I dont have anything really good to say but just wanted to let you know that I am right there with you. I try to keep myself so busy so that I dont have to "just be". I think I would feel too weird and not even know how to deal with it because I have been this way my whole life so that I wouldnt have to be like that. Now that I am a stay at home mom with a 5 y.o., 2 y.o. and 4 month old I try to volunteer at church every day and do school stuff every chance and help neighbors as much as possible with their crisis so that I dont have to "just be" or even focus on me. I used the excuse that they need me so much right now and Ill have time to focus on me later. I will go out of my way to get involved with someone I dont even know that needs help and solve all their problems to keep from having to deal with me. I am glad my T hasnt figured out thats why I am doing all this stuff, at least she hasnt yet I am afraid of what she will suggest when she finds out the reason behind why I am so kind and helpful to every one else around me.

quote:

Originally posted by I'm OK:
My urge is to jump into the next thing – whatever that may be (ie: go back to work, join a committee, write a book - anything other than "just being"). I don’t know why it’s so uncomfortable to “just be” – other than that I feel I have more time to think. And when I think I generally end up feeling like crap.

Hi I'm OK, I don't think we've met, but I'm glad to see former posters come back here again. So welcome back!

I think I have the opposite problem to what you described. I think I spend way too much time thinking, and it's overrated. For all the time I've wasted trying to figure out this crazy world, I sure seem to be spinning my wheels. Instead of focusing on my various responsibilities and commitments I find myself procrastinating endlessly and zoning out in the bathtub or on the computer for hours. I guess I am still running away, just in a different way, because I am still not capitalizing upon or enjoying the moments I have with my children and friends, and still not really taking in the scent of roses. But I am thinking a lot, and yes, it feels like crap! So it would probably be better if I could get off my butt and be busy like you. Hopefully someone on this forum has an even better solution for both of us!

Well, I am certainly avoiding dishes! My dishwasher has been broken for months, but I am getting a new one in a few days! But dishes are only one item on my long list of continuously neglected tasks. I think when you are anxious or depressed, the value of completing everyday tasks just loses meaning.

I have both of the problems because I dont like to just be and I stay completely busy to keep from having to be that way. But at the same time I neglect every thing I should be doing that is for me or my family. I will do stay busy doing things for every one else and while I am doing everything for every one else I am doing way to much of the stickin thinkin. I will analyze my problems the whole time I am staying busy but that way no matter how much I analyze them I never have to do anything about my own problems.

Dear Pippi, Mad Hatter & Blackbird

Thanks so much for replying to my post the other day.

I saw my T today and we talked more about her idea of the next year being "about me" and me "learning to just be". I’ve always been a very all or nothing / black & white type of person and through seeing her over the past 4.5 years, I have slowly started to change.

According to my T, the idea about the next year is to continue to put lessons I have learned through therapy into practice.

Some of the things my T wants me to continue working on are:

- Activity Scheduling. This is where I mentally rate out of 10 (as I am actually doing an activity) how much pleasure I get and then I mentally rate out of 10 (again whilst I am doing the activity) as to how much of an achievement it is (ie: vacuuming gets a 1 for pleasure but the achievement factor is a 10!). Everything is an activity. Getting the mail, lying in bed, etc.
- Be mindful. For example, when I am actually playing with my children, notice their smiles and notice how I am feeling for actually playing with them. Remind myself that I feel much better when I make the effort to play with them rather than sitting around feeling guilty b/c I didn’t play with them.

My T said the key is to not be all or nothing – ie: have projects but don’t tackle them in an all or nothing way. Rather than redo the whole filing system – try for half an hour a day instead. That way I will develop good habits and will be more likely to stay on top of things rather than be avoiding things (ie: filing) for months and then feeling worse b/c things at home are in chaos at home. My T said if I am avoiding real life (ie: as I did this morning when I didn’t do the breakfast dishes or make the beds, etc) then I am probably either expecting I have to do it all perfectly (ie: have the bed made to a point of perfection that it could be in a home magazine!) or that I am getting overwhelmed by the size of the task so break it down one room at a time and make sure I pat myself on the back and notice how good I do feel when I actually complete the basic household tasks.

It sounds simple but I still feel lost. I think my T and I have analysed and analysed my life to death over the past 4.5 years and I guess there is a point where I need to step up and implement the skills she has given me. She is not saying that I should never analyse issues but again that I need to not be all or nothing about my therapy homework or I will miss out on real life in the meantime. I know one of the major reasons I am in therapy is b/c of my own childhood and my mother. I want my kids to feel safe too. I want them to have structure and consistency. I want to be a good role model for them. I don’t want to repeat history and be my other and retreat to bed, zone out of life and pass my own insecurities & anxieties on to my kids.

And last but not least I think my biggest fear is that if I start to do well in life that I will eventually lose contact with my T. Of course she reassures me that this won’t happen and that long after I’m doing well I can still continue to see her. She says she won’t punish me for doing well by kicking me out! Yet I’m still I’m scared of losing her – life started to make more sense once I had found her.

I’m OK

I know how you feel about getting better and loosing contact with your T! That is one of my biggest fears. I am always asking myself "why would I want to do all this hard work just to get better to loose the person I am so in love with and dont want to stop seeing." He always tells me this will not be the case, especially since he does my meds and I will probably be on my meds the rest of my life. But I also dont want it come to a med only type appointment. I dont want to loose what we have.

The other stuff your therapist told you and how to do it seems interesting and worth trying. I am a very black and white type person too and have not started to change that at all. I wish I could but dont really know where to start. But reading what you wrote makes me want to try that to see if it helps cause the things being perfect or the task being too big is so me. If I start cleaning at all I feel like it has to be perfect and the whole house has to be perfect (which is hard to do with three kids under 5 in the house.) I will get one room done and move on to the next and then get frustrated when one of the kids starts to mess up the one I already had done. My husband says Im an all or nothing cleaner. Either every tiny part of the house gets done or nothing at all. So I think I am going to have to try some of the stuff you T said.

Hi I'm OK
It's great to hear from you! I have a lot to say about this topic but I'm in the middle of struggling with the feeling that it's time to leave therapy and how hard it will be to leave my T so it's hard to say anything right now. I'm hoping I'll be more up for it in a day or so. but I did want to say hi and welcome back!

AG

Hi Pippi & AG

AG - Whilst I've been away from Myshrink over the past few months, I have been wondering how you have been getting along! I will be going back to read your posts but mostly I am in awe (and shock) that you feel you are reaching that point in therapy that so many of us are aiming for:

AG -

quote:

I'm in the middle of struggling with the feeling that it's time to leave therapy and how hard it will be to leave my T

I have learned so much from you - and your T - and I hope that one day you will write a book of your journey. It would be invaluable to so many people.

Anyway, thanks for stopping to say 'hi' even though you are struggling with that massive idea of finishing therapy! Well done to you girl! By the way, have you reduced sessions, would you be reducing sessions or would you go cold turkey?

Pippi - I completely appreciate where you are at - and young children are very worthwhile but also very demanding. We know they need to play - but why can't they play neatly?! I hope we both can keep tackling these all or nothing issues - which has pretty much been in every area of my life. My T tells me to aim to be "Good Enough". Do a good enough job with the cleaning - but on a more consistent basis. She says it is far more healty to role model to kids that a house is for living in and that playing is important - rather than modelling chaos or perfection as our children pick up on all of this stuff. Our kids would much rather have happier mums than a spotless house - which I get logically, it's just giving up the anxiety and what it means to me when the house is perfect.

Cheers!
I'm OK

Me again

I just wanted to add that I was thinking about how worried I always am about my sessions finishing and losing my T in my life.

So I started thinking – seriously (do we do anything else but think seriously?!)– about why this is such an issue for me. And I think it comes down to the fact that my upbringing with my mum was based on her fears – so the message I got from her was “go ahead and live your life but don’t forget about poor old me. You need to take care of me. I am your responsibility”. Whereas with my T, she is there for me in a completely unselfish, loving, caring manner. It’s based on mutual respect. She really wants the best for me.

I think I’m torn between an irrational childlike state of still wishing I could have more of my T and wanting to move onwards & upwards. I realised the feeling is similar to one of a child clinging to an adult’s leg. Like DS (3 years old) does to me sometimes when we arrive at child care. I know in my heart he will be ok. I know he will even have some fun. And I know part of him really wants to give it a go (ie: let go of my leg and go and join in the fun with the other children) – but he gets scared. I know that I will be there for him at the end of the day to talk with him and share the good stuff as well as to work through any issues with him – but he is just learning to have confidence in himself that he can do things at child care and learning to trust that I will always return. And that’s how I feel right now about my T & I. It’s like I’m clinging to her leg. She is telling me that I can do it and to go and try this year to implement what we have been working on. And to trust that she is not going anywhere. And a huge part of me wants to let go. To let go and have fun. To try out some new stuff too. Part of me things I can do this. Part of me wants to. And part of me wants to cling to my T's leg for security. When does this feeling of being torn between clinging and moving on pass? Is this a normal step / phase in the therapy journey? Has anyone else felt this way?

See, it was only one more small thing I had to add to the topic!!

Cheers!
I'm OK

Hi I'm OK,
I'm back and as usual have a few things to say.

First about the whole idea of being able to be without having to do. I have done both the "I'm so busy I don't have time to breath" and "don't bother me I'm on day 10 of my solataire marathon." In my case, both behaviors were my way of not having to be present and experience my feelings. The lack of care and secure attachment, coupled with abuse, in my childhood left me with no one to teach me how to handle or regulate my emotions as well as providing a HUGE backlog of feelings I had to store away raw and unprocessed because they couldn't be handled or faced at the time as I had no resources (pretty much the definition of trauma). That kind of past meant that there were all kinds of situations I needed to avoid because "feeling" was too dangerous. So I coped by either being so far over in my left brain that I didn't go near my emotions (I'm a dominantly right brain woman who studied engineering, how's that for going the other way?) or engaging in behaviors, either disconnected or overstimulated, that allowed me not to be present and not to feel my emotions.

But there's a problem with that. It gets exhausting. Your feelings drive you so much harder when you DON'T acknowledge them and it's hard to live an authentic life when you don't know how you feel. Our feelings, although they are not always an accurate reflection of reality (one of the things I needed to learn was to discern when they were and when they weren't) provide us with really important information about who we are.

My T kind of took the opposite approach of yours. We didn't try to modify my behavior. He went after my feelings. He stayed still and totally calm even in the face of my terror and taught me that I didn't need to fear my emotions. He provided containment so I could process the feelings from my past and make sense of them. It was a long scary confusing process but what emerged from it is that I can stay present, and experience my emotions and the flow of them, even when they're not comfortable. They're just feelings I don't need to be scared. As we've cleared out all the stuff I had stored for so long, it has become much quieter inside, and my ability to just be and stay still has increased incredibly. Ironically, that has also really increased my energy level and ability to get done what I need to get done.

But in either case, I think one of the toughest parts is learning to notice our distancing behaviors. Just the fact that you're conscious of this is a sign of real growth.

OK on to the fear of leaving. For anyone with attachment injuries, that's always a big issue. We are biologically driven to seek out an attachment figure, our life literally depends upon it. When we dont' have a secure attachment, we have to be on high alert all the time in order to obtain some kind of semblance of care. These leaves us hyper-vigilant for the signs of someone leaving. So that's what we experience with our Ts. I was so scared of this that it wasn't until my T told me in these exact words "you're welcome to come as long as you want to, I will never ask you to leave" that I actually started to get well. The thought of leaving was too terrifying to comtemplate at the time, so if getting better meant leaving, then I wasn't getting better. My T has repeated that to me so many times I've lost count. The truth is, before a human being can become independent, they need to depend on a stronger, wiser other. Being dependent means knowing you don't have to leave. Think of the three year old who tells her mother that she will always live with her mother, she'll never want to leave. The mother confidently tells her daughter that she is welcome to stay as long as she wants to, knowing that someday the daughter will go, not because she wants to leave her mother, but because she wants to go out to live her life. Therapy is the same, instead of thinking of it as a going away, think of it as a going towards.

I absolutely believe your T meant it when she said that you could stay. When I was really struggling with the leaving at one point (it is a rapidly recurring theme with me) my T told me that the bond wasn't supposed to be the focus. It is supposed to be the taken for granted background which provides the security we need to be able to grow and learn and become whatever we are becoming. That's part of what brought it home to me that I didn't need to worry, he was there no matter what. And I really really didn't have to leave until I was ready.

I know I mentioned that I was struggling with the idea that I might be at that point. I have been dealing so much better with life lately, and have seen so many changes in myself and my reactions and behaviors. I finally feel really secure with my T and trust the relationship. The biggie for me is that not only am I not contacting my T in between sessions (which I used to do at least once, and sometimes 2 or 3 times) we went through a three week break because of my vacation and I didn't contact my T once. I didn't need to, nothing came up that I felt I couldn't handle. Combine that with the fact that alot of our sessions lately have been looking backwards and its starting to feel like time to go. The very fact that I can even think about it is a biggie. Of course, once I started thinking about it all kinds of interesting things have gotten triggered and kicked up. And it doesn't help that my oldest daughter is a freshman in college and is having a lot of trouble leaving home which is also triggering me. But my T is telling me that I'm already doing the things I'm so scared I can't do.

I think on a really deep level I want to know if I can do it alone. but I also know it's going to take a while to actually work through the leaving. Which again my T assures me is ok to do. And the thought of not seeing him can sometimes break my heart. But at the same time I know no matter where I go or how often I have contact with him, he is part of me in a way I couldn't remove even if I wanted to. I will carry him with me. And he has reassured me that the same is true of me with him.

So sometimes I'm excited and optimistic and at other times, this is my theme song.

AG