Feeling Worse Every Day

I have more trouble being honest with like my family and friends, not so much the professionals I see. Part of it too is feeling like I'm not being heard when I do tell what's really going on. I'm still a little hung up on last week, when I called pdoc about the klonopin. I explained in the message I left him how many panic attacks I was having a day, how I noticed the connection to the meds, and that it was interferring with my ability to function. And it still took 2 days for me to get a response. Though it wasn't a life-threatening situation, I still felt like I should have warrented a faster response.

It's discouraging to have to work on the relationship first rather than get right into a deeper issue.

It is, and I feel so ready to start working on deeper issues. We're trying to get started with weekly sessions, but last week t said she is booked out through the end of the month, so I'm not sure when we will really be able to do that. Probably by the time I don't need it anymore

yeah i dont talk to anyone about whats going on with me besides the doc.... but even then i dont get into much detail unless i feel like they can help with it...
but when you do speak up and say things and they just kind of give you that look like they already knew about it and like its not a big deal, just makes me want to pull my hair out...
wish i had advice... all i know to do is try to be patient and keep replaying like a broken record until they do listen... and if they really aren't going to listen ever, maybe its time for new docs... thats what i had to do because they just would not listen to me at all so i just quit going to the clinic and am just without a pdoc / therapist right now... but i rather be without than to be with someone and them just ignore me and dictate things to me... without hearing my concerns or caring about what im feeling...

Does it have to be this specific t? I worry that you might be waiting for someone who is not going to be in a position to take you on any time soon.

We are still meeting every other week, and I have appointments with her through at least mid-May. This seems to be pretty typical of this clinic, everyone is booked. I wasn't able to get with the pdoc that t thought would be best for me, or even her second choice, because they were both booked out several months. It is kind of scary to think about having to start over with someone new, even though I've wanted to several times.

I'm a little concerned about that with my pdoc, but I've only seen him once, and I don't think he was planning on being a permanent employee at the time. I don't have a lot of choice in the clinic I go to either, everyone is so busy they are just booked out so far. If I'd gone with t's first or second choice for me I'd still be waiting for an initial appointment.

What made you want, several times, to start with someone new?

Because I wish t didn't know that I'm a t as well.

It sounds like you feel humiliated that you daily help others but find that you cannot help yourself.

I'm not sure if humiliated is the right word, but definitely ashamed and embarassed about it. I understand that sometimes people need help, but I have all these resources that I use with my own clients. Why can't I just do these things for myself?

Well for one thing I think that speaking to another person can bring healing through perspective, understanding, kindness, compassion, and patience.

Many people--therapists or not--find it very hard to give these things to themselves.

In other words, a person may have tools but may find it difficult to use those tools on themselves with perspective, understanding, kindness, compassion, patience.

That was gone over several times while I was in school, and I was all for it then. Every time the subject of therapist being clients came up in class, I was arguing in favor of it. At the time I couldn't imagine trying to help others without having someone to relieve one's own burdens onto. It made so much sense.

I'm not sure what's changed that I feel shame about being a client. Maybe it's just because I'm going for my depression, and that it's this bad, when I thought I'd beaten it. Ever since my first major depressive episode in high school, I really haven't had another until now. Maybe once towards the end of my undergrad, but I managed that through self-medicating and therapy. But since then (it's been about 5 years now) I've just had more of a dysthymic depression.

How would the level of felt shame compare, do you think, if you were not yourself a T?

I feel like it would be much lower, if not nonexistant completely. I've been in counseling before, while in school, so this isn't first-time nerves.

So then a central thing perhaps is not the depression itself, but rather that you as a T "should not" be depressed. You feel shame for that, because you "should have" fixed any depression on your own. You see yourself as lacking competence. How important has competence always been to you?

Therefore, what you would like to hide from your T, if you could, is not that you are depressed, but that you are a T.

Exactly. I think I've always regretted being honest about my work when I started seeing T.

I've always been a perfectionist, so competence has been very important to me throughout my life. It's an even bigger issue now than it has been in the past, because I have struggled with feeling like I'm "good enough" at my job. I don't like to fail at anything, but I feel like I have failed myself in this.

You can envision your T saying to herself She has the tools but she can't/won't use them--and silently judging you for it. You can envision her seeing you as lacking competence.

As a perfectionist, competence feels like the cornerstone of your life. But now you see yourself managing neither work nor yourself with competence. When (if ever) have you felt simultaneously lacking competence in work/school and also in managing your own life/feelings?

I can think of at least a couple of times when I was in school for my undergrad. When I was trying to get myself off stimulants I gave up on everything, didn't go to class or take care of myself. I stopped getting out of bed for a while. Then after my friend attempted suicide, I stopped trying in school and spent all my time getting high or drunk.

And isn't that what you have been trying to tell people?

Right now you are really feeling awful. The situation is akin to those few times in the past when the situation was so bad that you gave up everything and did nothing but stay in bed and/or use.

It is. I don't want to have to do anything extreme like staying in bed all day to get people to notice.

What do you think of speaking to T in the way we have been framing it: You feel lacking in competence both personally and professionally, as only once or twice before in your entire life--one previous time being when a friend attempted suicide?

I think that could be a good way of explaining it. It's brief and comprehensive, and I won't be stumbling over words trying to find the right way to explain it to her.

Okay good.

Maybe tonight review your plan for session?

Good luck tomorrow!

Thanks. Before I go to sleep tonight I'll be doing the last of my journaling, preparing myself for the session and figuring out how I want to say what I need to say.