Have you ever lost motivation? How did you regain it?

I'm really looking for some help on this, from as many people as possible.

Okay. I left therapy to take a break. Heavy transference with my therapist, insurance issues, work life, everyday life and the general issues I am dealing with in therapy - they converged to be too much for me and I needed a break. So, I couldn't quit work and I couldn't quit everyday life - so the only thing I could take a break from was therapy.

I think I'm ready to go back (because I miss my therapist and because a gut feeling in me says I need to keep on trying)

Trouble is, as I look at my general life and what appears to me as my snail's pace ability to change, I have begun to think: "What is the point? I can't change and I'm sick of wasting everyone's time."

So, I don't want to return to therapy and be useless to my therapist with a "what-is-the-point-attitude".

This is the best relationship I've had with a therapist, so I don't think I need to find a new therapist (unless she is sick of me...but that is another issue and mainly lays in the fact I think I am poision in general and no one can stand me for so long.)

So, has anyone ever lost their motivation?

How do you get it back?

Thank you for any little bit of help.

(((Ipse))))

i lose motivation all the time. I get it back by going back. One week at a time. One day at a time. One appointment at a time.

Can yo please put a trigger icon on your post?

I added the icon....sorry, wasn't thinking.....plus I removed some of the things that I suspected might have pushed you to make that request. Thanks.

I find the idea that 'I need to change' unhelpful. It doesn't help me at all.

I find it more helpful to go into therapy with the thought that, ''I need to have a place where I can feel safe to speak my heart and mind, with a person who is emotionally healthy (and can thus provide a 'corrective emotional experience')"

I am of the opinion that the working through of the transference is one of the groundworks (for lack of a better word, I'm open to suggestions...) of good therapy.

I forgot to ask, if you're ok to share, what are the issues that you are seeking therapy for?

I have walked in to therapy and said "I want points just for showing up.". lol. I know that when I feel like quitting it's really a message to me to hang in there. I'm committed to not quitting this time around.

Often I go just because I want to be in the room with her. What comes up to talk about comes up.

Go back. Talk about your post here. She'll help you with this.

ECHOES

Lol, Echoes...for wanting points for showing up...

</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
Ipse said: I removed some of the things that I suspected might have pushed you to make that request.

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

No need to remove things if you post the icon! Maybe this is indicative of what you are doing with your hesitance about therapy--changing your mind from one day to the next--It is so hard, hang in there, you can do it.

</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
Echoes said: I know that when I feel like quitting it's really a message to me to hang in there.

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

I feel the exact same way. I believe that when we want to quit it's some sort of an unconscious defense trying to make us quit. We need to push through these in order to move ahead.

</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
sister said:

Maybe this is indicative of what you are doing with your hesitance about therapy--changing your mind from one day to the next-

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

Yes. I am very indecisive and "wishy-washy" sometimes. For example, recently I've been trying to order a replacement cell phone from my provider, and it seems like a simple thing since it will be free and i don't use my phone much in the first place and I have researched it a lot, trying to decide which is the best phone. And several times I've been to the last part, where you hit the button to make the order official. But I usually bow out at the last second. This has been going on about a month with the cell phone ordering.

And people at work wonder why I haven't bought a house yet...i can't decide on a cell phone, let alone a home.

So I am indecisive and fear making choices, because so often in the past it seems like i have screwed up.

To an earlier question about why I am in therapy in the first place: no easy answer to that. But the first thing that makes me think I need therapy is that I have no relationships in the world, outside of the casual work acquaintances and, as a stretch, the people at the grocery store checkout who ring up my food (but even then, more and more I have the option of using the "self-check out" stand they have now.) The world feels unsafe and I have a feeling like it will never be a safe enough place to allow my "vulernable" self into.

The past issues I'm dealing with are my parents were never really good at parenting (which can be said for many parents, I suppose). But their less the good parenting skills sort of collaborated with bad life events to make me view myself as poision. They were neglectful, didn't listen, and just had a "my way or the highway" and never cared what I was feeling - or at least never made it an atmosphere where I thought my feelings were normal or welcome.

I was attacked by two Dobermans when I was 5 or 6, when I had walked down the park on my own. And it was a trauma and I think started to shake my safety. Plus I was starting school and my new baby sister was born, so I was no longer the baby.

I had no friends growing up except one, but when I was like 7 I had set the back room on fire (I was playing with matches - bad boy). Thankfully the damage was confined to the small room. But the one friend I had was no longer allow the be around me, because I had been bad with fire.

A couple years later (when I was 8 or 9), my older sister sexually abused me. My other other sister walked in and told the parents, but the parents barely wanted to even look at me. There attitude was like they were disgusted and they were shunning me and it made me feel like it was all my fault. This experience led to a decided amount of confusion and shame about my sexuality. A couple years later I turned around and did the same to my younger sister (I have a big family)...and that has haunted me so much over the years that I turned around and did that my sister.

I had a lot of sexuality issues after that, confusion about my gender identity and then growing into puberty that added more confusion. And being Catholic with strict Catholic parents, that only added to my feelings that I am dirty and poison and bad.

When I was 16, I was arrested for sending secret admirer letters to a neighbor. When I was in 3rd Grade, I did a similar thing to an older teacher and she thought it was cute. And I did it again in 6th grade to another teacher and she didn't get upset. But when i was 16, it was not so cute. And someone at the same time was doing similar things to the same neighbor. So they police were staking out the house and then when I went up to leave a note, they burst out the door, slammed me against the wall, handcuffed me and shouted things and me and dragged me to the station. In my confused mind, I thought i was looking for someone's attention and love by sending secret admirer letters. But it wasn't the best way to go about it.

So the arrest was the final straw: my needs were officially criminal.

And a short while later, like a month, a teacher at school heard about my arrest and was concerned and offered to talk and listen to me. Oh God! That was confusing and since I had no one else, I got attached to her!!! And when that attachment happened, she got uncomfortable and they took me away from her class. As I was getting aware of my attachment to her, I knew it meant something deeper (even at 16) but didn't have the logic to put it into words, so it just came out bad when I tried to express my confusion about my feelings to her. And she assumed I wanted to marry her. I had just been arrested like a month ago for becoming attached to someone. Now I'm an idiot, but not that much of an idiot to realize that there was pattern here and I wasn't wanting to do the same thing. But before I knew it, they pulled me from her class and started to send me to all sorts of therapists. And I had no time to really think about anything. It just came down to me feeling that I am bad and poision and love/need was criminal and something that needed to be fixed and removed from me.

These are just some of the big examples. It can't really describe my entire life and all the events, and all the interactions that reinforced my self believe that I am poision (such as the bullying growing up). I was always on my own it seemed and when I tried to find love and care and someone to listen, I was either pushed away, or I did it wrong and it turned out hurting someone.

Result is that now at 33, it just isn't safe. It doesn't feel safe to go into the world because I will get hurt and I will end up hurting others. That is what keeps me paralyzed and not really living at all. And, partly why I'm so indecisive.

And you can imagine all the transference feelings going on in therapy. My therapist is very giving and caring and "loving" (if I can legally use the word "loving"). And with all my past experience with that, any need for her is seen as bad to me - in an emotional way.

In a logical sense, I KNOW the truth. But I am ruled more by my emotions. So, I struggle to stay in therapy to try to come to terms to this push between Logic and Emotion.

But it is so scary. I just want to run. And thus I'm having this current trouble with caring and not thinking: What is the point.

Thank you.

Wow that was long.

Ipse,

Boy, what a life! Yeah, therapy is the place to develop a therapeutic relationship, learn to trust, etc. And I can see why it is soooo difficult to stick to it. Though I think it would serve you well to have at least two sessions weekly. Dear you, you do have a lot going on. Therapy would provide that place wherein you can process your internal pain, insecurity, etc. I'd make sure to have an experienced t, someone who can help to contain you when the going gets rough. And then there's always PC, we're just a click away....

Take gentle care,

</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
Ipse_Dixit said:
I think I'm ready to go back (because I miss my therapist and because a gut feeling in me says I need to keep on trying)

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">
Find these feelings (the missing and, especially, the gut) and go with them. They're fine feelings for therapy when you can't figure out your way.

Remember the adage that you can't steer unless the vehicle is moving! Just get moving and more things will come. Use the loss of motivation as one, the heavy confluence of all the other things (and that you chose therapy instead of quitting your job or something else, not everyone would necessarily have chosen that!) and any other "conflicts" you can. They're all important, even if they don't seem important. Very small things can make a big difference ("For want of a nail. . ." and "There was an old lady who swallowed a fly. . ." <font color="#880000">**trigger** for the following link </font> http://www.halfgiraffe.com/oldlady.html )

You have been through so much! And it involves feelings of being attached. Does your therapist know all of this? It is so important that she knows.

Feeling concerned when you feel close to someone must be grueling for you because of what has happened. You aren't poison or bad or any of those things. Wanting to be close to someone, wanting attachment and love are good things to want and to have. You deserve them and your therapist can help you with this.

I can understand your wanting to run away when you feel the connection, attachment. You were punished for feeling this and it must seem like it isn't a good thing to want or feel and that you have to run off before you are punished for it again. You won't be punished for having these feelings in therapy.

You really must get back to therapy so your life can be better and you can find good loving connections, people who will cherish you as you cherish them.

Ipse,
I hope I didn't make you feel bad about changing your mind. I do it all the time and it gets in the way tremendously for me too!

That doesn't make you a bad person...

Please go to therapy, and allow yourself to vent these feelings and maybe your therapist can help you to work through some of these negative feelings. You have suffered enough.

You deserve the relief!

Good luck.

I didn't feel bad....you just highlighted something i think i know in my logical mind...i'm indecisive

i'm sort of afraid of going back....because i've been verbally wish-washy with my therapist too. saying things like I don't see a point in coming back (just this past week i mentioned it in some material I gave her)..but at the same time I said I thought I needed one session before i made final decision on ending therapy for good. but about a month back I said was ready to come back to therapy and my break was over. i hate putting her through my junk....for all the reasons I listed above in my "essay" about my past.

Since I'm not very good at "speaking" (because it seems to have atrophied from dis-use over these years), I often write things out before I talk about them with my therapist.

This is something I wrote out - for my therapist - to get my thoughts clear, regarding what is the most difficult part of the therapeutic process.....(for me in particular)

any thoughts? i don't want there to be anything insensitive or stupid in it.

</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>

We’ve often talked of the “safety rules” surrounding the expressions and professions of “love” in our therapeutic relationship – especially with respect to those coming from you. These safety rules seem reasonable and necessary to my logical self.

But the most difficult part about this whole therapeutic process – with you in particular – is trying to keep in check this “troubling need for love” from you, from an emotional place. I call it a “troubling need for love” because, when you think of all my history with this need, it has (in my eyes) only met with neglect or punishment, or in some way seems to have been done “wrong” and others have been hurt too. The need for love feels troubling because it feels like a bad need, a need that feels like it should be cut out like a cancer.

You have said emotions don’t think, so when my emotions are begging for unconditional love from you and sees you not reciprocating, there is no logical understanding of why you aren’t - again because the emotions "don't think". There is simply a need for love and it is not being heard. This hurts like nothing else.

From an emotional view, it confuses my view of others and of self. And it reinforces the two beliefs which keep me most isolated: “the world is not safe” and “I am poison for myself and others”. And obviously, not getting my needs met adds a measure of resentment toward you.

I can neither bear this kind of hurt, nor having a mixture of resentment toward you without wanting to run. (I really don’t want to resent you. It just seems juvenile to do so.)

The need for love not being met echoes and mirrors how it was with my parents, with peers and others. So, it is the worst kind of pain for me and why it is the most difficult part of this whole therapeutic process.

On a base level, I know much has been missing from my life. My needs were not met as a child and it seems, with all the hurtful incidents piled on over the years, I’m not even breaking even. In truth, it seems I am in a deficit when it comes to love. My thin, “string-bean” exterior frame is apropos because it matches my interior emotional thinness.

I restate, however, the safety rules about your ability to reciprocate love on even a simple level seem reasonable and necessary to my logical self.

However, it seems we need to address this issue and find some amount of resolution to it from an emotional place. If I can’t bear to show up to therapy because of this hurt, I can’t see myself healing.

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

</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
withit said:

....I think it would serve you well to have at least two sessions weekly.

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

That might be nice...two sessions a week....but that is hard to do. I am amazed at anyone who can go more than once a week. I don't have that kind of money.

We have the possible option of two-hour sessions, but my therapist has to prove it is "medically necessary" to my insurance for them to approve it. And my insurance thinks I've been going too long as it is....3 years....and this year they have only pre-approved 8 visits. (But that is an entirely other ball of wax)

Ipse, I am amazed at how you express yourself! Whoa! That write-up you wanna show your t....wow! Now I understand you a whole lot better. Makes a lot of sense. You need to find resolution about the emotional need....otherwise the pain is too much and you need to run. OK. I think I take back whatever I've said prior to this understanding that I've just come to.
Take gentle care,

</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
withit said:
I find the idea that 'I need to change' unhelpful. It doesn't help me at all.

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

I am total agreement here. I used to go into therapy with the attitude that I need to change, I need to reduce my symptoms, I need to get better, etc.

This is when I lost motivation. When I didn't see those results.

Now I experience therapy with the goal of just wanted to learn-- gain insight, capture a greater understanding of myself.

I never run out of motivation here. I am always eager for the experience, even during the extremely difficult phases.

Similarly to you, my transference with my T is ridiculously intense at this time. I am trying to work through it rather than look at it as a barrier-- transference is a good thing, even if it feels awful. And sometimes it really does feel %#@&#! awful.

Seems strange...I feel like I have no motivation...but I'm trying like crazy to find a motivation. Is that veiled motivation?

I found a pretty good word for what I feel like when it comes to my logical and emotional understanding of what I wrote in the post above. My logical understanding and emotional "understanding" seem to put me at a "stalemate". I thought stalemate was a pretty good word for what it feels like right now. No part of me is "winning" the internal war.

Ipse, would you print and show to your t what you wrote up? I would hope your t would align herself with you after reading this, and help you through this stalemate. Yep, stalemate is an apt word here.
You are quite an insightful fellow I must say!

I think I "might" be insightful, because my profession is in the science field (i'm a meteorologist) and the schooling that goes behind that is all about math, physics and other science stuff. so by design the teachers drive the use of "logic" into you. there are not emotions involved in pure weather itself. so i'm "brainwashed" by the use of trying to find logical connections.

trouble is, i've never had emotional training and so the logic and emotion keep butting heads.

maybe that is partly why I like weather, because weather has no motives. it just is. one can try to understand it, predict it (some even try to control it)...but in the end you just have to live in it as best as you can. sometimes i think it is a metaphor for life.

i did call to leave a message with my therapist sunday evening...telling her: this break from therapy has been up and down and I know said "I want to give up" and "don't care anymore" because "I don't see a point"...but at the same time i've been trying hard to find a motivation and that I want to care and I want to have a point. So I said I think I want to discuss coming back for at least one visit.

I don't know when she may return the call...but we shall seee.

I hope when I said: I think I "might" be insightful, I don't sound narcissistic. I actually don't think of myself that highly (which is putting it lightly).

My therapist called me back Monday morning. (I am never good with phone conversations -- or real-life conversations in general.). My therapist said whatever I want to do is fine. But when I'm on the phone with her, I can never get a read on her sincerity and whether she gives a $@!%

I'm just finishing up a survey (of sorts) that I want to give her before I decide to go back to therapy, fully. They are basically "Yes/No" questions and "On a scale of 1 to 10" questions. (Such as: In an “emotional” sense, in your intimate self-awareness, on a scale of 1 to 10, how much do you personally still view yourself as my therapist? or On a scale of 1 to 10, how much reduction of stress have you felt because of my absence? There are compartively more "on a scale of 1 to 10" questions.

Hopefully this will make it not as laborious to answer them. I don't exactly feel like I'm her client at the moment, since I'm not officially seeing her right now - so asking her to answer this when she is not really being paid for it, well it is difficult for me to do. That doesn't at all mean she wouldn't joyfully answer my questions, that seems like my self-esteem issue.

Of course, some of them she might not want to answer, or answer them "completely truthfully" because it might suggest she doesn't care. My mind can twist things to reinforce my current state of self-loathing.

So I will drop it off on Wednesday. And after she sends the results back (I'm going to include a self-addressed stamped envelope so she can just pop it in the mail), I will make a decision on returning.