I have been thinking about whether or not to share the feelings I've been experiencing lately. I have sat down a number of times and tried to write but I seem to have lost my words, my ability to focus enough to write out what is going on with me. I just don't have much energy these days. I know I have not been around much lately. I'm sorry about that.

I think I have somehow sunk back into more serious depression. I don't even have anxiety or I'm not feeling anxiety. I just feel profoundly sad and lost and alone. So many difficult things have been happening lately and I think I just have not been able to fight through it as I usually try to do. And last week I got physically sick with a virus and cold that zapped me in an additional way. It didn't help that I didn't see my T for ten days during this period. I did see him on Monday but I was so out of it that I barely had energy to talk to him. I was not angry with him or with his being away. I was just sad. I tried to explain to him what was going on with me. I just want to sleep all the time. I am having difficulty getting to work on time, and getting dressed takes all my strength. I seem to only want to eat or sleep. I'm not interested in anything and am struggling to stay on top of my son's school work and activities and my bills are mess because I cannot focus.

My T thinks the overwhelming and unrelenting stress at work over a long period of time has been a big factor in this. Part of what is happening there is also triggering me for what happened with oldT. As some of you may know, I have been having problems at work with the manager. He has been abusive and bullying towards me and has decided to throw me out of my office that I've had for almost ten years and has given me so much work that it can only be described as a set up for failure. I filed a complaint with HR about his behavior and waited for weeks to hear back. I finally heard something today but only that "the issue has been addressed". When I asked how they only admonished me that it was something they cannot divulge to me and the case was now closed. The HR person was rather cold and sounded annoyed.

Then two weeks ago my best client called and told me she was pulling her accounts out and I was so shocked that I began to cry on the phone. I am so fragile emotionally lately that anything sends me to tears. I know this woman for almost 20 years and I take her out to lunch a few times a year. She has always spoken glowingly about me and praised me to the heavens, saying she didn't know what she would do without me. And then this happens. My head is spinning. She could give me no reason but to say it was complicated and hard to explain. She asked if we could still have lunch sometime and I just didn't know what to say. I could barely talk and I have been warned not to cry at my desk and so I instead dissociated and don't even remember the last of our conversation. Anything that evokes abandonment is extremely triggering.

A few days later I got a call from a man who introduced himself as a friend of another client that I have known for 15 years. He told me she died suddenly. Of course she was elderly and these things happen but she was a sweet person who was running out of money and I tried to help get her food stamps and find a less expensive place to live. I checked on her often. She was alone, only a distant cousin far away and she was so thankful to talk to me. I am not a social worker, I work in finance but feel a certain responsibility for my clients. And so I lost another person.

It just pushed me deeper into sadness which has made me isolate myself more and more. I hide from people at work in my office but soon I won't even have an office. I will have to move out and sit at a desk in the hallway, totally NO privacy at all. I feel like my skin has been ripped off and someone has poured salt over me. I am alway on guard that the manager is going to accost me about something I've done wrong. I worry that everything I do is wrong and I will be found out. I am feeling like a fraud and I should not be at work. At home I feel so disconnected from my family. I hide from them too. I try to talk to friends and they go silent. And of course, I would be lying if I said that what has happened on this Board has not impacted me too.

Even though I have not been able to post much I have tried to keep up with my moderated forums. I took the job seriously. I feel devastated that I was unable to prevent a fellow member from becoming upset and leaving here. This happened on my forum and I feel like I should have done more. I closed the thread but I feel like I should have been able to save the situation. Then the mod group fell apart. And that made me feel even more alone at a time when I am not feeling very strong. I know that everyone here has their own issues and their triggers but when I am in a place like this I feel it's all my fault. That anything that happens that is bad is somehow my fault.

And so I tried to talk to my T on Monday but nothing came out. He kept telling me I should have contacted him more often while he was away (I emailed him once and his reply only confused me and made me feel alienated from him). He told me he missed me and was truly glad to see me again and that he really cared about how I was doing while he was away. He worked hard to have me feel what he was saying. I just kept telling him I was sad and it all seemed so hopeless and dark. He asked me to talk about the pain and he wanted to know what I needed from him. He was kind and patient. But I didn't feel anything. And then.... loud pounding on his door. I jumped out of my chair and was looking for a place to hide. I don't know why except that I had a vision of his wife on the other side and that scared me.

He saw my reaction and said he had a new client coming who obviously had no idea of therapy protocol. I just burst into hysterical crying as I picked up my stuff to leave. He got up and told the guy (it was a guy) to sit and fill out some forms. Then he told me we had a few minutes more but I could not talk to him after that. He said he was really sorry the session ended so badly for me. I told him the knock triggered really bad memories and he asked if it was with oldT and I nodded. I said I could not tell him now. Maybe next time.

So I left in a rather bad way and was late back to work because I had to sit in the car awhile before I could focus enough to drive. I see him again tomorrow and I just don't know what to say to him. He reassured me that he does not feel like I'm a burden at all but I'm so depressed and need so much that I feel like it's only a matter of time before he gets tired of me and my sadness. Who wants to be around people who are sad all the time and cannot see hope.

If you got this far, thank you for reading. I think it has helped a little to get some of this down in writing. A lot of this I could not tell T on Monday. All the little abandonments adding to the feeling that I am such a horrible failure at work or at anything I try to do.

Thanks,
TN