I guess I really want to be motivated to continue with therapy.

I have done some "random" things to try push me to be more motivated. Though I wonder, if I am pushing myself to be motivated and I already motivated?

About a year ago, my therapist and I went to the Riverside State Park in Spokane (into what is known as the “the Bowl and Pitcher” area) and did a “coat burning ceremony”. We burned an old "army" coat I had worn since before I was 16 and I'm 33 now. The coat was literally on me when a lot of the bad stuff was going on. The coat was a symbol of all the things I used to “shield” in, tools for protecting myself, that keep me from the world and isolated. Sure it protected me, but it was wearing thin and it was getting holes in it (symbolically and literally). So we ceremonially burned the coat about a year ago at this park. So today….I went down to the State Park to the spot we did the ceremony, to try to remember my previous motivation. I found it hard to stay there very long though....maybe 20 minutes. I literally told myself, trying to hold back tears: “if this is an attempt to get me back to therapy, it won’t work. I can't do it. It won’t work.” Though part of me thinks I was just trying to deny I want to go back, given the tears I was holding back.

And yesterday, I wrote a letter to the first person in my life who made me feel like I had any worth. That was back in 1989, when I was 16. She was a high school teacher. I guess she assumed I was worth something, because she reached out to me when I was in pain. So for the first time in my life I considered maybe I wasn't as bad as I thought. And, for the first time in my life I began to look for my worth. Before her I just assumed I had no worth. Of course, I never really got a clean look at my worth because my "neediness" at 16 was misunderstood by myself and by everyone around me. So things sort of blew up in my face with the teacher, when I tried to understand my neediness of her and talked to her about it. And she got scared and had to protect herself and took me out of her class. (But I can never blame her...she wasn't prepared for me and my past and was trained for it). But the fact remains, she did reach out to me at one point and, for the first time in my life, made me feel that perhaps I was worth something and it was worth finding out myself.

so i had that teacher in my life and i "have" my therapist in my life (though I'm still on break from her right now so not sure I can say she is still in my life - i've been on break for about 2 months now). Their attempting to help me carried an assumption that I am worth being helped....and that intrigued a part of me…at least once...that perhaps I could find my worth myself.

In that letter I wrote to my former teacher yesterday, I told her I wasn’t sure why I was writing her again (I’ve written her before), but on assumption I made in the letter was saying perhaps she was a “touchstone”.

So here I am looking at these two examples of people independently showing me unbiased care (even after they knew how “terrible” I am) and their assumption of my worth, and trying to find a reason to look for it on my own.

Why is this taking so long to get through therapy? It has been 3 years. What am I doing wrong? I have a great relationship with my therapist, better than the many others therapist I’ve been to. I think a large part of why I am having such low motivation is because it seems to be taking so long and some parties, specifically the managed health care insurance provider, suggests I am not getting better quick enough. And they are sort of in a “parental role”, that insurance provider, being so “powerful” in controlling what I can afford and, in a way, they are that parent saying “no child, you are not behaving, by not getting better quicker. So I’m taking away your privileges.”

I don't want to return without proper motivation, because I wouldn't be very effective in the team effort needed in a therapeutic relationship.

Anyone have any other suggestions about how I can get my motivation back or thoughts on my recent attempts? I want my motivation back.