Skip to main content

The PsychCafe
Share, connect, and learn.
19 replies

Feel like I'm not even here...

yakusokuyakusokuMember
Had an OK session. Didn't feel disconnected with T or super-connected either. He did everything right. T saw I was cold and offered to turn the heater on, which I tried to reject and we talked through why I was rejecting something that would make me feel more comfortable and I ended up accepting it. He asked about one text I had sent and had me explain what I meant by something. T started off by asking about how stuff at home was and then wanted to get into places and people who felt safe, historically. He also asked me to try to recall any moments where I felt things were going better (which I know there have been at least a few of since started therapy, but none really came to mind). I think he's just trying to get me to connect to experiences/feelings I can ground with before I move forward with processing trauma.

I decided to sit on the floor half way through the session and he immediately decided to follow suit (even though I told him he didn't have to). He still went to the way other side of the room, not that I expected him to stay right by me, but was hoping he would stay a little closer, since I told him how much it distressed me last time. I would have rather he just stayed in his chair. Frowner I feel like he's running away from me. I feel so disgusting like being less than six feet from me is an imposition.

T asked me if I could just start talking about memories from my childhood, as far back as I could go. I talked about a few from before we moved at three-years-old. As soon as I started talking about memories in my childhood apartment (3-10 years), Ken's (mom's abusive boyfriend from when I was 5) face came into my head again and I felt like he was right there, inches away. We talked about that, how it was making me feel (nauseous) and T vocalized my distress. He asked if it was maybe a memory and I said I had no idea.

We talked more about Ken, about that time period (utterly chaotic...well, T says my whole childhood sounds consistently chaotic/traumatic and reiterated my probable dissociation, which is common for kids in those circumstances). We talked about the town I grew up in (because he lived there, went to my high school too) and I think he was trying to ground me by talking about the city, rather than that time period that was freaking me out. He prayed when I was really distressed, which was nice.

When it was time to go, I asked if I could sit in the lobby a while, even though it was late, and he let me. I was having serious SI urges and I felt safer praying/waiting in the lobby where being noticed might keep me from doing anything. I started to worry I was keeping him from leaving, so once I was pretty sure I wouldn't hurt myself I left and sat in my car and texted him why I had wanted to stay and thanked him for letting me.

Now, I just feel numb. I don't really feel like I'm inside myself. I feel like I could sleep for years and years. I wish I could run away from everyone and be all alone. I think more stuff is coming up and I just can't deal, so I'm shoving it away, shoving me away. I'm tired and I don't want to do this anymore. I didn't ask to schedule a call for Friday and T didn't offer. I really can't afford it. I can't bear to ask for it for free. I have to work on Friday during the time he usually calls anyway. I just want to lay in someone's arms...can't be my H, it needs to be someone completely non-sexual. Can't be my family, because they make me feel UNsafe and remind me of the things I want to forget right now. Yes, God can do it, but I want the physical grounding too. I just don't want to be left alone like this. How can he put me back into this childhood state and then leave me alone in it just like I was then? Sorry for being such a whiner!
Original Post

Replies sorted oldest to newest

blackbirdblackbirdMember
You aren't a whiner- you are hurting. Big difference. Yaku- I know it is so hard. Be patient with yourself. It's ok to feel the way you do. You don't have to be so together...it's really hard work you are doing. It's really painful. It sounds like a really hard session. My T has never asked me about my childhood...I always wished he would because I never felt ready to talk about it. It's hard work to go back there. I think you should try, find a way to rest. For as long as you need to. Just go and sleep and rest, say you aren't feeling well- is that a possibility? it's the truth.
Just cuddle under some blankets and sleep or rest for as long as you can get away with it for. That's my advice. No idea if that's helpful, but just wanted to give you permission, in case you needed it.

Keep safe- sending a prayer your way-

BB
kashleykashleyMember
((((Yaku))))

You aren't a whiner at all. It's good that you sat in the lobby and very healthy that you knew what would probably keep you from hurting yourself. Can you wrap yourself in a blanket? When I'm feeling vulnerable and feel like I need something/someone to protect me, wrapping myself tightly in a blanket helps. I do this in session sometimes, too, and it helps then as well. You can even try imagining the arms of someone you'd like to hold you - that might help if you can't think of someone who you want to actually hold you. Try that with a blanket, and it will help you to imagine it more.

Hugs to you - I hope you can find a safe place.
yakusokuyakusokuMember
My problem is my bed isn't safe, because of my H's condition, but I have nowhere else to go, because my sister is staying here and it would hurt H deeply. I could barely sleep last night. Insomnia was bad. When I feel asleep, I had SEVERAL dreams of being attacked, followed by SEVERAL dreams of T rejecting or abandoning me in some way. Everytime I woke up, even though I was exhausted, I would just lay awake, scared to dream more. H was trying to hold me and I had to physically push him away, because I was so scared he would have one of his episodes. This guy, Ken, is still in my head and why TF won't he go away? If you had asked me a month or two ago, I could barely have remembered what he was like, but now I can see his face clearly and hear his voice, his panting phone calls he used to harass us with. I feel gross all over, threatened. I texted T and asked if he had any phone session availability at different times and let him know I wasn't sure if/when I could pay...so the ball is in his court. We have dinner plans with our pastor and his family Thursday evening, so at least I have something else to look forward to, someone else who makes me feel safe that I will see soon.
yakusokuyakusokuMember
Oh, forgot to say, I brought in some stuff to share with T and then chickened out. He didn't know (or noticed and didn't say). I found the letters my high school English teacher wrote to me. He's basically the reason I stayed alive through high school (we still correspond). And then, I found a birthday card from my paternal grandmother. She was my healthiest attachment figure in childhood. I spent every weekend with her when I was little and my mom was jealous of her connection with me. She died from breast cancer when I was 16 (the same year stuff with N happened). She was a Jehovah's Witness, so she never sent real birthday cards. She would send a "thinking of you" or "love you" cards a few days early to get around it. And she would always just sign them "me." So, I found the only card I saved from her...the last one she gave me...when I turned 16...when she knew this was the last birthday she would see in my life...when I knew it and I was too scared to spend the time with her I should, because losing her felt like me dying too. It just says, "16, huh? -me" I was going to share these things with him, but before session when I started thinking about my grandma writing me this last card, I started crying, so I chickened out. He even gave me the perfect opportunity when he asked about safe people and places we could establish...and I failed to have the courage to face her dying AGAIN! I could have visited her right before she died (she had moved to another state to live with my aunt). Her mind was gone, because the cancer had spread, but I could have said goodbye and I told my dad I needed to wait and finish my finals and she died before I got the chance to go. Frowner Ugh, hate myself. Hate my sophomore year. Do NOT want to think about that time period anymore.
ladygreyladygreyMember
Yaku,

I think you should take the letters from your teacher and the card from g'ma in next time and share them. I'm sure he would appreciate that you brought something positive in to share with him.

I sometimes bring things to therapy with T2. I have a bag I call my "Show and Tell" bag so when I bring it, she knows I've got something to share with her.

I was nervous the first time I brought something. It was a bday card my ex had given me while we were together. He'd written some very beautiful things in the card. I almost had a panic attack- No, I DID have a panic attack when I first pulled it out of my bag to read to T, but I got through it. She started crying as I read it. In the end, it brought me and T2 closer together.

Another time I brought in pictures of me and my ex. It was very productive to have done that. Not only did it help me be able to talk more about him, but it gave her a visual picture of the relationship. I had told her that when he and I split up, he told me he never really loved me. When she saw the pictures and the way he was looking at me in them, she said, "He lied to you. I can see in this picture, this picture, and in this one that he was very much in love with you".

It was healing.

So I STRONGLY urge you to bring in those letters from you english teacher as well as the card from your grandma. I think you will be amazed at the closeness it brings with you and T. The emotions that come out with those things right in front of you....they can catch you off guard because of their intensity but it is so healing.
yakusokuyakusokuMember
I've shared photos with him before. The letters are quite long (three of two pages each, plus a letter from Sharon Olds--a poet my teacher sent my poetry to without asking me). Maybe I will just make copies and give them to him to read if he likes. The card, I can share it, but I don't think I can talk about it yet. It's just too much to remember that I was so scared, too scared to be there for my grandma, when she was dying. She was the type of person who worried about EVERYTHING. She must have been so scared. Frowner
ladygreyladygreyMember
quote:
Originally posted by yakusoku:
I've shared photos with him before. The letters are quite long (three of two pages each, plus a letter from Sharon Olds--a poet my teacher sent my poetry to without asking me). Maybe I will just make copies and give them to him to read if he likes. The card, I can share it, but I don't think I can talk about it yet. It's just too much to remember that I was so scared, too scared to be there for my grandma, when she was dying. She was the type of person who worried about EVERYTHING. She must have been so scared. Frowner


You can highlight important sections of the letters to read if they are too long to read to him.

I can relate to your feelings about not being there for your g'ma. I am doing the very same thing now with my brother. I feel selfish and like a horrible sister, but after having watched my father die slowly for 9 months in a hospital when I was 15, I find myself unable to be close with my brother when he is so sick. I worry that I will carry guilt with me the rest of my life if I don't stop pushing him away now.

anyway, i keep making this about me. I 'm sorry. Its just htat I related to so much of what you write about (pcos, wanting to read letters in therapy, not being there for a loved one who was dying, etc.) We could be long lost sisters. Smiler

It sounds like it was a very triggering session for you last night. I know how scary it is to get these things out and in the short term, it can often make you feel worse rather than better. I think its healing in the long term though. Or at least that what's I keep telling myself.
yakusokuyakusokuMember
Thanks for your empathy, LG. You never have to apologize for relating to me. I have four sisters and a brother, and despite our common upbringings, I have real difficulty relating to them. Perhaps, I just have a different temperament or my abandonment by my father made me "different" whereas their fathers remained more engaged throughout their childhoods. Ridiculously, my father was very moral. My oldest sisters' father had a drug problem for a time, but he was emotionally available to them. My younger sisters' father was very detached, like mine, but he was physically present and made sure to stay in their lives after he and my mom split (possible because he never remarried). For whatever the reason, no one else has manifested their dysfunction in the same way as I have. They all see me as having it all together, but that is because they don't see me at all. And now I don't even want them to. Does that make me a bad person, wanting to be invisible to my family?
ladygreyladygreyMember
quote:
Does that make me a bad person, wanting to be invisible to my family?


Not at all, and I cannot help but smile because this is something I spent about 20 minutes talking about in therapy with T2 on Monday (smiling because of our parallel universes, not because we feel the need to make ourselves invisible). Just this past week I changed my phone number in an effort to make myself invisible to my mom. And I spent my entire chidlhood trying to make myself invisible and small to escape the violence in my home.
yakusokuyakusokuMember
Yes, for me, living beyond the expectations of others was the only way to be invisible. My oldest sister experimented with drugs, tried to kill herself, fought openly against my mother's tyranny, got bad grades, got in trouble with guys. All it did was make it worse...for everyone.

So, I got straight As, took care of my younger siblings (oldest sister helped too, granted), quit all activities that interfered with helping my mother, never stood up for myself, tried to be "better than" the environment around me. And if I managed just right, I got ignored...and that was enough. And it's hard for me to want anything else from any of them (except my younger lovelies who I still want to take care of as if they were my own). My sister keeps saying things like, "Well, I just know you better, because you're my sister." And more than half the time, she really has no clue what is going on with me. That is MY fault, but I sometimes want to yell at her, "No, you DON'T know me, because I choose for you not to." Maybe part of me is resentful of how much harder her choices made our home. And how she still keeps putting herself back in that relationship with our mother and then bringing that drama into my home too. Ugh, I am such a b----! I am just done after a lifetime of listening to them fight and tear each other down and break things and call the cops on each other and not really care who gets caught in the middle. I don't know why I care so much, but I hate seeing people CHOOSE abuse...and her choosing it and then processing it all over me is so triggering lately. But, because my chaos is all internal, my problems don't matter. In my family, you have to show your drama by putting yourself in horrible situations, I guess. No wonder I am always wanting to do some big dramatic act and take myself out. But I can't face failing at it, so I will just keep doing it in my head, where my drama cannot hurt anyone else. OK, I don't know why I wrote all this. I'm really determined to trigger a spiral of self-loathing today.
yakusokuyakusokuMember
Thanks for the support, Jane. I don't know if my sister is that way or not. She is thinking about going back to her (physically abusive) boyfriend, because he is the father of her infant and the baby she's going to have in July. However, for her, she wants to stay separate and go to therapy with him on either being parents together or maybe getting back together. With my mom, my sister pretty much mimics her. She can get just as vicious, she can throw things, she can physically hurt people, she can get nasty. She never does it with me, because she only does it when she has been attacked first...but otherwise, it's like having "Diet Mom" around. I just try to "hear" her and model healthier thought processes and behaviors...isn't that scary...someone using ME for a model? At least my sister can take a step back after things are over and have moments of clarity like, "Ugh, I was just like Mom when I said/did that and I hate it!" On the other hand, my mom lives in a reality where she remembers things completely differently than they happened and everyone in the world is taking advantage of her and no one helps her. It's why I refuse to have a relationship of dependence upon anyone in my family. I want there to be no illusion there. I will help where I can (and I need to learn that me not wanting or having the energy to help is a good enough reason to draw a boundary), but I cannot be a part of this family right now. Frowner Maybe when I am stronger.
yakusokuyakusokuMember
DF - Crossposted. Thanks for the support. Yes, if my sister is still out of the house when my daughter goes down for a nap (crossing fingers as naps are hit or miss lately), I will surely take a long bath and curl up in bed and wish for dreams of being held and not the other garbage that's been in my head.

Texted T about how I was feeling hopeless and scared about more past stuff coming up and not wanting to face it, wishing I never existed.

He texted back: "That makes me sad to hear you say that. I'm sorry that you were exposed to all this stuff, so unprotected as a child..."

I started crying. It comforted me, made me less lonely, but that contrast to the lonely little girl I was HURTS!
yakusokuyakusokuMember
DF - No, I know she's not doing it on purpose and it's just her way of processing. That's what makes me feel like such a b---- for how it is wearing me down.

It's like one day she comes home and says, "Mom's so great. She's going to help me. I know she's crazy, but she means well and I'm sure living with her will be OK this time."

And then the next day, she's saying, "I can't believe I ever thought I could live with Mom. She's so abusive. She's a manipulator and she's sick!"

And, while I have my own problems with switching, it's over the top with my sister. Because she never completely disconnected (financially linked to my mom for her whole adulthood), she can't SEE it. And because it's hard for me to have my own opinions when others contradict them, I start questioning my memories, my feelings about my childhood that I'm experiencing. It makes me very confused! I think it's impeding my therapy. She's probably going to be staying here just two days a week once she moves back into my mom's, but I almost wonder if it will be worse. However, I'm not willing to take away my home as a safe place for her just yet. My mom kicks people out so often (well, she stopped doing it as much when I refused to come back at 18, but she still does it with my oldest sister) and my sister financially has no other option than to depend on others for a place to live.
yakusokuyakusokuMember
We don't talk about it in depth, because I know (or fear) his opinion is that I need to draw a hard boundary and stop helping so much...and I'm not prepared to do it. So, I guess I kind of let him know that it's stressful to me, but downplay how I think it's interfering with therapy (and my ability to feel like I even KNOW objective information about the past or how I feel about it.
yakusokuyakusokuMember
I put my daughter down for her nap, went to my room to take a nap...and then got a text from my sister that she was on her way back. No nap, but a good cry about missing my grandma before my sister got home...and some time in bed just resting before fussy nephew woke up his napping cousin. I feel like my head is full of rocks right now. Hoping T and I can find a time to do a phone session this week (a lot of babysitting for my sister may make it impossible), but wondering if it's starting to be too much for him.
yakusokuyakusokuMember
Thanks, STRM. I'm doing OK now. I realized even if I don't get to talk to T, our family is doing dinner with our pastor's family tomorrow night. If H is up for putting our daughter to bed again, I may take separate cars and hang out and talk with them a while. It has been a while since I updated them on how things are going (other than brief responses to them checking in on me).

Add Reply

Post

Membership Required

We're sorry. You must be signed in to continue. Sign In or Register
×
Are you sure you want to remove from your Block List?
×
Loading...
×
When you block a person, they can no longer invite you to a private message or post to your profile wall. Replies and comments they make will be collapsed/hidden by default. Finally, you'll never receive email notifications about content they create or likes they designate for your content.
Note: if you proceed, you will no longer be following .
×
Advanced Search
Advanced Search
Link copied to your clipboard.
×

Access to this requires a premium membership.

Be a Patron Member

Get psychotherapy help to make your therapy easier and better.



Yes, I've learned about all the benefits of being a Patron Member (Click here if you missed seeing them: Community Psychotherapy Help

Yes, I understand that...

1. I can do a 7 day free trial and my credit card will not be charged until that period is up.

2. I can cancel at any time before then and my card will not be charged.

3. That once my credit card is charged, there is no refund offered.

Have a special coupon?

4. If I'm using a coupon my receipt won't show the discounted amount (It'll show $7.95). However, I understand that it will go through as $2.95 when I am billed after the 7 day trial. (According to the current promotion, this discount applies to the first three months of my membership - and as long as I use the coupon in the checkout.)*

*Please note that after the 3 months, billing will revert to the regular monthly fee.
**The fee posted below is our standard billing fee (ie. using no coupon).

7-Day Free Trial, then $7.95 per Month (plus tax if applicable)
×