How does a client's suicide affect their T?

Do you see sleep as a ceding of control?

I don't think so. I hate going to sleep because I know I'm going to just wake up the next morning just to wait until 9 or 10pm so I can be my own person again. That kinda makes the whole thing difficult.

Maybe that is the same thing.

You are okay going to sleep at school then. It's just that at home sleep means the end of being yourself (as much as that is possible at home) and the start of the most difficult times of day, of bad things happening to you and of not being yourself.

That's not entirely true. I will sleep better at school no doubt, but I always have problems sleeping. My reasons behind having problems will probably shift a little bit. I sometimes have nightmares and I wake up too afraid to fall back asleep. Sometimes, I wake up in the middle of the night to find myself literally crying. I'll lie awake thinking about how I need to make the most out of every moment before I inevitably get forced back here or graduate and I'll lie awake trying to rationalize and figure out what happened in my life.

So yes, being at home adds a huge incentive for me to become nocturnal and avoid the mornings like the plague. I really have no reason to wake up in the morning when I'm here. I have a reason to stay alive and continue to keep waking up despite how pointless and painful it is because I need to and will get out of here, but my day to day, hour to hour life in this house has no meaning beyond waiting. That won't be a factor at school, however my inability to fall asleep is more anxiety based to be honest. Once I feel safe again at school and make the transition back, I will probably sleep great until a month or so before facing coming back here again... provided that I don't start randomly having nightmares again.

Thank you very much for explaining how sleep functions for you.

This comment of your mother's has been on mind since you posted it. It has to be one of the most heartless, soul-crushing things that a mother could say to her child. It has been bringing tears to my eyes to think about it. I'm so sorry that you have to live with that terrible comment. You never deserved that and you don't deserve it now.

I know that the hurt you is not always an accurate representation of the true you. Still, I just want you to know that I am happy that you are alive and that you are you. Know that I always read your posts when I see them, and I attach great value to all of the aspects of you that I find there.

She didn't literally say that word for word. I told her when I was 17 that I thought I might be having problems with depression. She told me that I'm just bored and that I'm such a burden that she wishes she never had me. I started crying and she started to call the police because I was "unreasonable and unstable". I somehow got the phone away from her. So maybe she didn't say that per say, but it's really the same thing. She didn't say she regrets having children, she said she regrets having ME which only further solidified the idea that they wanted a child but not me. Plus she said something about checking my brother for birth defects before he was born (using some sort of chromosomal imagining I don't really understand) because if he was going to have some sort of serious condition they would abort him because they didn't want *another* problem child ruining their lives. She'd say "every time we had another child, we ran the risk of having another you". So I think saying she wishes she aborted me was heavily HEAVILY implied and I don't know what I could do to get her angry enough to say that verbatim, but I feel like having her find out about the extent of my psych issues would do it.

Thank you for caring about me so much. It really means a lot.

Yup, I should have taken the ativan yesterday and gotten some sleep. I always do something excessively stupid when I get this little sleep for so long and naturally, I took a bunch of drugs earlier hoping to fall asleep and totally forgot I was already on adderall and ended up not making good drug choices AT ALL. On top of that, I didn't remember not to mix multiple types of acetaminophens. I did fall asleep and I probably will fall asleep tonight. I think I'll be okay as I took them a while ago and I feel no side affects other than drowsiness and maybe some mild shallow breathing. The problem is that I have a doctors appointment tomorrow and I have to get a lot of blood work done and I don't know if narcotics will show up in the tests they are checking specifically, but if they do then I'm going to have a great time explaining this one.

I'm a complete disaster. My T is going to be really freaked out when I see her in two weeks.

The things your mom said--so awful. Has she ever been diagnosed with mental health issues? Or is she an addict? Don't get me wrong, I only care to read that you are ok, I have no empathy for parents who are horrible to their kids.

It just sounds like something is wrong with her--ever consider that you are the "healthy" one? That's not to say you don't need care, but she sounds disturbed. Your reactions seem like someone just trying to cope.

ps if you are going to your regular doctor, can you tell them about your difficulties? As long as you are not in danger, they won't commit you. But this is the opportunity to ask for short term help.

No. She actually doesn't drink or do any drugs at all. I don't believe she has ever seen a psychiatrist. However, I don't need any official diagnosis to know that she has mental health problems. I'm a musician, not a psychiatrist so I obviously don't have the ability to actually diagnose her, but I really suspect that she has a few things. First off, she has anxiety problems. She needs to control every aspect of her life and everyone else around her or she begins to completely panic. Second, I also highly HIGHLY suspect her to have NPD as in I'm about 99% confident in that. She is very charming to people when they first meet but behind closed doors has no true ability to empathize with anyone with this enormous god complex. I also sometimes wonder if she is an actual sociopath because if you read up on it, she has a lot of the traits. She used to tell me that I'm so fat that people laugh at me when I walk down the halls behind my back even if I can't hear them and whenever I play my music, all anyone can remember when I finish is that I look like a fat clown. She would make me take off my pants and stand on a scale in front of her every week and if I didn't lose weight, she would punish me and scream at me.

The best part about this is that she is a damn doctor who went to Harvard Med School. Trust me, she won't let anyone forget that. I probably hear about that every day and it only gets more and more shocking the more I think about it. How does she not know anything about psych stuff? She mocks her depressed, suicidal, and schizophrenic patients to me all the time and thinks it is okay because she doesn't use their names. She believes that depression is a choice and that people who want to kill themselves are just completely crazy. She refused to treat me for my ADHD and said that I was just lazy and undisciplined. She took me from psychiatrist to psychiatrist as a kid and got me tested over and over again, trying to find someone who would declare me "normal". She never could and she just attempted to treat me on her own by literally beating me into submission. She made me feel so ashamed for having this condition, it's surprising to me that I allowed myself to get treatment when I was 18. But she's all in favor of me being on adderall now because one of the side affects is appetite suppression.

I guess I am anonymous online so I can say this. She also used to write me prescriptions for different weight loss drugs. She wouldn't write for any controlled substances or psych drugs because she didn't want to risk getting caught, so she would just find people that would. She had these people put me on on this list of extremely serious weight loss drugs without even writing me a script for ursodial (which is a drug that prevents gallstones which is a serious risk when you a large amount of weight really fast). She completely jeopardized my health because she didn't want to be embarrassed when she took me in to see her friends. I was so overweight that I stopped having my period for two whole years when I was 15 and she had me lie to my doctors because she didn't want them putting me on birth control and gaining weight.

I don't know why I'm talking about this so much. Maybe the drugs loosened me up and this topic makes me go off on its own.

No. She follows me into my doctors appointments. She still does and I can't get rid of her or she'll threaten me. These are also my bariatric doctors. You see, even though she pressured me to lose weight, I also wanted to do it on my own for my overall health. I knew I'd have to do this surgery someday, so why would I do it in 5 years when I could just do it on her insurance and make her pay the $2000 copay? I learned how to take advantage of people from the absolute best.

I probably should have reported her for what she was doing with writing me prescriptions and completely manipulating people in order to get the prescriptions she wanted me to be on, but why would I do that when the only person she does that to is me and I don't want her to lose her job. I want that money. If she does that to my siblings though (which I don't think will happen) I do understand that I have to be responsible and turn her in. Before I go back to school however, I will be sure to dispose of all the adderall I have upstairs because she is not above giving it to my sister to help her cheat on the ACT. If anyone knows how I should properly get rid of that stuff, please tell me because I don't want to just have this massive amount of adderall of different, weaker strengths stockpiled up in my drawers and I also don't want it to wind up on the streets and help contribute to ruin someone's life.

Ugh, she's a dr too. I'm guessing that makes people "believe" her automatically. Didn't mean to grill you on any official dx, she just sounds so over-the-fence.

Totally don't blame you for using the insurance while you can. She hasn't offered much in the way of support, at least get the healthcare.

Too bad there isn't a way to contact the office in advance to let them know you do not want mom in the room and may need their help keeping her away. Say that you need privacy/confidentiality. It is so intrusive of her.

Good lord, I'm looking forward to hearing that you are out of that place. She sounds so ill.

I didn't feel grilled. I try to figure her out all of the time because I need to understand why she could just do all of that and feel absolutely no guilt. She has no concept of how her words affect other people. At the beginning of the summer, she asked me what happened to me that made me so fat. She asked me if anyone abused me because people don't just get as fat as I do without being abused. I didn't respond and she said with the exact same expression as if she were asking me to pass the potatoes she basically said in an extremely blunt fashion that she always suspected someone was SAing me. Really? REALLY? You're gonna ask that to me when I'm 19 years old? (I turned 20 like a month ago). But you've always been wondering that? I started struggling with my weight when I was 11 so you waited 8 years to investigate a suspicion like that? That was a thought that actually crossed her mind multiple times and she never asked me about it and continued to drop me off at my various different male trumpet teachers houses for an hour once a week. I was around several creepy men all the time at my high school. I spent hours after school with my creepy band director who by the way verbally abused me on top of my mom and OTHER PARENTS TOLD HER ABOUT IT AND SHE DID NOTHING TO HELP ME. And she was suspecting that maybe that happened too? Really? What if I actually was and you just said that to me so callously? What if that actually did happen to me and I developed BED in order to cope with those feelings and then 8 years later you tell me that you always suspected it and did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO PROTECT ME?

The sick thing is that I know she was secretly hoping I'd tell her that someone did that to me to that she could easily say that my psych issues aren't her fault. Guess what *****? Their your damn fault and you know it and you don't care.

I have absolutely no shame in using her for her money. If she wants to pay my entire school tuition plus pay for my rent, then she can go right ahead. She owes me for all of the **** she put me through anyway. I owe her absolutely nothing. I won't be driving her around when she's 80 years old like she expects me to. I won't be letting her meet my children if I ever decide that I want those. They won't come to my wedding if I ever find a man and decide to get married because I was never my dad's for him to give away. This relationship ends the second I can end it financially and I don't owe her a second of my time or an ounce of my love because she can't just buy me. She can certainly rent me, but she can't buy me. They say blood is thicker than water, but maple syrup is thicker than both and waffles have helped me emotionally far more than her sorry ***.

Sorry for ranting and sorry for switching pronouns around. I'm still a little bit intoxicated.

I always hated the expression "blood is thicker than water", so not true.

Just sorry that you are hurting but this is the most I've seen you write and that's a good thing. If you just want to sleep I won't be offended--you probably need some!!!

I write that much in my journal. I just haven't written that much here because I feel like I'm wasting people's time with my novels just complaining about my life.

I would sleep, but on top of the narcotics and anti depressants I took, I also took a lot of milk of magnesia for reasons I have absolutely no idea anymore. I think I did that when I was kinda wacked out...? But that was a bad idea too.

It needs to come out somewhere, right?? This isn't a bad place for it especially if it helps you practice what you might say to T.

For me anyways, it can be time consuming and painful to ruminate all the time on the past. Some is necessary to heal. But I know that doing the cbt stuff is making me realize I need to put in more time thinking and planning for what I DO want in my life. I'm not even sure if I know how to truly have fun these days but I'm working to get that back.

Not sure if you can relate, you are still very early in therapy and I have had lots. Maybe it could help to leave a space to think about what "can be"?? Continue to get out the pain as well. Hopefully pain will not always define you though.

I don't have a huge problem writing about that stuff to be honest. I do struggle talking about it in person, but it is also not nearly as difficult for me to talk about as the details of the physical abuse they put me through which my T does know about but I will not be writing on here for a multitude of reasons. She also terrorized me a lot as a child through other things she'd do and I have a hard time talking about that too. I guess the physical abuse scares me more to relieve than the emotional abuse. I try not to ruminate too much. I do when she does something or something else triggers it and I've been ruminating the past few days. I try to distract myself.

You have to remember that when I think about what "can be", I currently believe that I'll end up leaving Boston in two years and then going to grad school where I won't make friends, and then getting a low level music job and living alone in an apartment where I will take my own life at age 25 when I am so bitterly lonely there is no point in trying anymore and the people that care about me won't be as badly hurt. I think the most disturbing part about that plan is how at peace I feel with that. I don't have to worry about my future too much or worry that my pain will continue that much longer because I'm not currently planning on living until 26 right now. To be honest, I am fully aware of how not okay that is and how I need help to deal with these thoughts. But for the next two weeks, I'm going to just entertain that plan because it gives me so much peace to think about. Suicide isn't something I need to worry or obsess about for another five years and I also don't need to worry about this pain continuing on and on forever.

[EDIT] I wanted to clarify that I'll allow people to talk me out of that and I will tell my T about this because I ultimately don't actually want to die. I just want all of this pain to stop and I don't see another away. Putting a definite end to it in the future comforts me deeply and I put it five years out because I know I need to give life a real chance.

Thanks for clarifying. Do what you need to in the next two weeks.

Just hoping you can leave room for other possibilities

having a lucrative/satisfying musical career
having a close relationship/a family of your own
a tight circle of good friends
things that you love to do outside of music
mentoring others someday?

i'm sure you can be more imaginative than my list...just something to consider when you are ready

I'm fully intending on letting people talk me out of it. I can also intellectually understand that I probably won't feel this way in a few weeks anyway. That's why I'm not doing it tonight or tomorrow or even this year. I know I can't just do something that permeant when I haven't even lived life away from my parents. I owe it to myself and my friends and I guess you people on here to at least experience life without them before deciding to stop living altogether.

But my sui thoughts have been diminishing because I have made a decision about them. I feel so guilty for intending to do actually do this and yet so excited for the day I do. I also feel guilty for being excited about committing suicide

I want to stress again that I don't know if I actually will though. I probably actually won't to be honest. Five years is a long way away and my 20 year old brain right now in this condition probably doesn't actually understand a lot about the world and the concept of hope. I can admit that. I definitely do want other possibilities.

I'm responding again because I wanted to thank you for talking to me tonight and being so understanding of what I said. It really does mean a lot to me. Hopefully, I'll figure out how to decide to live past 25 like you did because I remember you saying that you used to feel the exact same way. I know talking to me is kinda like talking to a brick wall so thank you.

Thanks for this. I would hate for anyone to go through this. I don't expect to change your mind, maybe just plant the seed for better things?

No, not a brick wall but it does feel like talking to my younger self in some ways. I don't think I'd convince her either!

But you are doing well considering the craziness that you deal with. Good luck at the dr's.

I'm honestly not open to changing my mind until I'm back with my T, safe at school. If planning to commit suicide in five years is helping me feel at peace and less at risk of doing it right now and I'm going to talk with a professional about it, then I really don't see the harm in it or the harm in looking forward to it or even the harm in planning it out in my journal.

We are also talking about something so far off it doesn't really too much weight behind it no matter how strong my current intentions are. If I were saying I was going to do this in a month and I felt this happy and content with that, then it would be a little bit of a different story. My life has gotten so much easier and so much better since I made this decision.

However, once I am safe and not in this hell hole, I will entertain other ideas for sure.

To Growlithing, the survivor,

I was lucky to have loving parents but they died when I was young. I ended up living with a family that resented me and was emotionally and verbally abusive to me. They were also neglectful, refusing to get me help for a broken bone, not allowing me to bathe regularly, and other weird horrible things that I'm now in therapy about.

I was stuck in that house and dependent upon them until I was an adult.

I got a partial scholarship to university and moved out at age 18.

It was hard to be on my own financially but I needed to be for my own spirit to thrive.

My life has been wonderful. I've paid my own way and I've earned everything I have. I made wonderful friends and mentors and professors who helped me along the way. I've relied upon others to be my chosen family.

I can tell by reading your posts here that you connect with people and that you can love deeply and that you are passionate.

You have good times ahead -- laughter and love, travel and adventures! I've worked very hard to provide for myself and it has allowed me to see the world and to have an emotionally rewarding life.

It's not easy starting out at zero, or even negative 10, but you can do it. One thing I told myself in college was, "I am starting out at negative 10. People with good families are at zero. That means that I will work twice as hard and when we all graduate, they will be at five and I will have just made it to zero."

It's only now that I'm starting to have some self-compassion for what I went through and how hard I had to work to climb out of the emotional and financial deficit that I started with.

I also learned that nothing is ever free. Accepting money from family came with a heavy, heavy price. It is one that I'm not willing to pay because my freedom is worth so much more.

I'm in my 30s now with a good career, loving husband and a sweet child, whom I adore and whom I shower with snuggles and kisses.

It wasn't always easy and I still struggle. But it has been worth it and I feel like I can be a light to others - as you will be - because I have known pain.

You're gonna scale some mountaintop - literal or figurative - and breathe in deep and inner joy and know that you survived. I hope you have many moments like that.

Also, I love that you shared your depressive thought spiral!

"I currently believe that I'll end up leaving Boston in two years and then going to grad school where I won't make friends, and then getting a low level music job and living alone in an apartment where I will take my own life at age 25 when I am so bitterly lonely there is no point in trying anymore and the people that care about me won't be as badly hurt."

I have so done this and talked to myself like this!!

Here's what my depressive spiral sounds like, "And then I'll be living in some tenement and forced to sell my body for the drugs I have taken to numb my pain and my colicky child will be wailing and I will be contemplating how to escape my own life at which point a roach will crawl over my foot."

I’m sorry you went through that. That sounds so horrible. I’m also glad that your life turned out for the best. However, that doesn’t mean that mine will. I hate the phrase “it gets better” because the reality of the situation is that things don’t always get better. There are so many other horrible things that happen to people in life I haven’t experienced but could experience. If I managed to ever get a guy to like me back, it’s pretty likely it would be a horribly abusive relationship anyway. There’d have to be a reason that he would settle like that. There are so many possible outcomes for my life that I can’t just trust that my life will follow the same pattern as yours. However, life will get better for me though because it either will get better or I’ll just end it in five years. I don’t even particularly care what happens in regards to that right now. I wish I could know with 100% certainty how much worse my life will go so I don’t have to wait five years before finally breaking free of this.

I've lost nearly all of my hope for a happy life. I think that is abundantly apparent from my posts. I still have a tiny piece of it left and that is what will make me hold on for 12 more days. I am really worried that once I get back, I will need a lot of psych help for several weeks and that it will interfere with school. I think we can already tell right now that I'm going to be a piece of work for my T.

For me, those thoughts usually just slip away naturally when I am back in orchestra again because my life has meaning and value again. I will talk to my T about it regardless because the level of commitment and contentment I feel with this is high enough that I’m not sure I can just bank on it fading away on its own.

My doctor’s appointment today was also nearly a disaster. I know this will sound risky and unwise, but my doctor’s here don’t know anything about my mental health issues. I’ve completely covered up and lied about it to avoid my mom finding out about it. They know about my ADHD and that I was hospitalized for suicidal ideation two years ago, but beyond that they think I have completely recovered in that regard. Well, I had to get a shot today and they almost found a bunch of my SI scars… I managed to get them to give me the shot at another location but that was terrifying. I don’t think that would be completely surprising to my doctors because I imagine it wouldn’t be uncommon for girls my age with a weight issue like mine to have issues with SI but my mom was in the room and that was horrible.

I also don’t even feel like my lack of hope is illogical. I know FKM said that I probably have some sort of depressive disorder which could account for my inability to see that things probably will get better, but I really don’t believe they will. I mean, just consider my progress with my weight. I’ve lost a LOT of weight. I’ve lost as much weight as many women at a very healthy weight or even slightly overweight if they are short weigh. I’ve been very successful in that respect, and yet my body image hasn’t improved at all. If anything, it might have gotten worse because when I was at peak weight, I could always just say “well, I’m ugly because I’m so fat. If I lose the weight, I’ll be attractive”. Now I can’t say that as much anymore. This is just kinda how I’m going to end up looking. I’m still disgusting and I still get triggered to SI every time I look in a mirror. I’ve never once felt beautiful or attractive or desirable even for just a few minutes and I doubt I ever will at this point. I hate myself as much as I did when I made the decision to lose the weight and next year when I am a healthy weight, I’ll probably still feel the same way.