Pdoc appointment was terrible and very upsetting. Don't feel like talking about it.

So I go into T and he asks how things were. I said today was a dumpster fire. He replied that his phone didn't ring while I was at the pdoc office, so it wasn't as bad as it could have been.

We talked about pdoc briefly. I said I was disappointed because I wanted a benzo prescription, but making that request on the first appointment would have been weird. He agreed and then climbed on a soapbox about benzos. They're an avoidance measure. I threw up my hands and said, "yes, exactly!" I don't want to feel my anxiety. Who does? He sighed and said that ultimately the true help would be processing through the stuff that causes the anxiety.

Then we talked about work. Work was very bad today. One of the students on my caseload got in serious trouble, and another one required me to write an emergency IEP. I did zero actual teaching today. The state test is tomorrow. "Ahh, there goes that feeling of lack of agency."

He said that it sounded like I did good work despite the challenges I was faced. "But what does my opinion matter?"
"Your opinion matters. You're like the avatar for everyone else in my life that says similar things."
"Well, that's boring! If I'm saying the same thing as everyone else, then what's the point?"

I went onto explain that I need to hear that I'm good from lots of different people. That I can't ingest good things about myself. I told him about how my student teacher was in awe of how I handled myself today. He asked why I didn't think I could accept the praise from my student teacher. I said because I don't feel like I'm worthy of the praise. That I hold myself to an unreasonable standard that I can't attain. That I'll never be good enough, and that's why I work myself into the ground. Because I'm not worthy of self care.

"Okay, are you ready for a meta conversation?" I was. "So when I said being the avatar was boring, without missing a beat you went into this whole story about your student teacher. It felt to me like you were telling the story because you perceived that you'd hurt my feelings by calling me the avatar. So you obviously care very deeply about other people. You care about your students, but you don't care about yourself. Fine. But what good are you going to be to your students if

I sat for a minute silently. He asked what I was feeling. I said conflicted. It was a good stop gap thought to get me through the night. But what about tomorrow? When do I care enough about myself to take care of myself for me? He said we'll work on it. It comes in time.

It was at this point that he said given our conversation on Friday, he wanted to make a more concerted effort to incorporate some EMDR stuff so that we could start to get ready to process. Spent the rest of the session installing a safe place. I wasn't expecting it to work, but I felt eerily calm afterwards. It wasn't a bad feeling at all. Just new and unfamiliar. T said when you spend your life in a state of hypervigilance, calm can be unsettling.

As we wrapped up, he said he was excited to see me next week. I asked him why. "Well I want to hear everything! There's a lot up in the air for you right now. How will your students do on the state test. Will you take the antidepressant? Will your safe space work? It's a nerdy therapist thing that happens sometimes."