How does a client's suicide affect their T?

Here, there are driving schools that will come out and pick you up for the practice and help you get to the test. Can you look for something like that locally?

I am already doing that. I'm hoping to get my license before returning to school... the problem is that I am quite inexperienced and nervous about driving. I figure that dumb 16 year olds could pass the test so as long as I know what is on it and I practice, I should be able to too.

I've passed the written portion 3 times btw (MI has you do that to get your permit and then I had to renew the test twice)

I know I keep focusing on the practical and that may not be what you are looking for. However, having been in such a similar situation, I remember how important it was that my T offered practical suggestions and help me create a plan for getting out of that situation and getting independent. I had a little bit of money saved up from babysitting and used it to make a small downpayment on a car and immediately started looking for a job. I found a job cleaning houses and actually made pretty decent money over the summers. When that place went out of business, I immediately found a job in retail. It didn't pay as well but it was enough for the apartment rent and my car payment and I got financial aid through my college and took out loans. Also, it turned out later that I qualified for public assistance.

I hope I'm not overwhelming you. I would just really like to see you create a plan. Just doing that will help you feel less helpless and trapped perhaps.

Im from MI , where are you located perhaps I can point you in the correct direction for assistance?

No. I do have a plan. The problem is that it might take too long to put into action. I get VERY good money for freelancing ($125 an hour- I love being 20 and capable of doing some skilled labor) but opportunities are very infrequent. I'm a little bit too young to really get established in music, but I could win my first real full time job with a steady income when I'm 22 or 25 or 30 or I may never win one. If I don't, that's actually okay because I can still live a very successful life as a professional freelance musician, but I have no idea how long it would take me to actually be able to live off of it let alone pay off any debt. I am fortunate enough to have won enough merit based scholarship to my school that my parents can pay for the rest without me taking out any loans.

Another thing is that I've never held a "real" job and I don't believe I can. My mom always told me that I'd never be able to hold down a real job because I'm so lazy and scattered. I don't know why I still believe her. Part of me wants to just wait it out and hope that I'll be one of the lucky ones that gets employed at 22... but I know that is totally unrealistic. I wish I could believe that I'd be capable of having a job outside of music.

I am sorry and angry that you have been taught that you cannot hold a job outside of music. I don't believe that and I wish that I could unteach you!

Haha thanks. I dunno what you'd believe if you saw how much of a mess I am.

It wouldn't matter.

How does it not matter? Don't you have to be a fairly put together person to hold a job?

I think Bill's response meant that seeing how much of a mess you think you are wouldn't change his feeling about wanting to help you and believing in you.

And trust me, nobody who's holding a job is nearly as sane as you think!

I agree with what Feralkittymom said.

Seriously? Have you never shopped retail or eaten fast food? What about calling someplace for telephone customer service? Come on! I have clients with IQs so low that they cannot live on their own who have jobs in retail or fast food. If you are going to a University and can live on your own there, you CAN do this if you try. Really.

I'm terrified of talking to strangers on telephones. But I guess you're right. Maybe I'm just lazy.

I don't think you're lazy. I think you have been systematically discouraged from this all your life, and then been blamed for the effects of that discouragement.

I think the best thing to do for our therapists is to quit therapy with them, give it time perhaps several weeks before the suicide so they will never know. They won't be contacted since we are not under their care and it does not happen under their "watch" so to speak.

At some point you need to evaluate whether the fear of failing and / or talking to strangers is worse than the pain of living with your mother. I doubt lazy would be a reason to stay in the situation you're in. It sounds more like learned helplessness. Which is totally fixable if you are willing to address it. You are not lazy, trapped, or any of the things you think you are. You are going to need to let go of the thoughts and behaviors that put you into that trapped helpless victim box inside your head.

How do I do that?

Well, I did it with my T's help because he picked up on that problem relatively quickly. He helped me brainstorm responses to my parents' various manipulations and attempts to control me. I gave you the example before of suggesting ways to respond to my parents' efforts to force to move to their house for the summer. My T had me start small and start building. Pick small tasks that ordinarily I would avoid because I didn't think I could do it. He encouraged me to just put in two applications for jobs, then two more, etc. So maybe you could start by asking your surgeon there for a referral to a surgeon in the Boston area, and finding the driving school to come to you.

Learned Helplessness « You Are Not So Smart
Learned Helplessness And The Road To Recovery | Spirituality and Self Help

There are other websites as well if these two are not helpful for you.

Thanks for the links.

I have been thinking about whether or not my problem is learned helplessness for a while now actually. I'm still not 100% convinced it is. I do things all the time to prepare myself for the future. I do have plans to escape this place even if they might take a little longer than I need them to, I work hard on my music, I actively reach out looking for music jobs regardless of my fear of telephones, I am quite proactive within the school looking for help both emotionally and academically.

I am currently in a situation that I am helpless to escape. However, this doesn't mean that I can't ever escape this situation or even that I have to be horribly depressed the entire time I am here. Granted, it's very difficult to not be horribly depressed because I am quite extroverted and I desperately need social interaction in order to feel whole inside. Social isolation is extremely damaging for me. I've contacted my old friends from high school to see if they wanted to get together, but I’ve gotten no response yet. I am still trying to contact them and I am still giving myself projects to do within the household to keep me busy. I set up five driving lessons for this week and I actually already took one. I’m hoping to take the test for the first time in 3-4 weeks.

I consider learned helplessness to be like my problem with obesity. When I was living here as a child, I developed binge eating disorder and I would eat attempt to fill the emptiness I felt inside with food. It was my primary coping mechanism and it was so out of hand that by the end of my freshman year of college, I needed to lose over half of my overall body weight to be healthy. I had completely given up on my ability to live a healthy, normal life. I didn’t believe I could ever lose the weight so I stopped trying. I started to accept that I was stuck living at that weight and I started to accept that I would probably never have a love life or live past 50 years old. But then, I realized that I don’t have to accept that. I didn’t exhaust all of my options yet. I told my doctor that I wanted to look into gastric bypass in order to literally save my life. It was really hard to give up all of my food and everything I used to self-medicate myself and to develop an exercise routine, but I’m sitting here today only 8 months out from surgery and down 70% of the weight I need to lose to be healthy. I definitely still have a long way to go not to mention maintaining it, but I don’t think someone with learned helplessness would do something like that.

Yes, I am in a situation right now where I am helpless. However, I’ve already been working on plans to make sure it doesn’t happen again. I am practicing a LOT and already working on festival audition material for next summer. There are places I can go for free that are much more competitive and much MUCH longer than where I went this summer. I could easily get out of this house for 10 weeks that way. If I can’t do that, I already know of a few places I could get a summer job in Boston as an excuse to stay in my apartment all summer. When I’m not in this house, I am free. I am not manipulated or controlled by my mom. You see, she doesn’t actually care about me. She just wants to control me so she can feel important so when I’m out of the house, she loses all interest in me. If I can limit coming back here to short periods of time just so I can see my doctors, I think it is worth it to not ruin myself financially.

Sorry for the long response. I think I definitely do have problems with social anxiety and low self-esteem, but I'm not sure if it is exactly learned helplessness. I dunno. I know I've been very mopey on here. Do you think that’s my problem?

That's the spirit!

I think we worried when you said that your mother said that.you are too lazy and scattered to have a job and you suggested that you believed her.

You need to keep reading your long post: it's the first time I've heard you stick up for yourself and see good in yourself. Keep that going and you'll be ok!

Well, at some level I do believe her. I just see myself losing important documents, putting my foot in my mouth during interviews or whatever people do to get "normal" jobs, sleeping in too late and getting fired for constantly being late, breaking plates and making a mess, getting annoyed with people/annoying people, etc. But at the same time, I know that isn't true. I am never late to rehearsal even when it is at odd hours of the morning, I never lose my music, I am fairly good at taking auditions, and people annoy me but I'm able to keep my cool. I guess the issue is that the idea of a "normal" job is so far out of my comfort zone that it scares me. I love hiding behind my instrument and not having to worry about coming off as likable or attractive or saying the right thing at the right moment.

I don't really understand myself to be honest. One minute I can write that and then a few hours later start questioning whether or not I can escape this place and wonder why I'm bothering to wait around and see. I guess I just objected to the word "helpless" and the word "victim" even though they honestly perfectly encapsulate how I feel a lot of the time. I guess I feel like if I honestly thought I was helpless, I wouldn't be trying to survive until September.

I think we all have self-doubts. The challenge is to not let them become the whole of our self-definition. It can be hard, especially when our mood is down, to not believe the worst about ourselves. Reminders that the doubts only represent one small part of ourselves can be helpful. Sometimes it can help to spend some time everyday rewriting lists of all the experiences we've had that counter those nagging doubts. It's so easy to forget them, otherwise.

Thank you.

I'm just so lonely I don't know how I'm going to do this. This room is absolute torture. I keep hearing footsteps and getting scared that they are going to hurt me again even when I'm home alone and fully aware that I'm big now and capable of fighting back. I hear my mom's voice screaming at me when I try to fall asleep. I feel like I'm going to implode and I don't know when it will happen or what it will entail. I just want to fast forward to September. This is killing me. Every second feels like a year.