Thursday, February 11, 2010

Three times a week!!!

Therapy today. Sigh. I began the day by catching up with (K) for coffee. Entertaining and thought provoking as usual. No BS, which is nice. I always seem to walk away from my catch ups with her with a few different ideas rumbling their way through my mind. Is always good to have a different perspective from somebody who has been in a similar place before.Among the many things our little chat through up (what is the opposite of hope? I say resignation.. she respectfully disagrees) she said something about how you can't tell everything about a person, just because they have a sunshiney demeanour... they may have become that way as a reaction to a not so sunshiney past. It made me think about one of the major discomforts I have with MH professionals. They always seem to have it so together. And you imagine from the way they are able to pull apart and analyse your problems and come up with healthy solutions etc that they must have it all together. But the reality is, I'm a client, they can't really bring their baggage into the room like in a normal relationship. So you get a skewed view. Maybe somedays their life is just as shite as mine. Maybe they are able to empathise and give good advice, because they are talking from their own experience. And I need to keep that possibility in mind, before I dismiss what they have to say. Is very easy with MH issues to become very ego-centric...nobody could possibly understand, wah wah wah, I need to keep in mind they are human too, not perfectly turned out robots.

After that we chatted for a bit about photography, and (K) asked me to bring some of my photos to see next time. I really must follow through on my plan to go to the botanic gardens and potter about with my camera. Its something I have enjoyed in the past, though I am not that great at it... and as (D) has pointed out I need to be "doing things"

Anyway, after (K) I jumped on a bus and then train to get to therapy. (D) commented that I seemed outwardly to be a lot calmer. (Which I attribute mainly to meds and ex moving out of the house...finally!) But was somewhat concerned that I had become a bit disconnected. I don't seem to be able to find a happy medium, either utter out of controll-edness or complete disconnect. She started talking about increased contact again, and pointed out that while I might feel that since I am disconnected rather than a shaking, gibbering mess, I don't need it, she actually feels that I probably still do, maybe even more so.

We spoke for a little while about anger again (flogging a dead horse). She pointed out that even if I can't do anything to change the way my family reacts to it, I can still work on finding ways to be more assertive and say no, in other relationships. To learn how to protect myself from others who would seek to exploit me. And if I feel confidant in doing that, I might not just cut people off out of fear of what they might do....

Which of course led to.... Bachelor Number One. No I have not broken up with him yet. I've tried, but I jsut can't seem to make myself. Argh. I sent him an email explaining everything thats been going on, half hoping that he would just go "Ooh, that bi-atch is crazy!" and back off. But he didn't. He sent one back asking to see me. I haven't responded yet. I know in my heart now is not the right time for a relationship. And I do not want to explain the state of my hacked up legs to him... but I can't seem to make myself cut ties either. He is a great guy. Sigh. And of course, if and when he does reject me as a nutter, deep down I'll be devastated..

Finally, we moved back to the "increased contact" discussion. Still haven't made any headway. I'm going to think about adding a third session and how that might make me feel. The other choice is the phone checkins. I think she realised how worked up I'm getting about it all, because she is only going to call me once over the weekend (on saturday) and then I'll see her at my normal time on monday. She pointed out that she thought, part of the reason the "Horrible Thursday" went down the way it did, was becuse she pushed me a bit too hard and then I left the session with all of this crap still going nuts in my head, but was not going to see her again for four days. And I'm not the greatest at reaching out for help on my own at times. I don't know if that's true, but I guess it kind of makes sense.

Anyway, I left therapy with all sorts of (you guessed it) crap floating around my head, and just really needed to go home. So I skipped my blood test at Big City Hospital, which means I'm going to have to travel half and hour each way to go and get it drawn tomorrow afternoon. Sigh. I also NEED to call the uni.

Not an incredibly exciting session, but still, gave me a bit to think about.

2 comments:

  1. Mmm, it is definitly true that MH people are ordinairy people with their screw ups too, just like everyone else. Maybe even more than you think. If my clients knew what went on my my own therapy I think they would be surprised. It's good that they don't though. And I'm glad I don't know everything about mine, I need her to be 'ok'.

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  2. I had a therapist once who brought his own crap up in the sessions. Needless to say, it wasn't a very effective experience for me.

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