Hey,

What was up with the Seroquel (How much did you take, when did you take it, what happened etc)? I was on that for a number of years and while it would take me a good week to get used to a 25mg dosage once I was used to it it helped me significantly with respect to overall calmness and good sleeping habits... But a week of hell while the system adjusts... Might be possible to 'ease into it' more gradually by way of splitting tablets...

It sounds like your therapist is trying to help you feel better by focusing on your strengths - how together and competent and professional and highly functional you are in your work as a therapist. That is nice... But a perfectly understandable response on your part would be to be concerned about how much the put together, competent, professional, and highly functional aspects will carry over in a different setting... Sometimes (when therapists don't get the issue) their variety of reinforcement (and what is meant to be reassuring) can be a source of stress in itself!

With respect to the 'nothing' that is my standard response to the question 'what is wrong?' Partly (for me) it is about my needing to take some time to figure out what is going on for me. Partly (for me) it is about an automatic response to what is typically (in our society) a cursory remark rather than a request for a genuine explanation.

> I was also bothered because I was trying to tell him that it was fine that I am a full-time therapist now, but in a few months being a therapist would no longer be the center of my life-- doctoral school would. And school is a lot more difficult to deal with while having an illness, than being a therapist is. He told me I was getting ahead of myself again and that I needed to focus on being in the moment. He wasn't hearing me. Or maybe he was. He didn't understand. Or maybe he did. He was wrong. Or maybe he was right. I don't know I don't know I don't know.

Aw sweetie... It is understandable that a change in your schedule would be a major source of stress. I find such changes to be a major source of stress, too. Every new academic year I'd start freaking out about what my classes were going to be like, what the professors were going to be like, what my fellow students were supposed to be like. I don't like change at all. I hate it in fact. It would really throw me into a spin...

Can you talk to him about how you are finding this change stressful to deal with?

I think he is right in the sense that the way to manage stress in the moment is taking care of yourself in the moment (e.g., relaxation, mindfulness, nice things for yourself like bubblebaths. Basically... Diverting your attention from ruminating / worrying about events to your attention becoming focused on pleasant sensory experiences in the present.

But: I think you are right in the sense that change is stressful. And the more your functioning and competence and professionalism is associating with your present activities the more the thought of engaging in different activities becomes a source of stress and concern...

Basically: Both can be right :-) To try and focus on pleasant sensory experiences when feeling upset and like things are too much... And to think and talk about your concerns about these stressful changes in your life such that you can start to feel better about these changes (and contemplate how there will be similarities between what you are doing now and what you will be doing such that your competence etc will transfer to this new setting).

Hang in there...