Hi Everyone,
I know I haven't posted in a long time!
I'm happily settling into a day program, finally! I go four days a week. One day I have groups straight through, and the other days I have some breaks, which is hard for me because I isolate or want to sleep. But I'll work on this. I love the staff there are three therapists that run the groups, plus a batch of very kind interns. I'm slowly getting to know the other clients too. I'll post more on groups later.
Since the summer I've been working with this OT (Ocupational therapy) agency. They just this summer started coming in to work with the residents of where I'm living. Their concept of OT is holistic, so addressing all aspects of someone's life. After the few months I've been communicating with the head OT and his staff, doing exercise sessions, and different things, the head OT came up with a treatment plan, which he wrote himself without me knowing what it was!
My new therapist was like,"I wonder what it could be that you don't have input into it!" I'm like yeah I know.
I was hoping that he could get this to me before today so I could discuss it in therapy. Though he said before sending it that he thought I wouldn't be upset by it, rather find it empowering, I had a nagging sense that it would be upsetting and was anxious about it from the minute he suggested sending it to me.
His instructions were to look it over, talk with my therapist about it, edit it and send it back.
So I open it up. His first observation is that I'm "overfocused on affect and mood state." That I "let emotions make decisions for me," and the goal was something along the lines of that I'd just basically do healthy behaviors and activities no matter how I felt, and this in turn would change my emotions.
First of all, I've tried this already several times. Most notably was my last year of college where I was very depressed and overwhelmed. I pushed myself through classes and internship and in general felt like I was just going through the motions. If I didn't have the support of the disability coordinator keeping me on task I'd probably still be there. So that's how good that worked for me. He might have asked about this before writing it down.
Secondly, I feel completely hurt by this whole overfocuses on emotions thing. He and I had such a good connection from the start. I started naturally e-mailing him how I was feeling, and felt so good that it seemed he was able to understand my very complicated inner world. I even asked him once if it was ok for me to write him, he said it seemed to help so go for it. Meanwhile he was thinking this stuff? For how long? I feel backed into a corner. If I tell him I'm extremly upset by this he may well say that I'm just focused on my feelings too much again. After all he presented as that he doubted I'd be upset. In general, the worst feeling is feeling like I trusted him with deep feelings and now he's saying it's too much.
The second part of the plan was goals to be accomplished in the next six to eight weeks. Following was a very long list of stuff that I know I'll never be able to do. Including learning to take the bus/subway (I'm totally blind, and the thought of doing this makes me think I'll end up under someone's car at any moment!, and I'm perfectly content taking paratransit), look for a volunteer or part time job, keep to this insanely structured routeen that includes only taking one nap of less than an hour a day, and several other things. I'm more overwhelmed by that than anything else. I just got to this program two weeks ago. The groups that I'm in don't end til February. I'd love to do volunteer work at some point, but am lost on what it is I'd like to do. I feel like this is all just being thrown at me way too fast.
I wrote my case manager and therapist and attached the plan and said what I thought of it. After I read it I felt awful just wanted to cry but wouldn't let myself. I SID (scratching really no big deal), and have generally felt tense and anxious the whole night. I'm fighting the urge to write VMT, (who says that I can still contact her though I have a new therapist, and am trying to force myself to focus on that and not former t) to ask her if she thinks I'm "overfocused" on my feelings. I'm thinking she'd probably laugh! A good part of our work was spent trying to get me to get out of my head, stop analyzing things and distanceing, and start expressing my feelings!
Sorry this is so long. I just needed to get this out. Thanks for listening.