I am agreeing with the advice you have been given.......making continuing appointments with your T is the best place to begin helping yourself. The questions you have need to be answered.....you need to work on your answers to them.....& it really helps to have an outside force work with you.....they can ask questions that you might not even think of......they can help you see things that may not be obvious to you......they can help you put your pieces of yourself together into a complete functioning person (that you are), but with a better understanding as to "who" you really are.

It seems to me that my "core" is what I became up to aduldhood (about my 20's). Then I became many other things, the wife, the college grad, the aerospace engineer, the Mother (however not a very good one....cause I was too into my career), & all the other hats I wore. Then my career fell apart & so did I. It was my identity.....but I was told that my identity shouldn't be my career. We all need to look at our past which I am now doing in therapy. I never would have done it except for the fact that due to the trauma I went through with my Mother when she was dying at the end of last year & the beginning of this one, I haven't been able to even grieve about her death....& don't know if I ever will. It is only because I am letting those feelings haunt me that I am trying to find out why. We need to take care of the questions we have....they point to issues that we need to resolve internaly.

This is a good place to formulate your questions & bring out new onew that you might not have asked yet. I agree with you, we can talk ourselves into thinking we are better & strong enough to handle it by ourselves, but when the past comes back to haunt us, we need help.

Hopefully we can support you here, but I hope you will get your therapist involved on a permanent basis until you get most of your questions answered. As for meds.....I have the problem that I have horrible reactions to 100% of them except the seroquel I am on now so I can sleep without the nightmares haunting me as much.....it doesn't stop them.....only lessens. I understand not liking how you feel on them......I believe that good talk therapy can help just as much as meds given the right T.

Hope you can get the help you need so you can focus on the complete you (which is all of the things you see separately),
Debbie