I'm starting to seriously question whether or not I should stick with my therapist.
It's hard to say what's normal as therapy is an intensely personal experience that is built around the relationship between therapist and patient. It's hard to know whether that relationship would be different, better, worse, whatnot, with a different psychologist. Ideally a therapist will make you somewhat comfortable talking about difficult things, but there are many topics that are going to be uncomfortable no matter
who you're talking to because, well, they're difficult subjects!
The only thing that strikes me as out of the ordinary is only meeting once a month - in my experience therapists have wanted to meet at least once every two weeks, usually once a week, at least for a while as they get to know you. It just seems that trying to cover an entire month in each appointment would be a huge challenge!
I would encourage you to bring up all of these concerns with your psychologist directly. Not just sparse scheduling - I'd encourage you to bring up (politely, of course) your reservations about your meetings, the silent time, et cetera with him and see what he has to say about it. Usually if I'm anxious about bringing up concerns with my therapist I'll write them out on a piece of paper ahead of time so I MAKE SURE I don't forget anything. I've always figured that it is the therapist's job to be patient with me and help give me faith in my own recovery so I don't feel so bad pushing them for answers now and then about where we are, the progress we're making, and where we're headed. I've gotten some very valuable insight out of those experiences.
I don't think it's possible to be "bad at therapy," it's just a matter of finding someone whose style gels with you.
Do you know - does he do Cognitive Behavioral Therapy? Or something else?
Following up from my posts on social anxiety and visiting the doctor:
She was really nice, put me straight away on 50mg Sertraline which I've been taking every morning for the last five days. She said I wouldn't feel the psychological effects for about 1.5-2 weeks but in the mean time I would likely feel some unpleasant side effects.
Had diarrhoea two days ago, and a nasty migraine last night, so they're definitely working through my system.
Woke up with horrible anxiety this morning for no real reason so yeah, not feeling the positives yet.
That sounds like a promising experience! For what it's worth, I know many people for whom Setraline has done good things. Yes, the initial experiences with a new medication can be difficult, but hopefully the side effects will tail off in the forthcoming days and weeks and you'll begin to see some good effects. Definitely mention the symptoms at your next appointment, though, just so your doctor is aware.
I hope you keep us posted!
So I have been on Lexapro for 33 days now and while I was feeling pretty good for the 3rd and 4th week, I feel I am taking a nose dive. The last 3 days have been pretty difficult, no panic attacks but I can feel them coming on. Is this a normal thing to happen after a couple of weeks?
Can you identify any reasons why things have taken a nose dive? Did something happen? Is there something you're ruminating on or are upset about? Did it truly happen randomly, out of the blue?
I'm sorry for your tough experience. Hang in there, SevenDevils.
Have hated going over bridges for ages anytime I would step foot on one , feel dizzy, panic and want to run away, yesterday I thought fuck it, and managed to walk over london bridge and tower bridge.. felt good, I still ran a bit and didn't stop enough to take it all in, but I will keep doing it until I feel calmer, they are right near where I work so want to get enough of them so I can enjoy a nice walk, but seriously I have avoided it for ages, yesterday I just went for it.. I am so proud of myself
That sounds like a fantastic victory!!
What changed yesterday to give you that tremendous courage?
I do hope you keep us posted as you continue to challenge yourself.
It's been a while since I've posted, so I figured I should post an update.
Wonderful to hear that things are continuing to go well, Kipp.
It's also quite valuable that you're able to understand that there will still be good days and bad days while on medication. For a long time I expected my medication to just, well, take all of my problems away and make them non-issues. This was, of course, unrealistic, but I almost didn't even realize that's what I expected! The medication is there to help you feel more yourself, which has ups and downs.
I contemplate rewriting the reprise of the main theme in "Prelude for Peace" but then I wonder if it's just not sounding the way it does in my head because I'm not performing it at the highest level. Finally, "Yearning" is pretty much the only piece that I'd leave alone, perhaps because it went through a four-month composition process, unlike the others. Hard to say. Basically, like any artist, I'm learning as I go along and the pieces I write reflect that.
Those all sound sensible, though I do wonder - as an artist, how do you resist the urge to tinker endlessly? How do you know something is "done"? Or is art never truly done and it's just a matter of being at peace with wherever it ended up?
Also, I'm going to make a call on Monday and see what the mental health services are in my area for therapy. I've just become so self-sabotaging. To a certain extent, I've always struggled with my emotions but after I got sick, it became overwhelming. Year after year of extreme pain, bedridden days and frequent suicidal thoughts have left me a mess. I'm not sure if I can be fixed but it's clear that doing nothing is just hurting me more and more.
How'd it go? I think you're right - there's no harm in looking to see what resources are available. I really hope you're able to find some relief, jb.
Somehow, while trying to help by taking out a lot of recycling, I managed to be referred to as "your son, the asshole" by one parent to another. Previously, I'd tried to help by loading the dishwasher. I accidentally put a shot glass containing earrings in, but who leaves earrings on a counter in a shot glass?
If I don't help, I'm a waste of space, and if I do, then I'm an asshole. This is fun.
I also moved a bar of soap from a dish to the shower, then got screamed at. But, to their benefit, I'd been asked not to before.
That sounds like a really tough circumstance, Chewie. Were you able to keep a level head? Sometimes that's the best you can try for in difficult interpersonal situations. Too often we respond to someone else being unreasonable by being unreasonable ourselves ... which of course only escalates the situation and the cycle goes on and on!
I hope things have smoothed over a bit with the medication changes.
I have some problem with my levels of melatonin but I take it with external medication (6mg) but I don't think that is the real problem, so I have no problem with waking up itself.
It's like some sort of anxiety for the beginning of the day or I lack the will to leave the bed something like that. I knew it is there but I don't know how to overcome this.
When I was really depressed I've stayed in bed like all day etc but now it is different.
If I have something really important I force myself, but that occurs rarely.
Well, Lurra, it's difficult to say exactly how to fix it without exploring the circumstances of the anxiety that's keeping you in bed.
You can, of course, try creating incentives for getting out of bed: I put all of my things, such as my outfit and backpack, together the night before so there are as few obstacles as possible to me getting going in the morning. I used to place all of my stuff by a second, loud alarm clock across the room. I set it 10 minutes after my phone alarm, so within 10 minutes I'd have to get out of bed to turn it off or it'd scare the hell out of me (it was so loud!). Once I was standing there, in front of it, with my stuff all ready to go at my feet I left myself no excuse to not get going.
You mention that depression kept you in bed in the past. How is this anxiety different?
My thoughts are getting so unbearably convoluted I'm worried that I'm actually degenerating on a neurological level. It's been over 5 years since I've been capable of learning or anything intellectual, and that doesn't coincide with me feeling suicidal, which has been going on for as long as I can remember. I honestly have major difficulty writing this post and have no idea whether the end result is even anything remotely comprehensible. That recent thread on chemical castration got me thinking and I brought it up with my therapist as a thing that could help me concentrate, and maybe reveal some hidden motivation to live under all the frustration. He opposed, but I have never told him about my numerous paraphilias that might be relevant. There's so much I can't open up about so I'm stuck with treatment for depression but depression is like the last thing I have. I'm wasting time and resources of all. My mood and perceived productivity is like a sine wave. It never reaches a breakthrough in quality of life at its highest, so negative thoughts like "what have you really achieved? know your place you deluded piece of shit" start to kick in and bring it down. At its lowest it never reaches the point of suicide either, I just go in a "feeling sorry isn't any help" opportunist mode and start "working" on ridiculously unsustainable get-rich-quick schemes. The wave is permanently stuck in a region of mediocrity. I keep telling myself that I'm some kind of genius and that I just can't channel it properly in my current state. It's a delusion that I'm actively fighting, but my parents and the few "friends" I have are constantly trying to perpetuate it without realizing what kind of damage it is doing to me. I'm basically a talentless med school dropout who didn't deserve such incredible opportunity in the first place. It pains me how "close" (but so far) I was to success and it's all for nothing. I'm afraid of being energetic knowing that all of my energy goes to waste anyway. My therapist suggested that the punishing thought patterns I have are actually damaging but they are still less damaging than not being punished for doing bad in everything. Only solution would be to just be better but that ship has sailed. I'm at quarter age, this is where the great filtering happens. Maybe I'm just finally facing the consequences of being me, a failed genetic dice roll? No ones going to hold my hand through my entire life. I'm so very stuck and hopeless.
First of all, your post is quite comprehensible. Thank you for joining us and thank you for sharing, Cizeta-Moroder.
Uncomfortable as it may be, I think it's important for you to bring all of these things up with your therapist (your paraphilias, your feelings of being stuck and hopeless, and so on). There is no secret easy way around having to go through some uncomfortable talks with therapists that I've found - at some point you're going to have to take the dive into the cold water and just say what's going on. Without a more complete report of what's going on with your emotions a therapist will not be able to give you a more complete response and treatment. If you're very, very uncomfortable and scared you won't end up saying what you need to, you can try writing it out - I have done this several times when I'm very uncomfortable with what I need to say and have found it quite helpful. Can you plan on discussing these things at your next meeting?
In the meantime, it sounds as though you're giving yourself a very hard time. Success is not a binary, or a black-and-white win-state that one achieves or fails at. It can be defined in millions of ways and that definition is always changing. Furthermore, the age you refer to yourself being is far, far from any sort of expiration date for when "success" - or more importantly, contentment, meaningful living, and personal growth - are achievable.
I'm sorry I don't have some grand answer for you. I wish I did. In the meantime I hope you keep us posted and I hope your days are at least bearable.
<3 to all
