car in the dark watching her through the (sometimes) open blind while she was in session with a patient. Now, she's on the second floor, so this didn't really work, but just being 'near' her helped, so I thought. Well, one night she turned off the lights and left and I figured I would just wait to see if she'd come out the door so I could FINALLY find out what car she drives. That's one of the few facts I've wanted to know but don't. Well, sure enough she came out and walked right to the car in front of me in the next aisle over. I felt like a deer that's just had the headlights of a car shined their way and without even thinking I just turned on my car and took off. I had a hat on and she didn't see me, but that was too close a call. So that behavior went, too!
The last one to go was this place. I quit posting after I posted about that session and just lurked for a while, but haven't been on for the past three weeks. At that next session I told my T I was doing better with my spinning. And to be totally honest, those 3 weeks were agonizing. But week by week things got easier. I felt lonely and depressed without the behaviors to comfort me and help me feel connected, but not having those things to keep my T in the forefront of my mind helped take the focus off her and I was able through my journaling to start to separate logic from emotion. I began to see how much of my life was being handed to my T willingly (and without her knowing (well, she knew) and without her wanting it!!) and how much of my 'real' life I have been wasting over in some fantasy land where I thought I needed my T to love me to help me be whole, that I needed to have some permanent connection to her when I end therapy or I won't be able to make it. Stuff like that. I started to see things a lot more clearly and I didn't feel so stuck in my head over my T all the time. That was the beginning of a bit of freedom. We talked about how the behaviors had kept the focus on her (and NO I didn't tell her what the behaviors have been--too embarrassed), how coming here keeps the focus on therapy and my relationship with her, and how hearing about everyone else's relationships with their Ts and the different approaches to therapy can cause all sorts of confusion and angst within myself. Anyway, she helped me see that my life, if looked at as a pie, has had 7/8 or so swallowed or eaten up by my obsession and focus on her and therapy, and that little one eighth that is left is where I have crammed everything else: family, God, self, etc. She told me it should be the other way around. I had started to see that during those 3 weeks of journaling and avoiding OC behaviors.
I saw a psychiatrist a couple weeks ago for medication because I seem to be a very resistant person to medication. Go figure. I talked to him about my relationship with my T and how she reacted to me in the beginning and especially when I told her I had an attachment to her. I told him that I felt like I had made her uncomfortable, that she acted withdrawn, and avoided my attachment issues for a long time until I kept pushing for so long that she finally gave up. He told me he could tell me something but that I wouldn't like it. I asked him to tell me anyway. He said that my T's attachment issues are 100% hers, and that mine are 100% mine. I didn't make her uncomfortable, withdraw, avoid my issues--nothing. It was her own attachment issues that caused those things. Nothing I did or do can make her feel anything she doesn't choose to feel on her own. It's about her, not me. That was nice to hear. And it's true, and I know it's true, but I just couldn't feel it or see it from that perspective. I've gone through life thinking that I have the ability to 'make' people feel things by my actions or lack of action, etc. Hmmm. That was food for thought.
He also recommended to me a book I just finished called "Loving What Is" by Byron Katie. He said if I wanted a good dose of reality that I should read it. Well, since I've been living in fantasy land for long enough, I picked it up at Barnes and Noble and WOW!!! What a read!! I highly recommend it to any and all of you. It has helped me to understand that my pain and suffering ALL originate from my thoughts. She uses a process called The Work that consists of 4 questions that you ask yourself about a painful thought and then you turn it around and see the truth about how your thinking has been the true cause of your pain. I have yet to actually start doing The Work, as I think I'm scared of seeing the truth, but I'm in so much pain every day that I really see no other choice. Just reading the book has helped me see how most of my unhappiness in my marriage has been because I think my H "should" do this, and "shouldn't" do that, but reality is that he DOES or DOESN'T do those things and I just have to accept reality, not the fantasy that I have in my head. It applies to everything in life. The book is full of dialogues Katie has with lots of people about the thoughts they have that are troubling them and it is amazing to see how those thoughts are really the source of the pain and how once those people turn their thoughts around they see the truth of the situation they think is so bad. Now I'm getting the urge to go find my journal and start inquiring about my thoughts.
I keep thinking it sure would be wonderful to love what is instead of wishing reality could be something that it never will be.Anyway, I don't know how much I'll be around this place. I miss you all a lot, but it's been a freer place inside my head since I've been away from all of the things that keep my focus on therapy and my T. I hope that makes sense. I miss the support and being able to be supportive and I am sure I've missed a lot the past 6 weeks. I hope no one thinks I have just abandoned you all or that I don't care. I do. I just have had to do what I needed to do to help myself find some freedom and a bit of peace from the hell in my head.
Thanks to those of you who have asked/wondered about me. It's nice to know I'm thought of when I'm not around.
Hugs to you all!!MTF
