My day at work was so hard today. I was all over the place emotionally. It happens a lot and is so exhausting!

Today I was angry and withdrawn early on. I'm angry at my employer for drastically changing our health insurance--we might as well not even have any now with a $3,000.00 deductible. Before this we had a choice between an HMO or a PPO. I don't have cash for medical expenses. I feel like my employer doesn't care and I worry so much about getting sick! I was sick and had major abdominal surgery last summer; thank goodness it happened then, but it happened out of the blue and what if something like that happens again?!

I was also very preoccupied with something but didn't know what. I just could not "be there". When someone talked to me it was as if they were miles away; I couldn't focus or comprehend without an extreme amount of concentration and only briefly. I pissed off several people because of it. I did my best but it was so hard. I had to get up and pace a lot, delivering folders of work sporadiacally as an excuse to be up from my desk, restroom breaks, etc. I felt like I was on a fence between being there, in the present.. and being somewhere else. In my head, I guess. This fogginess and the anxiety and distress that come with it are what I call my 'falling apart'.

While I worked today, I planned to drop out and never use the computer again so I wouldn't be a bother to people, quit my job by just walking out, pack up me and my cat and move to who knows where, I had conversations with my T , planned my worldly 'exit' and the note I would leave to make sure my cat would be taken care of, ruminated about childhood issues, worried about a connection I have with someone on another site and was feeling abandonment. I had 4 or 5 good cries in the restroom. I wanted to come home so badly but I couldn't. Wanted to call my T but no privacy to talk and don't even know if she was there.

This isn't an unusual day for me but I hadn't had that fogginess for a while. It's like a mental running away, is what it feels like. Is this some kind of dissociating, do you know?

It was late afternoon when it finally occurred to me that I was feeling extreme jealousy as well as abandonment. When I could see that, I started to calm down some.

I really wish I had my T to talk with... right when these times happen. I wrote some about it after work, but when I calm down and the intensity lessens, I tend to minimize it or diminish it and. I do it in session too, because when I don't want to sound like a 'drama queen'. lol

How do you keep going and still work on things? I feel like I'm in a million scattered pieces and don't know where to start or how to keep on in the state I'm in.

How do you get things out in therapy without holding back? Why do we hold back? Is it trust? Shame? Worried about judgement or looking bad?

[Fuzzybear]

Why do we hold back in therapy? All the things you mentioned...... and some stuff is just buried too deep and takes a long time to access.....

Please don't go away, you aren't a bother! Sounds like your mind was playing tricks on you like mine does.

And your insight about jealousy as well as abandonment is probably spot on, its a hard emotion to admit to, so many don't even admit it to themselves!!

Not sure if the mental running away, fogginess, anxiety and distress is dissociating but I get it a lot

Grrrrrrrr at the abdominal surgery. I hope you stay healthy physically from now on as you deserve to!!

hey. sometimes i don't keep going very well. the kind of work i do is deadline based rather than a daily grind, and a lot of it comes down to deadlines i set for myself. of course, the idea is to set lots of deadlines for yourself and show yourself to be productive (if you want anything to come of it / if you want a job in the field), but i'm not so proactive with that.

some days i don't go in. some days i go in but return home after an hour or after half a day. some days i spend a lot of time on various boards.

then the crunch comes and for a couple of weeks or a couple of months i do really very little else aside from my work.

at the moment (which is to say over the last three months) i haven't been getting a great deal done. working up to a deadline now though. for some point over the next couple of weeks. too scared to check precisely... but i will have a busy working week next week. and then... it really will be time for the momentum to pick up. i've got about 4 projects to be getting on with. just a matter of doing them.

i think trust, shame, fear of judgement / looking bad all come into it and they are all related.

do you know what free association is? the idea is to say whatever comes to mind without censoring things. it is one therapy technique. sometimes people can't even get started (they defend by way of their mind going blank). most often things occur to you - but there is no way you have the courage to say them. i've heard it said that if you can free associate without censoring then you don't need to do free association (which is to say you don't need therapy). so... everybody does it, i guess. the particular fears that people have might be a bit different, but everybodies got 'em.

take extra special care of yourself through this vulnerable time.

this too shall pass...

[Lemon]

Echos i'm sorry you had such a bad day. That makes it even kinder of you to have responded to my other post about having a good session.

I hope you were able to go home from work and take care of yourself. A lot of what you said resonated with me. I get really anxious at work (even today being happy about my session made me anxious and I couldn't concentrate) and do similar things that you mentioned such as going to the bathroom to get away and not being able to get anything done. I noticed you have a cat. I do too and she looks a little like the picture you attach. Sometimes when I'm so anxious and trying to keep from SI if I can just sit and pet my cat that really helps. It might sound silly, but there are studies that show petting an animal lowers your blood pressure, so it seems to help with anxiety too. Hope you don't mind the suggestion it is just something that has helped me in the past so maybe it might help you feel a little better.

[lauren_helene]

Echoes, I'm sorry your day was hard. As you can see by my post insurance is making me mad and employers are passing more of the costs on to us.

That's nice of them eh? Why do we hold back in therapy, you hit the nail on the head with what you typed. It's hard but necessary but it takes time to feel that safe...it really does...

[MissCharlotte]

While I worked today, I planned to drop out and never use the computer again so I wouldn't be a bother to people,

Hugs to you Echoes, you had a really lousy day but never a bother.....we need to continue supporting each other. The health insurance thing really makes life more difficult than we need. As for the fogginess, I think it might be some form of dissociation. See my post about confusion on the dissociation board a couple days ago. I called it confusion but it happens to me when I'm anxious and/or overwhelmed which it sounds like you were today. Hope tomorrow is better. Get a lot of rest, be good to yourself.

[sunrise]

I'm sorry today was so tough for you, ECHOES. ((((hugs)))) I would be angry about the health insurance too. If it were me, I would call up some reporters at the local newspaper and tell them about the crappy plan your employer, a major health insurance company, gives its own employees. Maybe they will write an expose if they know what is happening. Would it be possible for you to change jobs to a more employee-friendly company?

During my crisis phase, while suffering depression, I cried a dozen times a day. I could only sleep a couple of hours a night and was a wreck each day at work. I had a hard time actually getting to work each morning. My car had become a safe haven for me, and I tended to sob as soon as I got into it. As I neared my workplace each day, I would try to stop crying and often had to pull the car over, park, and try to pull myself together before I arrived on the job. Sometimes I was not successful and had to call in sick. Other times I arrived but way, way late. I was a terrible employee during those days. I feel bad about that because usually I am a hard and conscientious worker. At work, I coped by leaving my desk whenever I would start crying and walking down the hall, or outside the building and I would make a circuit around it then come in again. Or I would walk up and down the stairs. When it got really bad, I would go for a longer walk or go to my car in the parking lot and cry. I was very pre-occupied and foggy while on the job. My brain was not working right. For me, this was a symptom of depression. When I finally was no longer depressed, my brain functioning returned to normal and the fogginess was gone. Anyway, that's how it was for me. It really helped for me to get enough sleep each day and night. Since it was hard to sleep at night, I would nap whenever I could, and this helped tremendously.

Why do we hold back in therapy? For me, I think a big part of it is fear of rejection and abandonment. I have abandonment issues from my childhood. It is hard to put myself out there with anyone and risk their rejection. It seems much safer to me to not take the risk. That pattern of mine carries over into therapy. I still do it but am better. I think my trust of T has increased as we have gotten to know each other. I have "tested" him many times and he has not rejected me or who I am. This allows sharing to become easier.

Well, I'm not sure if any of that applies to your situation, ECHOES, but I wish you well and hope tomorrow is better for you!

Could you work out with your T some way you can contact her when you are in the middle of a crisis?

Thanks Fuzzy, for saying it takes time.

But in the meantime, I feel like I'm wasting my T's time. What if it never gets better?

thank you ak

Interesting about the free associating...

I communicated online with someone and it was very much like free association. She is not a T but is Freudian and has a doctorate in Clinical Psychology. Writing to her was like that. Quiet time at night, low lights... just a good way to think. I liked it and I miss it.

I like T's who have a quiet and warm ambience in their T room.

It sounds like your flexible schedule give you lots of room for thinking, just 'be'-ing. It sounds stressful too, when the deadlines near. We have 2 deadlines a week where i am.

lol at the 'too scared to check precisely'. can relate to that kind of thinking.

thank you sunny

my employer isn't an insurance company but is an administrator of insurance plans. primarily it is an actuarial company (crunches numbers for life and health insurance companies: underwriting data). what I do is considered Third Party Administration; we administer the plan but we don't write the policies or fund the plan.

thanks for sharing your experiences. i just this week decided to get back to a better sleep schedule, even if it means using my Xanax for sleep instead of just for anxiety and 'falling apart' times. then i want to add morning exercise back into my day.

i just find it so hard to be articulate in therapy and it's discouraging to me.

my T does have a cell phone number she includes on her answering machine message. she says 'if you need to speak to me on an emergency basis, call..." so I asked her to define that because I don't want to make her mad. I called it once and she sounded annoyed. when I asked her to define it, she kind of hesitated and said she leaves that up to the client and if it becomes too much or something then it can be talked about. but i don't know what i would have said and besides i was at work. i had called her after the last session Friday, just left a message on the answering machine. I just didn't want to leave her, I think. I just felt I had to talk to her but really had nothing important to say, just that I needed to talk with her. She doesn't check her answering machine messages on the weekend so she called me Monday at work but I just said I couldn't talk at work. No privacy at all. She did remind me about the 'emergency' number but I don't know if I'd use it. I don't think I'd ever feel I deserve to be having an emergency so I wouldn't call it that.

I know i need to be in therapy but i don't know what to talk about. I'm afraid I'm boring her and she'll ditch me, really.

thank you Marie,

yeah my cat is good company sometimes. he isn't much for sitting in my lap for petting much but i have my computer at my dining room table and two chairs side by side so when I'm on here he sits in "his" chair beside me, sometimes snoozes, sometimes bites. Today we shared and ice cream cone.

i have always had cats, thank goodness.

thank you almeda24fan

i'll give it time, but like I said to Fuzzy, I feel like I'm wasting her, T's, time getting there.

thanks so much, sister

I read your post about dissociating during session. I can relate to that too. I have a friend who can too and we call it the Charlie Brown effect...where the T is talking and all you can hear is "wah-wa-wah-wah-wah" like the teachers and adults in Peanust/Charlie Brown movies. lol

yes, overwhelmed is what i was. and am too often.

[MissCharlotte]

(((((((((((((Echoes)))))))))))))

Lol about the charlie brown effect........oh yes, its my session to a "t" (no pun intended)

Be good to yourself. Love yourself. You are worth it.

[SecretGarden]

Hi Echoes,

Look at all of these wonderful caring responses from people that care about you. What a sign of endorsement!! You are such a caring soul and helpful to me and others at crucial and not so crucial times. Thanks.

I have days when I feel like I trudge in to work and make it through somehow. I have called in sick. Today I felt like crap from a cold and I bet I could have gone to work but that would have about killed me with cold and attitude and preparing for an afternoon important therapy visit..... you know. ;-)

I have to say that I break my duties down and can do things that seem almost automatic and some things that require my brain to actually be there. Sometimes I give my brain a vacation or a break when it has already gone on vacation or turned on me. I too, have phases of surfing the net while at work intermittently ... it is a diversion. I also have some very nice head phones and can help myself by musical diversion. It helps me in my own world and to focus ...with music that will facilitate my making it or producing. It also keeps all other noise out. ;-) Hot doggies.

Having been in therapy for many years sometimes getting emotional is there and sometimes I am tired of it. I think you are possibly still developing trust in your T and in the process. You have really done alot of work preparing for this time for you. Now you are here... You have found someone that you may bond with. That might be a comfort yet that could provide a whole new stressor. When you are sitting in the middle of it ...there you are. I know you can do this. Lately I have been sharing alot in therapy and it has been emotional...including today. I am exhausted.. but feeling productive. It is also practicing progressive vulnerability.... It can be a good thing.

I think it is important to share with your T your experiences outside the office as well as within the office so you present the whole picture. Consider that.

Your company sucks. Your anger is justified. The company does not seem to be concerned to you and that is another vulnerability. Sorry... just saying... not easy to hear I know.

BUT..I just wished to give you a bit of support and tell you to keep with it. It will get better and you will see yourself progressing bit by bit. It will be a road indeed but you will see that the journey is worthwhile...



Me..... SG

P S....I think that we all may worry about looking bad, etc.. With sharing yourself you will realise that sharing is what leads to healing and insight. You will find bit by bit that your therapist is interested in your journey.....and your healing. She will help you.

[sunrise]

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ECHOES said:
I have a friend who can too and we call it the Charlie Brown effect...where the T is talking and all you can hear is "wah-wa-wah-wah-wah" like the teachers and adults in Peanust/Charlie Brown movies. lol

yes, overwhelmed is what i was. and am too often.

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I get that too in therapy. It is good to hear I am not the only one (Charlie Brown effect!). It happens when too much is going on in the session and I am trying to process and deal with stuff from earlier in the session, yet we forge ahead and T is talking and who knows what he is saying? His mouth moves and I hear words, but I do not understand them. In my last session, also a jam packed one, he was posing alternatives to me and questions and wanting me to choose between alternatives I had just heard that very session and hadn't processed yet. I told him I had to have time to let those alternatives sink in and I couldn't choose right then. I needed to process them and try to fit them into my vision. He said he understood completely. He didn't think I was unusual or uncooperative or anything like that by telling him I needed more time. So maybe when that happens in your session, just tell your T you need time to process it.

</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
I know i need to be in therapy but i don't know what to talk about. I'm afraid I'm boring her and she'll ditch me, really.

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">
Have you told her that? You are new to the psychoanalytic method so it may take some time before it goes smoothly. Maybe if your T knows, she can help guide you more. If you know you need to be in therapy, do you know why? That would be a great topic to start with.

((((hugs))))

Hiya SG

Oh, peeps here are very wonderful...like you are!

I wish I could call off work but it's nearly impossible for me to do. Every day seems to be crucial...we're heading toward a deadline, or someone is going to be out soon and we have to get ahead, or whatever. Even though my friend is my supervisor, I am discovering she is somewhat as high maintenance as the one she replaced... Be careful what you wish for... Seems we went from witch to drama queen. And, hey--those are my jobs!... hehe

I understand about breaking down the job so you can skate a bit while trying to hold the pieces together. I can sometimes do that but not always. Just depends on what's on the agenda. They've moved a customer service department to the aisle across from me, on the other side of the riser/cubie wall. It's so noisy to me. A constant drone of conversation. That just wears me out. I know that sounds weird for me to say when I'm hard of hearing, but noise is very tiring to me. May be why I no longer enjoy TV... To my advantage, though, sometimes I can shut it all out by turning down or turning off my hearing aid.

I do the headphone thing too but get tired of it and I have to be up and down so it can be a pain on a day with a lot of up and down.

When you say about sharing experiences outside the office.. do you mean the work office or the therapy office? I don't have anything going on outside the work office except the normal routine homecare stuff and being online. I have shared about that but did you have something in particular in mind?

Actually I appreciate and feel validated when you say my company sucks. That they do. After a decision about how they are growing and acquiring new business, they take away the peace of mind of good health insurance. Did I tell you (I forget who I tell what... ) that when I had my meeting with the head of HR about my concerns he was telling me that next year they will "introduce a Wellness plan"? I thought that sounded positive... Well what that means is they will have someone come in and "assess" us individually. Those who smoke or have an extra 20 pounds on them, etc will be given a specific period of time to take care of that.. to stop smoking, lose weight, or whatever... and if they don't, their premium will go up. (ironically one of the big "selling" points they used when telling us about our new plan was that this plan is free!!... as it ought to be because it is worthless.. and just wait till next year. It will be like the HMO's: they started out free then....). So the Wellness plan will be another slap in the face...... I asked, with seething anger but eye-batting curiousity, if the people who come to "assess" us would be doing genetic testing as well.

And now... the last perk that I can think of, since they took out the coffee machines, closed the cafeteria, imploded the health insurance.... they are "looking at" our half day off Friday and if we are productive enough to deserve it.

OH ... Hold me back!!!

Thank you so much for replying and for your kind words!! You're always so helpful to me.

I'm hope your cold gets better soon! And I'm really glad things went well for you today after getting the heat back on!

ECHOES

sunny, I love that description too and Ii credit my friend with that. it so fits when that happens as you describe: </font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
His mouth moves and I hear words but I don't understand them

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">

I suspect my T has similar experiences with me!

Thanks so much for sharing your experiences with me!

I have told my T that I don't know what to say sometimes. The silences I expected because my online person I talk to told me about them and what they are for. And that it's okay to just let them happen and to say whatever comes to mind. "Anything and everything is important" she has said so many times. That's been very helpful; many things I would not have said if she hadn't impressed that upon me. Last session.. there was a silence.. I'm learning to not only let them happen but to enjoy them and do some relaxing breaths during them to relax physically and mentally, too. I never know what will come out. What came out this time was that I feel like a child so much and that it's so embarrassing and it's hard to feel that I'm successfully hiding it. And that when that happens I don't know how to deal with it; and that I feel like it will be this way forever. It was a peaceful quiet moment and that's what came out when I just let it happen. She just listened quietly, with kindness and acceptance, and it felt really good. I know we'll get back to it. No rush. That's what the silences say to me: relax.. no rush. It's comforting and stimulating both.

She does help guide me and we are still early in the process; tomorrow is just my 6th session. We've talked about my reasons for being there.

I haven't said to her that I worry that I'm boring here and she might ditch me. But I will say so if that feeling comes up in session. I am trying to learn to say what's happening, what I'm feeling in the moment. It's not an easy thing to do. What's easier and more habitual is to censor or pretty things up or minimize or deny.

The intimacy of the relationship with her is wonderful and frightening at the same time. She said recently that I seem to have a lot of ambivalence. For some reason I was thinking ambiguity and I agreed with her. Later I wondered if I was sure what ambivalence really meant so I looked it up. Now I understand what she meant; that it is ambivalence that can make me feel helpless and hopeless. Being pulled in more than one direction is confusing and exhausting. It describes the relationship with the T and sometimes the feelings about therapy too.

Anyway, I'm going to take my new book about understanding borderline mothers with me tomorrow. She encourages me to talk about her as I know I need to, but I can't get it out. This book is validating for me so it might help.

Thanks so much for the hugs! (((( sunny ))))

ECHOES

Echoes, I hear you. I get that too, where it seems something is going on in the background and you can't concentrate on the here and now because all your energy is being "Kidnapped".

I was reading a tiny bit in Freuds "Mourning and Meloncholia" I'll try to put into my words what he says but it was something like back in the narcisstic stage, when a loss or abandoment occured, the ego was to imature or didnt get a chance to go through the proper mourning stage or get the chance to express the full range of love and hate to the "object" so the ego that is split off turns itself against the remaining ego and we attack ourselfs instead of the "love object" and the mourning becomes pathological, constant in the background. There are moments when we overcome the mourning and then mania sets in, which is what happens to me and I feel so elated, but really all it is, is the release of the "Kidnapped" energy.

Make sense? well it did as I read LOL!!

yes it does, mouse.

I like your term 'kidnapped energy'.. so full of metaphors...

Although I don't know when the narcissistic stage occurs... is that a normal part of development chronologically?... I think that if feelings are not allowed, or one can only have the feelings that are allowed (because they actually belong to the mother and she can't recognize or doesn't acknowledge anyone but herself so only her feelings are valid) then it can cause this state too. When I was able to identify and name what I was feeling, I felt better.

I will have to think about what you said here, because there has to be some reason my moods and energy roller coaster the way they do. i have read that the threat of loss or abandonment can have the affect of causing panic, so it really does make sense that when that is released or has passed then I feel calmer... I feel more 'present'. That seems like the opposite of what you said... I don't know. Will have to think on it.

Thanks mouse_!

Yes the narcisstic stage is a normal part of development, alas I just got stuck in it LOL!

Echoes, I literally stared at my desk for 2 hours yesterday after lunch. I couldn't motivate myself to do a single thing, I was also in a total fog, ruminating, obsessed with how disconnected I have been feeling-- just totally lost within myself.

Actually, I am at work now. Obviously the day hasn't started out too well because, well.... I'm not doing any work yet.

We hold back in therapy to keep ourselves safe. Safe from all the things you mentioned-- judgement, shame, trust, all the things that have hurt us in the past, etc.

My T always tells me... just keep talking. And he's so right. Echoes, when things are ready to come out, they will. It's okay to hold things in for awhile. You need to keep safe. As you keep talking, you will keep earning trust and safety with your T. Then more and more will come out.