Things I should tell LCM but probably can't

growlithing · Jul 15, 2014, 11:03 PM

So the current plan is that I’m talking to LCM tomorrow. She doesn’t usually cancel two weeks in a row, but she can be somewhat unpredictable. I haven’t talked to her since July 2nd and I guess I’m a little frustrated because I needed her really badly last week but she was unavailable because she was going through something emotionally difficult. I know she’s going through a lot right now. I only know a little bit of it. I know that her job doesn’t exist anymore. She wasn’t fired. The inpatient program was bought out. And I feel bad for feeling upset that she was unable to talk to me.

I have a laundry list of things I could/should talk to her about. But I probably will end up just talking about nothing because I can’t seem to get myself to talk about anything real until the last 15 mins of a session. But I’ll make a list of things going on here so I’m at least organized about what the possibilities are. I don’t know what is the most important to talk about.

My father’s birthday was sometime last week. I don’t know what day it was. I was triggered and upset all week. I had awful body memories, an increase in nightmares, I think I dissociated during a rehearsal but all I remember is thinking that I was distant and the timing was super inconvenient. I don’t remember what happened to cause it or how I handled it. My urges to self-harm have dramatically increased.
I can’t stop thinking about drinking. Being drunk is a lot more enjoyable than being sober because I’m happy and not scared of people and things. When I’m sober, I just think about either drinking, self harm, or suicide. Passively. I don’t really know why the sui thoughts are happening again. They aren’t nearly as serious. I dream about committing suicide. I catch myself simultaneously romanticizing and/or sexualizing the idea all the time and I have no idea why.
I’ve been having upsetting dreams again. They had been better and now they are worse except they aren’t flashback type dreams. I had one that LCM was abandoning me. Two that I slept through a performance. And one last night that I guess was a sex dream but sex dreams for me are always voyeuristic or they are not consensual. This one certainly wasn’t voyeuristic but the consent had a lot of gray area. I was pretty scared in it despite nothing ending up happening. But I really struggle to tell her anything about sex.
My roommate is really annoying me because she’s ugly and boring and yet manages to have a boyfriend. Granted he is also ugly and boring but they are a perfectly matched ugly and boring couple. I’m fat but I don’t think I’m ugly. And I’m certainly not boring. I know I’m too scattered and confused emotionally/sexually to be in a relationship but her existence still annoys me anyway. And I feel bad for disliking her for literally no real reason beyond a petty judge of appearance and the fact that the only things she talks about is viola, laundry, and golf.
I feel embarrassed to have a crush on the boy that I do because he is so far out of my league. Last Saturday, our friends started to make fun of him, saying that he dresses and acts like “a dad” which makes me feel deeply uncomfortable. After he had a few drinks, he said he wants to marry his girlfriend and I feel stupid about caring about that.

So I have a lot of stuff I could talk about and I have no idea where to start, what is important, or how much I’ll be able to get myself to say. A lot of things I don’t really know what is directly causing the problems. I can make a guess, but I really don’t know. And I really don’t want my dad’s birthday to be the root of all of it because I really don’t want to think or talk about him but I suspect it is because everything I listed above had a very strong sexual element to all of it and I just don’t want to deal with that. But I also don’t want to just whine about the weather with LCM or even more likely, talk about our relationship and the stressed out feelings I’ve been having about her. Because I know I make up drama between her and I to keep myself preoccupied thinking about something troubling that is less troubling than the real problems.

I don’t know where to start. Any suggestions? I’m talking to her over the phone and I can’t print this out and give it to her. I could read it, but that would be really hard. And I don't want to overwhelm her by giving her a taste of most everything. I left out some stuff. Mostly the good things. There have been some.

growlycat · Jul 16, 2014, 12:30 AM

This is a good list--specifics are helpful.

Any reason you can't give this to her?

Can you carve up your session so each topic gets a certain amount of time?

growlithing · Jul 16, 2014, 12:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by growlycat

This is a good list--specifics are helpful.

Any reason you can't give this to her?

Can you carve up your session so each topic gets a certain amount of time?

I'd have to read it out loud to her because it's over the phone. She doesn't do as well processing something with me that I send her over the internet. It's weird. If I hand her my phone that has something written on it or a sheet of paper, she's great. If I send her anything that she has to open without me physically being there, she tends to get quiet and only comment at the end "what do you want to talk about?"

Carving up the session is a good idea until you remember how extremely anxious I am about time. I'd be watching the clock to make sure I'm meeting my allotted time exactly than paying attention to the session.

growlycat · Jul 16, 2014, 01:13 AM

You can set your phone alarm to go off every 10 min or so. But that might make me anxious too!!

Is there time to snail mail the list?

Sorry things have been so hard, but you now have better skills to systematically deal with stuff--that is noticeable.

growlithing · Jul 16, 2014, 10:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by growlycat

You can set your phone alarm to go off every 10 min or so. But that might make me anxious too!!

Is there time to snail mail the list?

Sorry things have been so hard, but you now have better skills to systematically deal with stuff--that is noticeable.

Yes phone going off would make me nervous. Especially when I'll be on the phone to talk to her. Shutting the alarm off while talking on the phone can be difficult.

Well, I'm in western NY, she's in Boston. We are talking in 5 hours. I don't think so.

I guess so.

Parley · Jul 16, 2014, 10:37 AM

They all seem equally important but drinking can cause more issues so maybe you could start there? I keep a list for therapy too. My bullet list only has a few key words to keep me on track. When I come home from therapy, I take whatever I didn't talk about on my list and add it to my next list because something is bound to come from therapy.

I don't always choose the most important and sometimes it ticks me off. I don't believe it's intentional but now I feel like I have a few things on the back burner that needs to be talked about before I can get to what's been happening the past several weeks.

I wouldn't be too quick to blame myself for drama in my therapeutic relationship. It takes two and self blame doesn't help even if I'm causing it to avoid the bigger issues. It's all connected.

Best of luck to you. I hope it's a productive session.

edited to say~ I've changed my mind. Perna is right.

If you deal with the relationship first it might be easier to work on the other things.

Perna · Jul 16, 2014, 10:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by growlithing

She doesn’t usually cancel two weeks in a row, but she can be somewhat unpredictable. I haven’t talked to her since July 2nd and I guess I’m a little frustrated because I needed her really badly last week but she was unavailable. . . And I feel bad for feeling upset that she was unable to talk to me.

I would start with these. All the other feelings about your life at the moment, how you feel about your roommate, etc. is not going to go anywhere? But until you deal with how you feel about who you are talking with, talking with them about anything else is not going to work too well?

growlithing · Jul 16, 2014, 10:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Parley

I wouldn't be too quick to blame myself for drama in my therapeutic relationship. It takes two and self blame doesn't help even if I' causing it to avoid the bigger issues. It's all connected.

Best of luck to you. I hope it's a productive session.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Perna

I would start with these. All the other feelings about your life at the moment, how you feel about your roommate, etc. is not going to go anywhere? But until you deal with how you feel about who you are talking with, talking with them about anything else is not going to work too well?

The thing is that I do literally make up drama that doesn't exist in the real world to avoid talking/thinking about stuff. I know saying that sounds like either self blame or even a potentially offensive and very wrong way to describe part of BPD, but it is neither self blame nor anything to do with BPD.

Basically, I'll be upset about something totally unrelated to LCM. I'll use being upset about her as a way to avoid dealing with the deeper issue. Or we'll have a session and I won't tell her what is really bothering me and I'll instead tell her how I feel about her. It's the opposite problem than with my other past T's. I am more comfortable telling LCM how I feel about her than I am about things going wrong in my life.

At the same time, I'm not blaming myself for being upset for last week. She is unpredictable. She knows this. I have called her on it. It is getting better. I can also handle those feelings on my own. I talked to her nearly every day via text. So I know she was there for me even though I didn't get an hour to talk with our voices.

growlithing · Jul 17, 2014, 03:23 AM

It didn't go well. Maybe it did in the end. Within about two seconds of talking to her, I knew she was pissed at me. She didn't want to admit to it at first and kept wanting me to talk about stuff instead. I said I can't talk to her if I'm worried that she hates me. She then said "what? I don't hate you. I can be angry with you without hating you". She then said she was angry with me for texting her drunk because she had thought I had ODed on pills and was really scared. And she was angry that I freaked her out for nothing. I said I was surprised she was still upset.

Then I read part of my post. The session got better after that. I just feel guilty.

feralkittymom · Jul 17, 2014, 03:56 AM

Basically, I'll be upset about something totally unrelated to LCM. I'll use being upset about her as a way to avoid dealing with the deeper issue. Or we'll have a session and I won't tell her what is really bothering me and I'll instead tell her how I feel about her. It's the opposite problem than with my other past T's. I am more comfortable telling LCM how I feel about her than I am about things going wrong in my life.

This^ makes perfect sense to me. It's a defense of creating a temporary reality where only you and she exist and all the other stuff goes away. It would be tempting even if you didn't see her as the Mom you've never had. I think it's not a bad thing because it can give you the foundation of safety to tackle other issues--one at a time.

Perhaps you've been concerned that she hates you because on some level you know drinking and texting would cause her to worry. Part of you knows that and may be using it as an unconscious way to get the emotional kickback of care. But unfortunately, you also know on some level that it's not a functional way to get the care that you don't fully feel worthy enough of to request directly. So maybe some unconscious guilt that then gets projected as worry that she hates you? She's right to be annoyed with that behavior.

Address the drinking before it becomes a habit. You don't need that burden.

Depletion · Jul 17, 2014, 04:46 AM

Awww Growli, I always use that argument deflect technique too. If I ever want to be left alone, I just get in a fight with the person. I was expert at doing this with my sister when growing up. I don't tend to use it in therapy, but I'm fairly comfortable talking in there. But I can see how one would use it in there. It's a reasonable response to the implication that you should talk about your most personal **** now.

And sorry to ask this (maybe I just missed something) but are you still considering another T besides LCM, or did you work that out somehow and I missed it? Just wondering.

growlithing · Jul 17, 2014, 10:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Depletion

Awww Growli, I always use that argument deflect technique too. If I ever want to be left alone, I just get in a fight with the person. I was expert at doing this with my sister when growing up. I don't tend to use it in therapy, but I'm fairly comfortable talking in there. But I can see how one would use it in there. It's a reasonable response to the implication that you should talk about your most personal **** now.

And sorry to ask this (maybe I just missed something) but are you still considering another T besides LCM, or did you work that out somehow and I missed it? Just wondering.

It would be a real T on top of LCM. I was looking for one because LCM told me to and I know I should be seeing someone licensed. But I don't want one. I don't want to go through the struggle of finding one only for her to be terrible and then struggle to open up to her only for her to abandon me. I don't want to ask my mother for more money to pay the copays. I don't have time in the week. I already don't know how I'm going to keep going to DBT because it is during rehearsal and runs into one of my classes.

growlithing · Jul 17, 2014, 10:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by feralkittymom

Basically, I'll be upset about something totally unrelated to LCM. I'll use being upset about her as a way to avoid dealing with the deeper issue. Or we'll have a session and I won't tell her what is really bothering me and I'll instead tell her how I feel about her. It's the opposite problem than with my other past T's. I am more comfortable telling LCM how I feel about her than I am about things going wrong in my life.

This^ makes perfect sense to me. It's a defense of creating a temporary reality where only you and she exist and all the other stuff goes away. It would be tempting even if you didn't see her as the Mom you've never had. I think it's not a bad thing because it can give you the foundation of safety to tackle other issues--one at a time.

Perhaps you've been concerned that she hates you because on some level you know drinking and texting would cause her to worry. Part of you knows that and may be using it as an unconscious way to get the emotional kickback of care. But unfortunately, you also know on some level that it's not a functional way to get the care that you don't fully feel worthy enough of to request directly. So maybe some unconscious guilt that then gets projected as worry that she hates you? She's right to be annoyed with that behavior.

Address the drinking before it becomes a habit. You don't need that burden.

I think we made this more complicated than it needs to be.

I know that texting LCM something cryptic would illicit a response. I know that texting her while drunk and being unable to find the keys would cause her to react. I also know that doing that would not be cool and it would be pretty manipulative to do so. However, I was drunk and didn't really consider anything beyond wanting to talk to her. I feel guilty because regardless of if I was drunk, I still behaved in an inappropriate and manipulative way.

No need to talk about projection or anything.

Depletion · Jul 17, 2014, 02:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by growlithing

It would be a real T on top of LCM. I was looking for one because LCM told me to and I know I should be seeing someone licensed. But I don't want one. I don't want to go through the struggle of finding one only for her to be terrible and then struggle to open up to her only for her to abandon me. I don't want to ask my mother for more money to pay the copays. I don't have time in the week. I already don't know how I'm going to keep going to DBT because it is during rehearsal and runs into one of my classes.

I understand. I was just wondering. I was abandon by several T's too.

I'm glad that you have someone there for you.