Knowing your true feelings

This weekend I was supposed to go away with my partner. However I was feeling so bad I just could not do it. (Last night I hit a rough spot and fell into a bad place: depression, overall feeling rotten ).
Even getting in the car seemed like too much.
When I told my T about it she had this reaction: that sometimes depression takes hold and tells us what to do even though it may not be the right thing.
But actually staying home DID feel like the right thing.
Even this evening I feel like I have had a chance to simply sit and think, which has felt calming and like some needed time for myself. In the end I think my T misinterpreted.
Is it OK to still feel like I have made the right decision for myself even if she sort of said the opposite? Often my T tells me that the best thing is to be around people. But sometimes I just know that I need some time by myself, even when I am depressed.

elana, this really hits home for me. I had a similar situation earlier today. I had an errand I needed to run, but didn't feel ok leaving the house. I know I could mail the paperwork I was going to drop off, instead of taking it there myself. So, I had to decide, take it in person or mail it in?

I ended up calling my T and asking her advice, because I felt like yes, I could push myself to go do it, but it didn't feel "right". She said, the more I push myself to do things in the face of my anxiety, the more I will heal. And I do believe that. But in the end I have to live in my skin and my head and sometimes I'm the only one who can decide what is RIGHT for me in the moment.

Anyway, I wanted to share that with you, because it really seems similar to what you are going through. And I'm sorry you are going through a rough time right now

I think you could also have misinterpreted your T's response. She could have just been warning you, so you do the making-sure thinking and checking your heart (as you have done beautifully) to make sure you are not fooling yourself and being misled by the depression when doing something else would have been helpful.

I once interpreted what my T said to me as insulting :-) when she said the good thing wouldn't happen, "if you do what you usually do" but she was just saying, "Watch out! Rocks ahead! Heads up with steering the boat!"

There is more to talk about with your T here.

Staying home feels safe and that is so understandable.
It can also be a defense against the risk of doing something different. The feeling good, feeling safe could be feeling good that the risk was avoided and feeling safe from the fear about being out, going away, being in different surrondings, of not being home. The feelings are real. It sounds like your therapist was thinking of the process of how the feelings begin and all of the things they are about.

one time in therapy, i said something like, "as much as Iike you, in this situation, i like myself more and i went with that.." she was so happy and proud of me - said we could end the session right then and there. i think the point was that i was valuing myself over her - which i guess is like the ultimate goal of therapy. anyway, it does feel strange, but doing what YOU think is right for you is definitely a good thing. be proud of yourself!

this reminds me of something my T said once not too long ago: You stay home to feel safe, but to get better you have to go out.

I have thought about those words so many times, it really stuck with me. Probably because I isolate at home so much.

with me, sometimes when i am depressed, i gotta stay home and sort out my feelings and try to figure out what got me into this particular spiral.

t is probably well meaning, but i would definitely have to go with my own feelings, but i would probably be agreeing with t all at the same time.

i have a very very hard standing up for myself or even discussing things with t when depressed, i feel like he is the expert, especially when i am depressed, because he is not depressed and i am depending on him to help get me out of the spiral

hope this makes sense safe hugs

Elana, the best thing is whatever feels right for you, and sometimes we force ourselves to do something and it does turn out ok, but being quite is also ok too.

Elana - I thought about your post last night too. You also need to do what YOU NEED to do in order to be OK in both the now and the long-run. Take some time to consider things and remember there is nothing wrong with taking care of your needs FIRST.

That depends. It depends on "how" you go out, what you are "doing" when you go out. I have found that forcing myself to do things such as "go out" often simply does no good. If I can be "mindful" when I go out, that is OK, but if not, it may do no good whatsoever -- advice from T or not. I'd rather not have "advice".

I agree with that, pachy. Just going out for the sake of going out isn't particularly helpful and can be harmful actually.

I told my T once that I resented being told to "just do it" as it feels really invalidating. She said the difference between the DBT skill of "opposite to emotion action" and "just do it" is the part of opposite action where you allow yourself to feel the emotions in the moment. It's not pushing away the emotions and saying they don't matter. It's feeling the fear or whatever it is, acknowledging it, and then choosing to act opposite to what the fear is telling me.

Hi everyone. Thank you for your thoughtful replies.
WePow, good point. This is a big one for me because I am very good at making sure everyone else is happy. Sometimes it does feel better to push myself and go out if I'm on the fence. But this wasn't like that. I felt like all of the life force had been sucked out of me and I just needed time on the couch to rest. I told my partner I might be able to go if I had a super extra large cup of coffee. But I knew this wasn't the healthiest idea. It was the only way I would have been able to pull a semblance of myself together and the main reason I would be doing it would be for her. It felt like better self-care to go into rest mode.
I still felt guilty because my partner said she was disappointed (though she said she understood). Then when T said what she did I felt like... sometimes what looks like withdrawing (depression) is actually just tending to one's own needs, you know?

Elana - you did the right thing with taking care of yourself.
I learned along the way that I had to allow others to sometimes feel disapointment when I was doing what I needed to do for myself. I could not tell them to not feel that way since it was their right to feel that way. But at the same time, I didn't have to do what they wanted just because I felt guilty. The guilt started to be less and less as I gave myself more and more permission to take care of my own needs regardless of what response the other person had. It was not me being cruel. It was me taking care of me - which I deserved to be able to do.

Thanks WePow. Your response really means a lot to me. I feel like I want to read it every day (lol). It really hurts me to see my partner feeling bad. All of these old triggers get played out because she doesn't deal well with disappointment. But I need to keep in mind that I am in charge of my feelings and should know when it is important to go into that self-care mode. Anyway... thanks again.

Elana, I am glad that helped you. It was a hard lesson to learn. But it really changed my life once I started trying to be aware of it when things were going on.
I happened at the time to be in a relationship with the woman who had abused me when I was only 11. So there were other issues there that I didn't realize. But she tended to be a control freak. She was poisonous for me but at the time I didn't know how to get away from the situation. When my college T was telling me that I was not responsible for her emotions, I didn't even know where to begin with all that. I had always taken responsibility for the emotions of my parents and others. I thought that if they were having a bad day, that it was my fault. This "lady" was daily thriving on the fact that she could pass off all her blame onto me when she was disapointed or upset about whatever. And there I was just gobbling it down day after day!

When I first stared to stand up for myself and not accept her plate of guilt she was feeding me, she was livid! My counselor told me that abusers were like that when they saw their victim learning how to defend themselves. He told me that a healthy relationship is one where both parties respect and allow the emotions of the other without trying to control the other person. So I started telling her "You have every right to feel the way you do. But I need to do this for me. I do not have any feeling of guilt for my choice." My T actually had me reherse this response with him over and over. The first time I told her this, she went through the roof. Then she would just be mad at me. I had to intentionally pretend to not be upset or impacted in any way while she was having her fits. I would just calmly state it again. It took a while before she figured out that I was not going to cave in. But when she "got it" she left me alone and no longer tried to feed me that guilt. By that time, I also no longer had to pretend that I didn't feel the guilt because I had started believing what I was saying as well. And that was freedom.

In my current relationship, I just state the same thing but in a gentle way. My S/O is not like the abuser, so she respects my point. She may be upset that she is not getting her way. But she moves through it. And she knows I will do the same thing for her. She can do things that will take care of herself and I am free to feel disapointment if it is there. And then we both move through the event in a healthy way. Very nice.

I am a strong believer in the idea that we know best what we need to heal. My T taught me that. Look inside and listen and you will know. Good for you for following your gut. My T also sometimes makes suggestions that are not the best for me (although he always has my best interests at heart). Sometimes we talk about it so he understands why I may make a different choice (and he learns more about me and what I need) and so I can learn his rationale, which is valuable to me too.

Amen! If you say those words to your T, it seems like she will understand better where you were at.