T transitioning to "life coach" and more mommy issues

Literally why did this post 4000 times? Ugh

I don't care. I'm just going through life, hoping I refind some worth and meaning again. This isn't a result of my care being scattered. This is a result of remembering some trauma I've been aggressively trying to avoid.

Having them all through one clinic unfortunately isn't going to happen. Just finding a DBT group that costs less than 50k a month took LCM and I nearly two months. Restructuring my entire treatment would be actually impossible. I can be honest with all of them except for probably my pdoc and maybe the DBT guy. I find myself unable to be totally honest with men about my mental health out of fear, but what can I do? They don't need to know much anyway. I just go to DBT for the skills or whatever and go to pdoc for medication.

They all have limits for how much they can help. Everyone does because there is really nothing any of them can do. I'll just continue walking through life as a ghost until I either die or just get over it. It doesn't even matter to me. Life is just not that important or serious. It's just a damn sick joke that I unfortunately have to continually experience.

I don't know if I can make it through the next semester. I don't think that I won't. But hell, I could wake up tomorrow morning and get hit by a bus for all I know. Life is unpredictable and hopefully short.

How will she know whether or not she is interfering with the other stuff if she will not speak to trauma T?

"Completely separate" is not appropriate when there may be a need for trauma T to discuss and/or guide what LCM is doing.

I'm sorry.

Since you can trace these feelings back to trauma, I hope that you will talk about them with your trauma T.

Right now I guess I'm glad that LCM T is available because in some ways she seems the most stable influence involved. I'm confused why your school T's supervisor is involved at all? Is the trauma T connected with your school? Somehow I thought she was in private practice, but not sure why I thought that. I understand that your school wants to be informed to some degree, but usually that means just knowing that you are fulfilling a treatment plan, rather than involvement in it. Legally, there's a lot going on right now regarding some very unclear federal guidelines regarding psychological care and liability for colleges and universities, so I understand they need some accountability.

But I agree with Shezbut that a unified approach would support you more confidently. Normally, the trauma T would be the central support because working through trauma is the most encompassing therapy; and LCM T would be a practical skills support person. DBT seems like it can be sort of stand alone work. A pdoc integrated into your therapy would be ideal, but I know a lot practice purely medically.

Your moods swing a lot, so I wouldn't get too caught up with predictions based on your current feelings. You've been through a bunch of difficult transitions recently, and that's bound to result in a self-protective numbing. I think LCM T can help keep you afloat through the moods. It's also possible that some of the deadened feelings are the result of meds. Try to just deal with each day as it comes. Start with some decent nutritional support. You don't have to plan and prepare meals--just buy some healthy foods at the closest place you can shop--yogurt, fruit, cereal, milk, energy bars sort of stuff-- they're also easily digestible foods.

When do classes start? I hope you'll find that a routine helps you.

I consider your "actual T" to be anyone who's actually trained and designated as your T. The woman you keep talking about (who I see we are now calling LCM T!) is your case manager and possible future life coach - she's not your T (although just calling them all T is sooo much easier on this site!).

I guess it would probably be your pdoc and trauma T that I would be thinking of - have you told them about the huge attachment you've formed? I think that they need to know about it and to the full extent.

Like someone else said above - I think that LCM T should really be in close contact with the trauma T - because the trauma that you experience growing up is related so very very closely with all of the behaviours that LCM T would be helping you with. The trauma you went through is also why you have formed such a huge bond with LCM T - because you are trying to replace the mother that you had because she was a horrible mother.

She might not want to talk to you about trauma and that's fine and fair - save talking about it with your trauma T. But your trauma T should be aware of how things are going and your LCM T should be made aware of the impact that she is having on you - and not just through your perspective (because our own perspectives are often so different from others perspectives of us!).

This LCM T should defer to the other practitioners you have, for lack of a better term. I like many other posters, think you should be under the care of a good psychiatrist and a good T. Too many can become very confusing. There should be one in charge and ideally any other would work very closely with them. Like its been said also, you are showing different things to each T, and to us on this forum. It doesn't appear that any one person is getting a clear picture of your psychological state, which right now does not look good. And Im sorry if youve already been asked this and I missed the answer, but why are you not seeing a psychiatrist?

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Classes start Monday but my schedule is a huge mess right now.

Trauma T is not connected to my school beyond the fact that they have communicated briefly. LCM would be willing to talk to trauma T. They just haven't found it necessary so far. LCM just wants to know what we are working on and is going to steer clear. She knows what happened to me but she said she doesn't want to do any processing work when I already have a trauma T.

I have problems with food and I'm not eating very well and it's really difficult for me to fix that. I know this isn't caused by meds because I'm not really taking the ones that make me feel flat. I haven't taken them since I've been able to monitor my own meds so the timeline doesn't line up.

LCM T is aware of what happened. She understands why I'm doing what I'm doing and is a very interesting resource actually considering that she is a psychoanalyst.

LCM T actually has had heard outside perspectives on how it is affecting me. When I was at this residential program, there were several Ts and lots of interns running around. Obviously, my favorite was LCM T and she was mine, but there was another T that I would talk to quite frequently as well. She stood in for LCM T when she went on a vacation for a week. Let's call her sub T haha. But when I was having issues with LCM T, I would frequently whine and cry about it to sub T. She saw me bawling my eyes out, completely heartbroken by the way LCM T would be "mom" one day and then wouldn't be the next day and I couldn't get her to talk to me about it. Sub T then confronted LCM T about it and got her to really understand that this is a huge issue for me and needed to be addressed. LCM T did talk to me about it as well. So it's not like she's in a complete vacuum here because on top of that, I worked with all of the Ts on staff to an extent and I know they all communicated a lot.

Also, I did attach to sub T but in a very friendly way and not unhealthy. Sub T is younger and we accidentally discovered we had a lot of shared interests one Sunday morning when she was desperately trying to get me to socialize with people. I saw sub T when I saw LCM T two days ago. Not at all in an official way. I sat outside the office with her and laughed about stuff for about 10 mins.

I wasn't asking what LCM T knew - you've misread my question.

How much does your trauma T know about the attachment you have to your LCM T? That is what I have been asking. Does your trauma T know that you view your LCM T as a new mom? Does your trauma T think that it's a health choice for you to have your LCM T continue as your life coach when you already view her as your new/substitute mom?

Your Trauma T doesn't feel the need to talk to your coach because she doesn't know the extent of your relationship. From your posts here it doesn't seem that the trauma t is aware that you view your life coach really as your new mom.

You say your LCM T has all this experience and training and was once licensed. That she is even a psychoanalyst. And I know that life coaches per se don't need to be licensed, but with what your LCM T is doing with you and the affect she is having on you, I find that very suspect. Professionals who need one always keep their licensing current unless they have had it taken away or stop practicing altogether. But even the Social Worker I know who hasn't practiced in 3 years in order to stay home with her kids still has a current license. Maybe it's a Massachusetts thing, but it's a little concerning to me what people can get away with by using the term "life coach" but then still practicing some kind of therapy. Essentially she seems to have some sort of control over you and your life but isn't being held accountable for it.

I am seeing a psychiatrist. I just don't see him on a regular basis and I don't actually use him for anything but meds. I don't talk about my life with him or my problems at all. He tries to get me to talk to him, but I get really uncomfortable and just lie/don't disclose. So he just writes prescriptions. The meds were chosen for me by my psychiatrist in the hospital. She was very involved and knew my situation at the time quite well (things have obviously changed a little but not diagnostically)

I talk about it every time I see her. She asks me about it if I don't bring it up. When we talked about the idea of her being a life coach last Thursday, she said she thinks it could either go wonderfully or really badly. She thinks that a life coach acts is more of a motherly position than a therapist and because of that, it could potentially increase my attachment, making me view her even more like a mother. However, because she was already acting in a way similar to a life coach with me AND I was seeing her for 8 hours every day for 10 weeks, trauma T doubts that it will increase the mother feelings because it would be confined to 50 mins once a week at max. She thinks it could potentially be a very healthy, natural progression that mimics transitions made in real life parenting so long as both LCM T and I are comfortable with the boundaries which she said it seems like we both are. The alternative to having LCM T as a life coach would be to not see her at all and trauma T has never suggested doing that. She didn't say to stay with her either. It's been assumed that we would continue working together.

Personally, I don't think that stopping seeing her would be a good idea at this point. No one is going to be comfortable when I say this, but probably 80% of the reason I haven't relapsed into self harm is because I don't want to upset her/risk loosing her. I'll explain. When we originally started working together, the hospital told me that if I hurt myself again, I would be expelled from the program and forced to go live back with my parents or be homeless. I believe that the hospital genuinely believed that... however I won't say that my psychiatrist wasn't a major drama queen because she relished in using over dramatic language lol. But that was the impression I had upon meeting her. I asked her if that was true, and she didn't want to challenge that because she didn't want to say it was okay to self harm. I got the impression later on that if I self harmed once or twice, it would be a "behavior issue" and I would be put on a tighter rope. I probably wouldn't have been full out expelled unless it got out of hand again to the point where I needed to be constantly watched. But I was so scared of risking going back to my parents, that I never tried to test the system. Eventually, I moved away from being afraid of being send back and more towards being afraid LCM T would see me as a "liability" and couldn't work with me outpatient, and then finally to just wanting to make her proud/not upset her. Right now, whenever I have an urge to SI, I remember that it might make me lose my ability to see LCM T so I just sit with it and wait for the urge to pass.

I'm not saying that if I lost her, I would start self harming again. I don't like how that sounds and it's not completely true. It's more like if I couldn't work with her anymore, I might loose incentive to resist falling to my urges because I'm not refraining from self harm for myself at this point. The only reasons anyone has given to me for why I shouldn't self harm is that it 1) continues the cycle of abuse and 2) is socially unacceptable. While those are both good reasons not to self harm, the consequences don't out weigh the positives for me while losing LCM T is a consequence that does outweigh the relief I get from self harm.

I don't know if I've really told anyone about how she is kinda the only reason I'm not hurting myself right now. I haven't really told LCM T the full extent of it because I don't want her to feel *that* responsible and I don't want to sound like I'm trying to manipulate her into continuing to work with me. I haven't told trauma T about that either. Maybe I should.

I don't know if she was ever actually licensed. I assumed that she was and it expired. I know she has all the training to be licensed. I don't know why she isn't. I don't feel like she is just taking my life on a joy ride though.

My trouble with trauma T is the side of myself that she sees isn't raw. It's genuine to an extent, but there is no way she could possibly know the full extent of what I am feeling because when I am with her, I just report things. She commented last time that I intellectualize everything. Which is true. I do that, but it isn't my natural reaction. I feel things emotionally and then intellectualize stuff to get rid of the emotions. LCM T can see that because I've worked with her so much that she has experienced my natural response to things. But by the time I see trauma T, that is gone. I will tell her something like "I'm experiencing intense maternal transference with LCM T to the point where I literally see her as my mother" but it won't ever be more emotional than that.

Growli, I don't really see a problem with your feeling connection to LCM providing you the strength to not self harm. There's nothing wrong with that kind of borrowing of ego strength while you're in the process of building yourself up. When I was at my lowest point and suicidal, it felt to me that the only thing keeping me from acting on those urges was my connection to my T and my knowledge of how it would hurt him if I succumbed. As I grew stronger, the urges faded, and I had more strengths of my own to rely upon. It's a process.

My only concern would be if this attachment to LCM actually prevents you from developing a relationship with trauma T. Intellectualizing is a defense and a protection and perfectly understandable. But I think your emotions will eventually need to come into play in your work with trauma T in order to truly heal. And as you grow developmentally into both relationships, that may naturally happen. But in the short term, I suspect your bonding may only be to one person at a time--and it's obvious that right now, it's LCM. I do think you should be as open as you can be about that relationship as you meet with trauma T. And at least be open to the possibility of confiding in trauma T as feelings come up.

I get that eating is a problem, but as my T told me when I faced similar issues, all the psychotherapy and Rxs in the world wouldn't do any good if I didn't take basic care of myself. So although I went through a period when I didn't want to eat, was repulsed by many foods, and wasn't taking in nearly enough calories (a very different experience for someone who struggled with overweight all my life), I did find certain healthy foods I could manage to at least get the best nutrition possible under the circumstances. It's important for you to find those options. Ask LCM to help you with this.

This is probably a dumb question, but why is it important that I attach to trauma T at all? We aren't working on our relationship. We're processing trauma.

The only foods I eat are literally cheese, red meat, and minimal bread products. And it gets even more specific than just that because of course I only want certain types of cheese and certain brands of said type. I am not able to really talk about what I eat more specifically than that, I've never been able to keep a food journal because I can't admit to myself what I'm eating, and I almost took a shower today. By almost took a shower today, I mean that I went into the bathroom, turned on the shower, and then turned it off because I didn't want to take off my clothes. Plus, I'm not sure I've washed my towels since September and they smell really bad and I for whatever stupid reason can't manage to get my lazy *** to take my laundry literally 500 feet and wash them. I wouldn't even need to sit there with it. And it's not like I'm doing anything important that prohibits me from running my laundry. I'm just lying in bed on the computer but god forbid I walk away from that to actually do something constructive.

This is the cycle I'm in. I don't care enough about myself to do anything to take care of myself and then I just hate myself for being so disgusting, fat, and lazy. But if I were to actually do it, I wouldn't be able to congratulate myself because it's ******* disgusting that I haven't washed my towels in four months even though I've only been using them for like maybe a month and a half of that time. I'd be like "should have done that years ago" so what even is the point

Just so you know--inability to take basic care of yourself can be a reason for hospitalization (and your school will notice lack of self care). I don't think you want that logically, but there may be a deeper desire for it, too. When do you see LCM? You need to tell her these things so that she can help you find ways to cope.

I had a student once when I taught at a vocational/technical college that we had to make an agreement with the on campus counselor that he could not come to class unless he brushed his teeth--otherwise, weeks would pass and he'd never brush them. Connecting what he saw as a privilege to an act he didn't care about was what was necessary to change his behavior. It sounds like you get trapped in a "thought paralysis" thing: why shower if the towels are dirty? But the idea of washing the towels feels overwhelming, so you're stuck. The answer is to break the cycle with an action--but overcoming the inertia is a lot easier said than done.

Are these new food restrictions? I used to go for months repulsed by certain foods--literally it would feel as if my throat closed at the thought of them--so had to find foods that I could eat without feeling like I was eating. For instance, I could snack on dry cereal, a little at a time, but I couldn't eat a bowl of cereal with milk. Those little "Laughing Cow" cheese cubes were one of the foods I could eat, but I could never have eaten a hard cheddar. Textures seemed really crucial for me. Meat was a total no go. I even found I could eat some baby foods because of the texture and quantity. It's all about finding what allows you to eat certain foods and finding other foods with similar characteristics. Please open up about this to LCM.

ETA: I forgot about your question. I don't think it's necessary to attach to trauma T. "Attachment" has such a specific definition and connotation. (I shouldn't have used that word earlier). It's just that trauma is deep work and takes you into emotional territory that requires a lot of trust. I don't know how to have the trust without having a relationship.

I DON'T KNOW WHEN I SEE LCM AGAIN AND IT'S KILLING ME. She said it'll be a little while but she wants to stay in touch while we work out stuff.

School didn't notice lack of self care in the past. I don't ever remember to brush my teeth either. There probably were a few months that I didn't. Somehow, I've never gotten a cavity (knock on wood). I don't smell either. Maybe a slight smell of dirty laundry. They wouldn't notice. Except they did notice last May when I forgot to drink anything for a few days and almost passed out during rehearsal. They sent me to the hospital then to get an IV. All the nurses in the ER thought I was crazy.

Or it's more than that. Running laundry is annoying so I put it off. I hate showering because some of trauma is indirectly connected to bathing plus I hate taking off my clothes and seeing my naked body. So by not cleaning my towels, I give myself an excuse to not shower.

Nope. Not a new thing. I've always been like this. I think it's probably because food was the only thing I could control as a kid, I associated food with freedom as my parents would lock me in my room for over 12 hours and not feed me but I could still smell what they were making, so when I am able to chose for myself what I eat, I never pick anything remotely healthy almost as some form of rebellion.

Then again, LCM thinks that I struggle with this because 1) the connection to trauma 2) my lack of love for my own body and 3) she called me "the walking embodiment of teenage rebellion" (a title I was thrilled to receive and LCM was amused to see my response). So maybe I'm just being stubborn.

Then again, LCM thinks that I struggle with this because 1) the connection to trauma 2) my lack of love for my own body and 3) she called me "the walking embodiment of teenage rebellion" (a title I was thrilled to receive and LCM was amused to see my response). So maybe I'm just being stubborn.

I think she's probably right. It is all a bit like a child screaming "Look at me--see my hurting--look what I'm doing to myself!" Not sure about your school: now that they know the extent of your problems, they may be alerted to signs that they ignored before. Have they specified any consequences if you show signs of not coping?

For a long time, I could only shower with my back to the water, for reasons connected to abuse. The thing is, there are always ways around trauma related aversions--but you have to want to engage them. No one can do that for you.

Am I remembering correctly that you mentioned before you have quite a few decent friends? Could you possibly ask to borrow some fresh towels until you can bear to tackle the laundry situation? Or even ask them to go with you to buy a couple of cheap basic towels for now, if you wouldn't like to borrow?...

I'm going to say the next bit with genuine, heartfelt kindness and I hope it comes across as such (because I would want someone to say it to me if I was in your situation) - but, if you are not washing for days on end (ie not having a strip wash to wash 'essential' areas even, as well as not showering) there is a high chance that you do actually smell. You won't necessarily be able to smell it yourself, nor might people you live with who are 'used' to it. I get that you probably don't care just now.

But the reason I'm concerned is that you are a student, and in better times you seem to connect your real chance of happiness with your school life and the opportunities that offers, such as a summer band thing I think you talked about before, that would allow you to stay away from your parents during summer?

Kids just out of their teens (like your classmates) can be very *****y at worst about personal hygiene, and uncomfortable and embarrassed and have no idea how to broach the subject, at best. School seems to be a really positive thing for you, and I'd be worried in case you start to alienate classmates, or just make it harder to make friends, in part due to the personal hygiene thing. Or even if it would have implications for the work you do in the band or orchestra (I'm not sure exactly what it is you do) in the same way as employees in most positions are expected to maintain a basic standard of presentable-ness. Don't shoot yourself in the foot over a shower

Gah, I'm not sure if I've put this across right.

I washed my towels and bathed today. I could have asked a friend to lend me a towel, but then I would be responsible for keeping that towel clean.

All stuff my old T has said to me. I'm actually doing a lot better than I was doing bathing. Now I will shower more than twice a week even on a bad week. Back then, I wouldn't necessarily bathe once. But I always would bathe before working with anyone professional like my teacher or a concert.

Yup. An orchestra festival. I got invited back to the one I did last summer (which isn't a common occurrence btw. Most places make you take another audition and compete to get in again). I'm auditioning for a bunch this year as well. Plus I need to get a part time job because if I don't get a festival that is longer than the one I already got into, I would need to stay in my apartment working in order to avoid them