How does a client's suicide affect their T?

I don't think there's anything wrong with finding it easier to talk to strangers online than real-life people who know you, I feel exactly the same. If there weren't a lot of people like that then online support forums wouldn't exist!

I think it may well translate. And people here can help you with ways to communicate with your T. I know some people print off their posts to show them. For me it started with writing - well actually before that it started with being honest with myself. My first aim was "I can lie T, but I won't lie to myself anymore." Then "I'll write about stuff, but with as many disclaimers and minimising adjectives as I need". Then "I'll talk to him, but make him close his eyes and face the other way while I do it."

So I think all this time getting your thoughts and feelings laid out in writing is very positive work.

I hope so. I haven't decided if I'll give her some of the stuff I've wrote here or if I'll write it out again. I know I'm not at a place where I can talk about it out loud at all yet. I feel like at this point, I need to just tell her where I am and where I was all summer. She gave me a journal. I have a lot of thoughts written in there. I don't know if I could have opened up online without first opening up in there. The problem is that I haven't seen her in 99 days and it is a LOT of material to work through and I still have 19 days of writing until I see her left. I have no idea where to start.

I feel like this time would go by so much easier if I could actually sleep. It's almost 5 in the morning and I've been up for almost 20 consecutive hours yet again. I feel like when I get back to school, I'm going to need like a few weeks of doing nothing just to get myself calmed down and caught up on sleep. But I never get that luxury. 15 days can't pass fast enough.

I ruin everything. I was just hiding in my room doing whatever and I heard footsteps upstairs. I panicked and immediately started eating stuff. I don't even remember how much I ate, I know that I feel sick right now and I deserve it. I deserve everything I got in life because when it comes down to it, I have no self control the second anything gets hard.

I hate how many times I use the word "I" in my posts. It's so selfish of me to waste my time talking about myself so much especially when I'm subjecting people to read it. I don't even know why I'm posting this here. I don't know why I'm bringing up this thread again that has probably long since been annoying everyone. I need to stop saying "I this" or "I that". There are clearly plenty of people out there that are more important than me.

I don't know why I'm posting this. I guess I'm just really lonely and I feel like the people on this thread are at least a little bit interested in my life even though I sound like a completely crazy, emotionally unstable wreck. I think twice about posting in this forum because I feel like I'm probably this complete hot *** mess disaster in the eyes of the other people on here. I'm so lonely all the damn time and my T has this wonderful habit of never being there when I need her. Where is she now? Who knows? Who cares. Not her and not me. Not anyone. She wants to say I can trust her and rely on her and depend on her to support me but she is only available to me at 3pm Tues and Thurs during the school year? How can she expect me to rely on her? I don't need her at 3pm on a Tues in October. I need her at 2am on a Sunday in August.

I'm awake and listening because you do matter. I think that a lot of people here can relate either currently or in their own pasts or both. You don't sound like a mess externally--you sound pretty accomplished and you have achieved so much even if you don't factor in the hell you grew up in. The internal stuff can be fixed, just get through these next 2 weeks.

One binge is a temporary setback. Just do what you can to get through.

I'm sorry if I'm making it sound easy--I know it isn't. Even though my life has improved vastly, i'm still working on getting that inner critic to shut up (really just my parents' attitudes internalized)

With a bit of therapeutic work, more encouraging and loving thoughts will replace the inner critic who puts you down. Anything you can do to "fight back" against those automatic thoughts can help. Like telling the critic that it is one binge and it won't ruin your weight for life so go stuff it.

Feel free to post. I don't know if this is helpful to you but I'm happy to try.

I came across this and sometimes wonder if my cbt guy is also doing this kind of therapy w/me--compassionate mind training

https://webspace.utexas.edu/neffk/pu...rt.Procter.pdf

a way to combat self criticism

ok the typography looks like is was designed by an eight year old (who uses comic sans-ugh!) BUT it seems like a nice little free booklet on cmt exercises

http://www.compassionatemind.co.uk/d...nt_handout.pdf

The above it a lot to read, I know. A good place to start is to think back when someone said something kind to you, and try to replay it in your mind over and over. Or to imagine someone you care about trying to make you feel better. A fantasy can trick the brain into a better state of mind, although using real events carries more punch.

Wow thank you for the support and the links.

I'm trying to comfort myself in a constructive way. I just can't seem to calm down. I just want to eat more and I don't know why I can't get myself to stop wanting that. I don't actually want food. I just want to feel okay inside and it is the only thing I know how to do other than Su when I get so frustrated with myself and my life. Everything I wrote up there was complete crap and I should know better than to say the **** that I did about my T not caring. This is not her fault and I can't seem to get myself to accept that. I understand that this isn't what she wanted. She does care about me and she would be here if I could. I don't have the right to be upset with her and I actually don't think I am. I'm just so frustrated with my life right now and I'm putting it on her.

I've been cooped up in this house around these people for weeks and I can't take it anymore. I'm losing my mind. Everything agitates me. The telephone rings and I'm so irritated, I want to either smash it into pieces or jump out the window so I never have to hear it again. I hear footsteps and I freeze in place because I'm too stupid to actually recognize that I'm not 7 years old anymore. If she actually tried to hurt me, I could beat the ******* **** out of her before she so much as put a mark on me. I could do that. I'm for whatever stupid reason unable to recognize that and I'm just paralyzed with fear at the sound of damn footsteps. I don't even care if I have some sort of anxiety issue that explains my lack of rational thought, I should know better by now.

I constantly try to imagine people I care about comfort me but it makes me feel weird. I shouldn't be so obsessed with people and need their comfort. I flip it around and imagine talking to them about their life because my life is absolutely meaningless if I'm not helping someone out.

Maybe I would be better off if I could actually manage to get more than 4 hours of sleep every night. I've gotten 10 hours of sleep in the past 3 days and if I don't figure out how to fix this problem soon, I'm going to end up doing something stupid. I don't mean that in a suicidal way. I mean that in a sleep deprivation is a psychological nightmare for me AND MY WIFI IS SO DAMN SLOW DOWN HERE IN THIS ******* PRISON I WANT TO BEAT MY ROUTER WITH A CLUB.

Okay. I'm calm again. This frustrated rage is basically my life right now plus a lot more profanity and graphic imagery. I can't handle being trapped here. I am going completely insane. I feel like a rabid dog in a cage and I don't really understand why.

Why don't I have a mom I can run to when I'm feeling so scared and alone like this? Why can't I have a mom who would hug me while I cry and tell me that everything will be okay and I'm safe? Why can't I have that? Is that really too much to ask?

I guess so because I'm 20 years old and my replacement mother figure I had when I was 12 died two years ago of cancer. She was barely even 40. I'm not going to ever have a real mother like the ones I read about in books or heard the other girls talk about. I'm not going to get that relationship from anyone and I need to stop crying about it. It's just the way things are and always have been. I need to get over it already and grow up.

I'll shut up now.

You can get the essence of that relationship elsewhere. So many people in the world to get to know and bond with. Not at the moment and it hurts but mothering can come from many places. I'm sorry you lost the one person who came closest.

What you need is out there, it will just take time.

Sleep really will help. I get angry/irritable without it!!

Meditation used to strike me as being really a hippie holdover and kind of dorky, but as I get older, this stuff really does help. A simple exercise is when all of these thoughts crowd in, let them come, don't stop them, but then let them pass by. Trying to keep a "blank" mind is a lot harder than it sounds but it is a useful exercise to calm down.

Sometimes being in a dark room with only a candle flame can help you focus and "go blank". It really is just for times like this where you just don't want negative thoughts to amplify and amplify. A short term measure but useful.

Leave room for hope if you can.

I'm really sorry that you have not had a mother to love, cherish, and protect you, and that you lost in your childhood the person who was closest to being that mother. It must have been a crushing blow.

No, it is not too much to ask.

I am glad that you were able to speak your mind here. You are posting appropriate things and an appropriate amount.

I know I need sleep. Badly. I'm trying to work on it.

Meditation is good. I've actually tried it multiple times before. The problem with it is that me ADHD makes clearing my minx almost impossible. But I know that meditation sometimes sleeps ADHD patients. I should keep trying it even though it is hard.

Thank you. I haven't totally figured out how to mourn that loss. I just block it out as best I can.

It's 5:45 in the morning again and I'm still waiting to fall asleep. The problem is that whenever I try, I think about how dependant I am on other people and the internet because I can't seem to stabilize myself. I realize how much of an empty person I am and I just wallow in self hatred all night and revisit every single thing that happened to me as a kid and try to figure out what is wrong with my parents or me.

The weird thing is that I'm actually not having as many sui thoughts/urges anymore. They certainly aren't gone completely, but they certainly have been starting to fade as I get closer and closer to getting out of here. Surviving this mess and coming out on the other side is starting to become more than just this abstract idea in the far off future. Hell, I'm seeing my T in two weeks from today and I'm trying to see if I can make it without self harming again before then. I'm not sure I can make it, but at least I'm trying again.

And yet I can't fall asleep at night. I just lie awake, wishing my mom aborted me like she told me she wishes she did.

Growlithing, it's okay to need other people.

I'm glad that getting out of there is starting to feel closer.

Is there anything you need from us right now?

I don't even know what I need. No that's a lie. I mostly need someone to help me feel less isolated. I spend most of my time just watching my phone, hoping someone will contact me or at least text me back.

I also wish I could have someone just tell me what really happened to me. I don't mean that like I question that what I remember happened. I know it did and that's never been the problem. I still have trouble defining it as abuse or just normal punishment. No one I've ever talked to about it has ever had a problem classifying it as abuse. To them, it's easy. But for some stupid reason, I can't accept that and I just feel like I'm probably lying or exaggerating what I remember for sympathy even though I know that's not the case. That is what my mom tells me I do. That's not reality and I know that, but I still don't accept that 100% of the time. And when I don't accept it and I start questioning what they did really was, I start making excuses for her and I see her as this mother who tried really hard and just didn't know how to properly handle a kid with severe ADHD. But other times, I find myself wanting to completely sabotage my mother and hating her on every single level imaginable with this unquenchable firey rage. I can logically understand that my emotions towards her and the fact that she was an overwhelmed mom don't have to be mutually exclusive but at the same time, I feel like I constantly need to validate myself for the pain I go through. The part of me that empathizes with her makes me feel like I have no right to feel the way I do about her. It's so confusing that sometimes, I wish she were a horrible, conniving **** to me all of the time so I don't have to play these stupid games. Or I'll wish that she just pushed me down the stairs or did something, anything that would have left serious enough marks that maybe someone could have noticed and saved me. Then, maybe I'd feel like I'd be justified in being the crazy person I am.

Why can't she be as easy as my dad to figure out? My dad doesn't like me, doesn't want me, never did, never will, and he behaves in accordance to that. I don't have to be afraid of him because I know he's not going to come home one day from work and love me and then the next day blame me for the failing economy while screaming at me. He didn't care about me yesterday, he doesn't care about me today, and he won't care about me tomorrow.

I'm sorry.

It's now 7:15. I can hear her walking around upstairs and now there is no way I'll be getting any sleep.

It has been way too long since I've seen my pdoc. All of this would not be a problem if I had more ativan than 10mg for the entire summer. I could use it as a quick fix to get me sleeping again and still have enough left over in case of an emotional emergency. I don't want to be awake anymore.

It's so hard when you are isolated, and other people are just getting on with their own lives. Even harder if you have core beliefs about yourself and others that make it scary to reach out to them. I try, as part of my self-care, to regularly phone a friend; I do it on my mobile, then go for a long walk while talking, which is good for exercise and for getting out of the house. I find single people are the most receptive to long phone chats. Conversations seem a lot more emotionally satisfying than texts, even if I don't talk about what's wrong.

I hear you. It doesn't help much, but all of those feelings are a really natural response to what you've been through. I'm struggling with very similar issues at the moment, though my parents seem less bad than yours. I feel like "if my parents were as horrible as growlithing's, well then it would definitely be abuse and i'd definitely deserve sympathy". But the human mind doesn't work like that. However bad things were, there's still that impulse to minimise and question yourself, because it's a survival instinct, evolutionarily it's safer for the child to attach to their parent than to reject their parent, even if the child needs to twist their whole worldview to make that happen.

Regarding sleep, I hope this doesn't come across as patronising because I know how awful sleep problems are, and obviously by far the biggest problem is your family and where you are right now. But when you're sleep deprived, it's hard to remember that there are other factors that could help too. Could you try to prioritise doing these things each day?

Exercise. Tonnes. (unless there's a physical/ psychological reason not to).

Try to spend most your time outdoors, so your brain can adjust to the day-night cycle.

Download something like flux for your computer - it makes the screen change color at night, so that the bright colors don't stimulate your brain.

Sleep hygiene usually recommends using your bedroom only for sleeping, so your mind has a 'sleep place'. I'm guessing that's pretty impossible for you right now, but perhaps at least try to keep one area of your room for sleep, or rearrange your bed so that in the day-time you're sitting in a totally different position from the way you would be sleeping.

Find relaxing activities (preferably not on the computer) that you can do before going to bed. Maybe a very gentle book.

Download relaxing mood music and guided meditations from the web, for when you're trying to get to sleep but your mind's going round and round.

Totally agree with Tarra-- exercise and daylight will help reset your system. You don't want to go back to school totally depleted.

Sleep hygeine isn't trivial--it can have a huge impact on your mood. Everyone here wants to see you do well and rest up so you can make the most out of school and seeing your T again.

Thank you. It actually really does help. What you said makes sense. I just wish I could believe it all of the time. It would be so much easier to handle if I could believe that all the time and stop harassing myself. Then again, my entire life would be so much easier if I knew how to stop harassing myself but idea of "loving myself" sounds so bizarre. How do you love someone that isn't someone else? Like what does that even look like?

Talking on the phone does make me feel better... the problem is I'm scared of doing that. I have a hard time trusting people's words and I want to see their body language in order to feel comfortable or fill the silences. I'm constantly afraid of talking about anything outloud to my friends because I'm constantly worried that someone will hear me. Even if I'm not talking about my feelings or problems, the person I am in this house where my parents can see me is a total act. I'm also afraid of talking on the phone where strangers can hear me. I dunno. I need to get over that.

Thanks for the sleeping advice. The problem is that I hate doing anything different. I'll show you...

Psychological reasons for not exercising - I hate moving haha I'm kidding. I do exercise. It doesn't help me sleep.

I hate outdoors. The wifi is terrible and people are out there.

I can try that screen thing. That seems simple enough.

Yeah I hide in my room for over 9 hours a day in order to escape my family. There is no way I can only use my room or rearrange it for sleeping.

Reading is difficult for me. I find myself always trying to read in between the lines or starting in the middle of the paragraph and then reading up. Or I'll be so distracted by the size and shape of the paragraph that I can't notice the words. I don't know what is wrong with me that I do that. I didn't always do that. But I need the computer because I need to hear human voices 24/7 or I get really really lonely.

I've tired that. It makes me feel pathetic and or/creeped out. White noise helps.

I know I'm being really stubborn and obnoxious. I figured I'd share my reasoning because I don't know why I am so stubborn and I wish someone could tell me why. I actually think it might be a control issue. I can't control anything about my life during the day so I control every aspect of my alone time so I feel like I have some power. I think that would make the most sense. But I don't know how to fix that or let it go so I can sleep at night either.