I have to keep it short, too, since the kids/husband/housework is calling... But I want you to know that I really feel for what you're going through now. (Didn't intend to sound like Bill Clinton there.)

This especially:

quote:

. I hate that my life is an absolute mess. I have no close friends, my relationships suck with family, my kids probably have as bad a mother as I did (if not worse), my husband thinks he has the laziest wife on the face of the planet, and I feel like the most dysfunctional woman ever. I hate this black hole I feel like I'm living in.

This is pretty accurate to how I felt a year and a half ago. It WILL get better. This is temporary. Just try to keep that in mind.

Some quick advice, if you want it.
1) Get a psychiatrist to handle your meds. Soon. I used to have a GP handling my meds, and I swear she just prescribed whatever the drug rep was handing out samples of that day. (Once she prescribed Paxil while drinking out of her Paxil coffee cup, lol.) A psychiatrist can prescribe much more accurately for what you really need. Do you have anxiety (because, forgive me, but you sound damn anxious). Maybe a psychiatrist can give you something for that, too... xanax, etc...

2) CALL your T. She left the ball in your court on this one. Do it. Call her. This is your opportunity to try out asking for what you need. Just call her and tell her you're freaking out and take it from there.

Hope you get some relief soon.

quote:

Hearing you loud and clear MTF. Now would you just stop stealing my problems, obsessions, grief etc!!

Monte, I love that you can make me laugh even when I'm crying. Thanks!

Echo,

Glad to hear it will get better, because right now it feels like there's absolutely no light at the end of the tunnel and I feel hopeless. I was seeing a APRN in the outpatient psychiatry clinic at the hospital and he was doing my meds first, but what he had me on wasn't doing anything. That's why I went to my GP. I do have anxiety and I'm on Pristiq for that and the depression, plus topamax for OCD/spinning mind issues, and that's not doing anything either. Yeah, I am pretty anxious, and it has gotten worse since all of this started with my T.

I want to talk to her, but I don't want to talk to her. I feel like I'm on a see-saw. Up and down, back and forth--like that Katy Perry song. I'll think about it... Thanks.

MTF

Hi MTF,

Not at all sick of your posts - it's good to hear more about a person's situation and be able to see a kind of 'narrative'.

I'm a bit concerned that things have gotten worse for you over the last four months, and think it's worth carefully evaluating your situation. Please bear in mind that T's are getting almost NO quarter from me right now because deep down in a really passive-aggressive way I'm super mad at my own T. So please take this with however much salt you think necessary - but it IS also what I really think.

There are lots of things you've said about your T that have sounded really cool, but there are a few things that have set off warning bells for me too. One is what you say above, that she has a huge caseload and is a workaholic. What gives you the workaholic impression? Does she describe herself that way? Does she come in looking harried and rushed or like she hasn't had enough sleep? Are there ways that her caseload makes it into the room with her when she's supposed to me with you?

Those would all be signals that she's not looking after herself. Bottom line - you are trying to learn how to look after yourself from her. If you have evidence that she's not looking after herself, I'd say she's the wrong person to learn from. It sounds like you are already controlling your behaviour in order to try and take care of her. I identify with that - I do that kind of stuff too - but you shouldn't have to do it with your T. I noticed it when you had your big letter-reading thing (I think a couple of other people brought it up) - that she was SO upset, and wanted forgiveness, instead of holding still, apologizing, containing her own emotions and exploring yours with you. On the other hand you got that beautiful limbic connection - so it's a complex thing, huh?

The other thing was the "big girl panties" sign. I can see the good side of this and the bad side. If she has it in her office, I'm not sure she can see the bad side. In other words, it can be unhealthy to just suck it up and soldier on. It's what workaholics do. Maybe it's the OPPOSITE of what some clients need to do (clients who actually need to stop minimising their pain and take special care of themselves, instead of trying to be brave all the time) - so why would you want to give that message to them?

I agree with what Echo says above and encourage you to call her - and to air the net searching stuff as soon as you can. But I also want to say that it's reasonable to think about whether she's a good fit for you, and to consider at least trying out someone else. Even if you end up getting obsessed with the next T, you might need someone with different strengths to help you get through the attachment pain.

By the way, I've been wanting to mention Flylady to those of you who are really struggling with keeping the house livable while dealing with depression. I'll make another post so as not to derail this one.

Keep keeping us posted, MTF.

J

quote:

It’s not just dialogue about therapy, trauma, pain and my relationship I have with him either…it’s EVERYTHING!!! I just want to tell him everything…why I love a song…what my favourite TV show as a kid was…my hobbies…a funny incident that happened the other day….what my kids said/did. Everything.

Monte- your post cracked me up. I'm so glad I'm not the only one who does that! I actually told my P about it (but was vague about who exactly I was talking to) because it was making me so crazy lying awake at night blathering on and on about some silly little story... I can actually HEAR my own voice in my head when I do that. Autogenic relaxation training has helped a lot with that. Much better than lying awake for hours having imaginary conversations.

I also agree with Jones about Flylady. She has saved me from chaos! It's also great if you have ADD.

Hi MTF. I am NOT getting sick of reading your posts. You sound really overwhelmed. I am so glad you are asking for support - you are not alone. (((MTF)))
Therapy is hard and painful and I want to quit a lot of the time. If you keep trusting your T, you will get to the other side of this. You can do it. You are strong and you have been so brave talking to your T about all of these really difficult emotions! You must give yourself credit for that - it is a REALLY hard thing to do. 2 weeks ago when you talked to her on the phone you posted that it helped tremendously - try it again. You may not be able to go into a lot of detail (not sure how long she will talk), but just hearing her voice and talking for a few minutes can make a difference. I know for me, I feel like talking to my T by phone helps me realize that she is still remembers me and is somewhere close by. And, I know it is not easy to call, but changing behavioral patterns is not going to be easy. I know from your posts that you are really determined to get through this stuff. Your mixed up push/pull feelings make so much sense - you want her to go away and then you don't want her to leave you! It is what a lot of us with attachment issues go through. We love them AND really hate them - it's part of the deal. And it's hard. Is there any way you could see her more than every 2 weeks? (pay out of pocket, send appeal to insurance co?) Sometimes T's are willing to work out monetary issues - I know it's not fun to talk about money, but you could try. The other thing is, I would see a P for your meds. Going through all of this is hard, and when your meds are wrong, it is ridiculously hard. I also know that the 2 AD's I have tried came from my GP, and she pretty much waited for me to suggest them. She had little to no input (which I can only equate to little or no knowledge). The right meds may make this pain a little more bearable - likely will lessen the extreme reactions you are describing. If you can, try to think about one thing at a time. It is easy to get buried in it when it is all coming down at once. I wish I could do more to help ease your pain. Will be thinking of you.
(wow, almost just signed my real name )
(((MTF)))

quote:

All the craziness that goes with it? Normal given where you are coming from. For me it seems to be getting more frantic as I get older. Maybe my mini-me is panicking because the outward ‘real’ me is no longer cute enough to seriously be considered for ‘adoption’ by anyone. What will I do when I’m 60? My ‘targets’ will be in nursing homes! Hey maybe I can fool some senile old codger that I’m his kid!! That’s funny and sad at the same time.

Ah, Monte, hilarious - I missed this before, but you've made me laugh. My 'targets' are now sometimes in their 60s (I'm in my 30s) - sometimes I shake my head at myself and wonder where it's going to end.... I LOVE the dementia-as-advantage angle!!!

Monte:

quote:

Can’t I just do nice, easy medium intensity with someone for once in my life? WTF IS THIS OBSESSION ABOUT ANYWAY!!?? I have done this with many people in my life.

Me too, Monte. It sucks. I guess that's why I'm in this high intensity relationship with my T this time, because my mind is (maybe) hopeful that I can get it right and fix it. Unfortunately I don't have much confidence that I'm going to get it right this time because I don't know if my T can even help me out here.

quote:

The other day I was driving one of my kids somewhere and guess what? I was dialoguing…AUDIBLY!!! It was a whispery, quiet conversation, but it was audible. They looked at me with this screwy, incredulous look and said. “Mum who are you talking to?!’ !! I laughed it off as a joke but it freaked me a bit.

I do this at home all the time, although I usually lock myself in my bedroom or bathroom. I have been known to do it in the kitchen though, and the other day my 8 year-old was looking at me funny. Yeah, not cool when you get caught. I am sure my kids are really going to question my sanity when they get older. And I am right there with you about it not being about just therapy, trauma, pain or the relationship with you T. For me it is also EVERYTHING. I tried to tell my T last session about how you defined it for me as being this 24/7 preoccupation with her, and that I have a continuous 'internal dialogue' going on with her instead of OCD, which is how I defined it to her before (which I think it still is, in a way). She looked kind of thoughtful for a second like she didn't quite understand what I meant about having a conversation with her in my head. That made me not want to tell her about it anymore because I felt embarrassed about it, like I'm more of a head case than I already figured.

quote:

But I have a feeling I know what he would say, because he has said it all before in relation to other things. He would tell me how it’s about wanting to be validated, be special, be the centre of someone’s world the way you are supposed to be when you are a baby/toddler/child and your parents are doing the right thing. About security in your identity as a loved and special individual for no particular reason other than you are you and you are THEIRS and they are thrilled by you and are supposed to cherish you. You know…everything you do thrills them and they talk endlessly about your latest smile, goo-goo, step, tantrum, food eaten, nappy disaster, school report, drawing up on the wall. He would say it is just supposed to be that way when we are small and if we don’t experience that, that tank stays empty and nothing else matters cos it is such a foundational thing. It is such a grass roots need.

This all really got me crying. I guess that's what it is all about for me. This must be what is missing from my life, is this experience, because I can't put a finger on anything solid about my childhood. I don't really have any big traumas. I just feel a big emptiness about my childhood and my connection to my parents on an emotional level. Like I know they love me, but I never really FELT it from the way the treated me or interacted with me. And now I have this therapist who I feel some of this stuff with and I want it more and more, even though I know she can't give it to me. It hurts so much.

quote:

Maybe the madness and extremes of it all is just a reflection of the urgency, confusion, muffled communication. Going round and round in tighter circles….something has to give, to spill. And hopefully with someone that can help you stay in one piece while you spill and process it all etc. It is resolvable, but not without pain MTF. Of that much I am convinced. Maybe the worse it gets, the closer we are getting to the source, to resolution, but we must keep pushing forward.

I have backed off/quit many times...5-6 months,once for a year. The feelings disappeared eventually...but as soon as contact resumed...up they rose. They need to be acknowledged and resolved.

It's so ironic that we have to get closer to pain, feel it grow in intensity and strength, in order to move through it and get past it. I hate that part! Thank you for reminding me that running away is not the answer. I know if I did it would just be waiting for me when I came back. I guess that means I must go onward (and hopefully upward!). Thanks, Monte!


Jones:

Hmmm. Okay, here are the things that give me the impression she is a workaholic. Maybe I'm just way out there, so let me know what you think. She's 66 (retirement age, and still taking on new patients, with a ginormous waiting list). She works at a hospital outpatient psychology clinic. She starts work at 8 a.m. Doesn't have patients technically until 10 a.m., unless she needs to fit someone in at 9 as an emergency or a new patient that she will work in after their initial assessment because she has a waiting list to get into her that is months long, so she will get them started on her schedule by putting them in at one of her 9 a.m. appts. or a 6 p.m. appt. She starts patients at 10. I usually have my session with her at 10, but she's always late. Usually ten minutes, but last time 25 minutes late. She came out with the previous patient and then said, "MTF, come on back. Sorry you had to wait, I had a new patient and blah blah blah." (By the way, this new patient was hearing all of this). So she never gives herself any time between patients that I can see. She goes over with me too, because she's not going to cut my hour short because she went over with the person before me, so she sets up her whole day like this. She goes over with me even if I'm the first patient and we started on time. That day I read her my letter a couple weeks ago, she had just brought one patient out to the front desk to make her next appointment and then she tapped me on the knee and said, "I've got to use the bathroom, I'll be right back." I think she feels like she's doing a good job of taking care of her patients by giving them the time they need, but she's doing it at her own expense, and it sort of makes her look bad at the same time because she's always running late. Her own lunch hour gets cut short. She returned a message I left her about a week ago during her lunch break (she was eating while she was talking to me at first when I answered the phone, which I don't mind because she didn't continue to eat while the conversation continued ). Her last appointment is technically at 5 p.m., but then she leaves slots open at 6 p.m. again for emergencies or to fit in new people to get them into her schedule. She also does a community substance abuse addiction recovery program meeting once a week in the evening around 7 p.m., for an hour or hour and a half. She lives half an hour away from her work place, so I wonder how she has a life outside of her job. Her husband teaches at the university here (he's 68), so I have no idea what his schedule is like, but I wonder if/when they ever see each other. Fridays are a shorter work day, as they all leave the office around 3 p.m. for the weekend. It's none of my business, but like you said, she's my example here, and I just see her so 'busy'. She often looks like she got out of bed and didn't have time to really fix her hair, so she just did the best she could with it, and her eye make-up (mascara especially) is usually a bit messy, like she was in a hurry to get out the door in the morning. The one exception has been (strangely enough) the day she and I had the emotional connection moment, and her eye make-up was "perfect". Weird.

And about that limbic connection experience, she didn't actually cry. I guess I should have been a lot more specific here. She was upset with herself for harming me. She struggled really hard to contain her emotions and she didn't "cry", she teared up a lot. She has really big eyes, so they had a lot of tears in them, and I guess it affected me maybe a lot because this woman is a tough lady. One big tear escaped one eye, and she didn't even wipe it away, she just sat still trying to contain herself. She did a fantastic job, and while it was very emotionally intense, I didn't feel harmed by it in any way. It was very healing for me. She knew she had done me wrong, and felt a great deal of shame for her part in it. She wanted my forgiveness, and I don't think that was wrong. The experience as a whole feels good. It would have been better though, had she done like you mentioned and explored my emotions with me, because that is what I missed. She seems more into "procedure" than "process". She's not a real feelings kind of person, and wants to look at the whys behind things rather than the whats and the hows, if that makes any sense.

And yeah, that sign still bugs me. "Put on your big girl panties and DEAL WITH IT" just seems weird for a therapist to put out there for patients with mental health issues to have to come in and see staring them in the face. I would be the type that needs to stop minimizing my pain and take care of myself, instead of being brave all the time . And yeah, the 'suck it up and soldier on' message was the message I was feeling from the sign (and her, because it was in her office). I need to write this down, Jones, and bring it to her attention in the way you have brought it to mine. Thanks!!


Seablue:

Thanks for the encouragement to call my T. I know I really should do it. Right now I'm just dealing with my feelings about her and all the stuff I've gone through the past four months. I really need a session with her, sooner than the 19th. I'm glad that you can relate to my feelings because they are so confusing and I hate feeling like it's just me. Thank you for reaching out and encouraging me. It means a lot! And I've almost signed my real name before, too. I guess it's a good thing that I'm that comfortable with all of you people here.


MONTE:

WHAT WERE YOU THINKING???!!! Haven't we all scared you off from this? Haven't we warned you of the dangers of FB stalking? Are you really as crazy as the rest of us? I had so much hope that you were smarter than that!!!

quote:

Is it like porn for those with childhood attachment-injuries?!

Um, YEAH... and now YOU ARE AN ADDICT YOURSELF!! Crazy lady...

Oh well, at least I have another partner in crime to make me feel like I'm less of a freak. LOL.

quote:

But I'll probably look again, look for more photos. More happy families. More of what I can't share with him. It's like pressing a bruise to see if it still hurts. Yeah, it still hurts. It hurts a lot...

Just thinking out loud here mostly, so sorry if it's all over the place...to me its something about the pain, the pain is a tool...an insight? I can't access my 'original' pain. My history evokes little emotion...but being deprived of closer and permanent contact with my T is excruciating. And I pursue that pain by wishing and imagining. But I think what if these activities are my sub-conscious actually pursuing a connection to the original source of my pain in order to grieve and heal? You have an amazing way of putting this into words that make me feel what you're saying internally, and it scares me sometimes. Like we feel the same things. Kinda freaky. But I understand what you're saying here. I wonder the same thing, because I know that the pain I am feeling in connection with my T isn't really about her. I don't even know her. It's about the past and the pain that is stemming from there, not from now. My mind wants to heal the past pain through a present means, and I don't think it is even possible. That's why it is so damn painful.

And that infernal internal dialogue. Well...there aren't enough 'real time' hours to tell him everything so maybe I'm just using him as a sounding board as I sift through everything. I know his responses to most things, maybe it's a reasonable source of comfort. Is that what kids do when they cant be with their Important Person? Maybe it serves a legitimate therapeutic purpose. Maybe I just go with it rather than revile it...and it'll run its course. That's what I'm hoping, because I can't turn it off. The medication doesn't turn it off, either. It's an inescapable demon. It feels like OCD, and like you said--trying to run is futile. Maybe there is also an OCD element to it...that being the case the worst thing you can do is try and run away from it.

quote:

One last thing. A weird thing happens when I see my T...virtually every time and has been like this for years. When appt time comes I get this disconcerting sensation that he is not the person I have been bonding with in my internal dialogues, thoughts or even in emails. He 'looks' different. He is not as wonderful. I feel let down. And this is what I think. He is just the face of my fantasy person - rescuer, knight in shining armour, protector, perfect parent etc. My attachment is not to my T per se...it is to my fantasy, which is why it all seems so impossible.

*Note to Self...fantasy = unattainable, not of this world. Etc.

You've really hit the nail on the head here. I think for me this is perhaps the most painful part, too. So what is it we are really looking for? 'Who' is this 'person' we are wanting to 'save' us, rescue us from our pain, soothe us, etc.? I sometimes wonder if it's God? I know my connection to Him is not strong like it should be. I know He is the source of love, comfort, joy, peace, safety, etc. Am I looking for a human being to fill a role only God can fill? I know that with these attachment figures I make them 'God-like' and put them on a pedestal. It makes me wonder if that's where I'm confused and if that's where my struggle really lies. And round and round I go...

Thanks for your thoughts and insights, Monte. It's nice to feel 'understood' on such a deep level.

MTF

Hey MTF,

I don't have much to add to these great comments, but I just want to say that I'm reading and supporting you all the way!

I just wanted to mention that I can understand what you mean about having confusion when it comes to God. I've found that since I've been emotionally numb for so long, it's so hard for me to commit to a relationship with God when He's not physically here. I have so much trouble with normal men and women that I can't fathom the type of love that God supposedly has for me. I'm hoping (and it's a big motivator for me, too) that through therapy, once I can be more in touch with myself, I can be more in touch with God, too.