Work vs. Rest

How do you decide when enough is enough?

Part of me feels like...I'm here, in the middle of this huge, gross mess in my head and my soul, and I need to work hard to process it and get through it and find the other side. That part of me feels like I need to read Courage to Heal in my free time and let my brain go wherever it want to go when I am resting and journal and pretty much just work and work and work on moving through this.

Part of me feels like...hey, lets find a way to just look at that stuff for the 90 minutes we're with T each week, and then to put it away until the next week.

The problem is that I am scared that it will take forever to get through this painful stuff, and that if I don't work hard all the time, the pain is just going to be drawn out. AND I'm scared that if I don't save it for session and just live my life that I'll never be happy and life will just be too hard.

Early in therapy, when it really really hurt, I worked super hard to distract myself from the pain. And I saw T twice a week, so it felt like I could try to let it go, but that I was still working hard and moving forward because there was only a few days between each session.

Now that there is a week between each session, it's hard to find the balance. Being alone with this **** in my head HURTS and it's hard and scary. Pushing it away feels inauthentic and like I'll never get through it.

How do you know when enough is enough? I know it's not black and white...but how do you find the middle place?

hugs.

I don't know, trying to figure that one out for myself. I am into some hard stuff, and I want to quit because getting thru the week has become unbearable. But that's should be on my own thread...just know that I understand and I am sorry I don't have a real answer.

I'm kinda in the same boat now. We'd just started to go deep (I was actually talking about graphic events instead of having to write them- no mutism!) and the new job and move came up.

It's just too much to do at once. Before I was unemployed and in my home, so therapy was my full-time job and I was happy to tackle it.

Now I just want to make it through each session without "working" so that I can return to my real world chaos without the possibility of mutism or stuttering following me out of the office.

My worry is "what's the next excuse going to be?" Starting the new job probably. A part of me wants to get back to the big styff with T, and a part of me is grateful for the distraction.

I can't handle it on my own outside the office. When I tried to, I ended up stuttering worse than ever. It's either all or nothing for me, I'm not so good at grey.

I struggle over how much time to spend writing in a journal, writing on PC, etc. Sometimes it's really useful to do that and sometimes it's too much. The amount of time that works well varies. Of course it depends what else is going on in life too. Could you try a little bit and see how that goes? Do you think you could stop when you need to?

It's a day by day thing. There may be a day where you feel you can work 2 hours on the stuff. That it feels comfortable to do so and what is needed. And other days, you feel like, I need to just keep it away right now. You can set boundaries as needed. If there's this feeling of "Sigh, I need to work on this SOME" then set a time for 30 minutes, and when it goes of 'put it away'. Then decide again tomorrow. You still have the weekly appointment dedicated with T to make sure it gets addressed.

Take care of you

i wish i knew tree i really do.a lot of people have given some great feedback that i hope helps.i just want to send love and hugs things will get better.i believe that

Too much of anything is not a good thing. Moderation is the key.

Clearly you are heavily invested in the relationship with your therapist, the emotions exchanged, and telling your story. The pain is real and it is a profound struggle, but it is not one that needs to be fought or felt everyday.

I know it may not seem like it, but it is possible to be happy while you are healing. Truly happy.

Sometimes it is so important to come out of ourselves, our families, our lives as we know them and stretch into something new.

Breathe in suffering and breathe out happiness.

I would perhaps suggest instead of reading the book you indicated, create something, transform something, give away something.

I know a lot of people claim that the only way out is through. I don't know if that is true or not. I really don't.

What if the only way out isn't out at all, but rather into?

peace

because into is one way, and the descent into the deep is not one way; through self preservation instinct if nothing else you fight & struggle to survive and the fight and the struggle make you stronger make you grow, and the battle only has to be fought once. Once may take a while, but when you grow past it, it's a healed place and you need not go there again the way you used to do. (and I said "if nothing else" but in fact there is a lot "else", such as T guidance for one thing)

does this make sense? e g I struggle desperately to understand that I have worth; something I grant naturally, easily, lovingly to others, but for myself I find none..... but T tells me that if I persevere, one day I will get there, and although I don't understand how to get there, I know somehow that when (if) I get there, I won't ever have to go back to where I am now, where I've always been. That part of "me" will have grown, will have healed.

Wow, no prizes for articulation today, SAWE.... just my two cents. Tree you have my love as always I have an additional comment but wanted to say this one separately

I think into yourself can be one way, but into your life is expansive. The struggle can not be who we are, but rather something we do.

Me too, and to you SAWE as well.

>>> I think into yourself can be one way, but into your life is expansive. The struggle can not be who we are, but rather something we do.

not to hijack this thread, but i felt the "into" under discussion was the descent into the dark ahd hurtful past, that Treehouse was talking about. sorry if I misread you.
Elliemay this is for you sounds like a good idea for a new thread

big question & I wouldn't be surprised if the solution didn't vary quite a bit from one client to another.

Personally when it comes to the big stuff I can't see T every week, I want to but I know I need more time to process or my fear of losing it in her presence will overcome my ability to work on it within myself.
I realized this week that she now understands that, I have noticed that the bigger questions seem to come around when she knows she's not going to see me for 2 wks. sneeeeeeeeky therapists.......

so that leaves me with 2 wks of trying to find the balance. I push it down A LOT; I run from it, frankly; when it insistently weighs on me I get angry; the times I am ready to wrestle with it seem to come when I couldn't possibly have time alone; so it does take the longer between-session time to finally come through it. By the time I see T again I (hopefully) bring with me some kind of insight, and a load of questions, and we pick up and go forward.

Somewhere along the line, I learned to compartmentalize the really hard stuff. I learned that I can choose to put it on a shelf and pull it out when I need/want to. I don't have to live in the thick of it ALL the time. I just couldn't spend my whole time feeling like I was drowning in it all. So, t worked with me on learning how to take it and place it high on a shelf out of sight when I want to. I know it is still there to get back to, but it allows me to continue functioning in and enjoying the rest of my life. There is a time and a place to deal with those issues, but all the time is not it. At least not for me. It was really empowering to discover that I DO have control over this; it doesn't have to have control over me. I've had enough of being controlled in my life; haven't you?

Over time, I've gotten to where I very rarely have any need to pull that stuff down off of that shelf. Sometimes it falls off the shelf when I'm not looking, but I know now that I can pick it up off the floor and put it back on the shelf as I need to for my own sanity and safety.

I wish I understood the answer, tree......but since I don't, the best I have to give are hugs!
I like what Chris said about compartmentalizing it.......being able to put it aside, put it away, or take it down when needed to work on it or when there is the proper time to do it. I would like to be able to do that. But right now, I feel stuck in the middle of things too and wonder how I will get myself unstuck and find the middle ground, the balance.......

Luckily, I am very very busy in my life. My three boys and their friends and my friends and my H and my mom (ack) and my 12 step groups fill up most of my time. I like being busy and being with others, because it does keep me out of my head, and that's good.

I think it's more the times like after the kids go to bed at night...when I'm kind of left with myself...that the "stuff" starts pushing at me and I wonder what to do with it. Or times like yesterday, when I had therapy and then had a weirdly empty schedule for the rest of the day.

I guess because I spent so many years not dealing with all of this, I want to face it and deal with it...I'm way too good at pushing it away. But I don't want it to overwhelm me either. I think maybe even a little bit overwhelms me right now, and maybe that's the problem. I mean, one of the few times I am alone is during the 10 minutes it takes me to drive to a meeting...and during those 10 minutes, my mind can drift to such awful, yucky places and totally throw off my equilibrium. I feel like I should be able to handle 10 minutes of down time, you know?

SAWE, I do think having a week between sessions while I am working on this is a good thing. It doesn't feel like it on the day of therapy...I feel like "oh my gosh, I just told this stuff to someone, I've opened it up, and now I'm ALONE with it" and it's so scary and awful. But as time goes by and I can put it away a little more, I'm glad to have those 7 days.

About being happy while we're going through this (elliemay )...that's something I've been thinking about a lot lately. I've been thinking about the fact that it happened, and it's PART of who I am, but I am so many other things. And I have been trying to notice happy moments...like we'll all be watching a show together and laughing and I'll narrate it to myself in my head "we're all watching a show together and laughing" so I am sure to "get" it.

I don't know if I'm making any sense. I'm not sure I'm making sense to myself!
to all of you. Thank you for helping me think this through.