Progress Check In

Therapy has enabled me to finally talk to my parents about my emotions and my struggles. My family doesn't like to talk about difficult feelings, so I've spent most of my life trying to suppress mine (unsuccessfully, because I grew up undiagnosed bipolar with an undiagnosed bipolar father), but I refuse to live like that anymore. I need to talk about it, and I want my parents to listen. At first my mum would attempt to change the subject, but I've called her on it and she doesn't do that anymore. And even though she still seems uncomfortable with it, I'm glad therapy has got me to this place where I am able to open up about it and explain to my parents that I don't want to be a drag, I just need to talk about these things as part of my therapy process.

I am also able to feel something other than self-hatred. Different emotions are surfacing these days, thanks to my university mentor/therapist and her relentless efforts to eliminate my negative scripts as well as deflating my inner bully.

No more suppressing my feelings. No more allowing negative scripts to run my life. Thank you, therapy!

I'm actually considering scaling back on sessions and going every other week soon. I just like my T so much that I don't want to see her less. Things are pretty stable right now and I don't always have a ton to talk about so I'm thinking it might be a good time to try it. With the school year starting in a couple weeks, I'm going to be busy with grad school and my supervisor took a new job so I have to take a lot of his responsibilities. Hopefully being busy will make it a little easier to scale back on sessions.

My husband and I are communicating better about raising our daughter, our most contentious subject over the years. It's amazing progress compared to where we were a few years ago actually. And we're investing in our relationship in a conscious way- weekly date nights are turning out to be really pleasant and lots of fun. I've reworked my job schedule to have more rest and free time with family too. At the same time, I'm building in space for myself to not feel too constrained in my marriage, which helps. I'm spending one night a week sleeping alone and just starting to spend one evening a week working on a p/t job I love that I'm going to be working to transition into fulltime soon.

I don't feel as reliant on T as I used to, and I'm starting to feel able to help myself. When I think of where I was 6 months ago that is an amazing achievement

What a great thread!
Thanks to therapy I'm more in touch with my emotions.
Before I used to mostly feel anger, whenever I was sad, scared, disgusted, etc. The one emotion coming out was anger, always. That's because the onyl emotion that was really allowed in my parents's house was anger. So I replicated that.
Now I can recognize when I'm actually sad or scared. I'm more aware.
That may seem like a small thing but it's huge for me.

I'm beginning to slowly believe that I'm not defective, disgusting, or lazy. I'm sick, and it's not my fault.

You are all so incredible, congrats on the hard work, I know a little bit about the commitment, facing fears and dealing with disappointing, frustrating upsetting days that all this progress requires. And to your Ts that have been part of making it possible. What a great community.

My sense of progress? Its early days, I think I've started in very small ways to let my friends actually know how I am feeling and I have been present with my own negative feelings about the past and also in day to day life. This feels messy, out of control and often leaves me anxious. So its a weird kind of progress, but for me, I've had all these parts of my self and my experience shut away, so in my case it is progress. Sometimes I hate that this is what progress is and feel confused if its even worth it. Other times I am grateful to be on the way to becoming a more whole person.

These are all very encouraging stories! Thank you all for sharing!

I have been off my anti-depressants and anti-anxiety meds for almost 5 months now and I'm still OK! My T and I agreed that she would kind of "watch out" for me if things didn't go "OK". It was MY choice to drop the meds, not my Dr's.
I've also, like many others, began opening up and sharing with my husband those times when I'm not OK or when my anxiety gets too much to handle. He has surprised me with his supportiveness and it's been great for our relationship. I was always afraid to admit when I needed extra support. I don't have to be afraid anymore.
T has been a "gentle persuader" pushing me to try new things. I've grown so much. Much more work to do, but I'm happy to do it.

I have been working through my attachment to my T. I still have intense moments of attachment but it used to consume my thoughts and I couldn't live my life. I am also relying on my husband more and not my T. This is huge. I was relying on my T for almost everything and I came to a scary realization that its not healthy and I can't do that. My T is still an awesome part of my life but now she is a part of my life and not my whole life.

I feel like I'm thawing from emotional numbness and cry a lot easier in therapy!

I'm learning that crying isn't weakness, and that my T will "be present" with me in my pain.

I'm self harming a lot less and feeling better about myself.

Let's see.

Honestly, I have a lot of moments with my personal T where I wonder what I have changed. Progress can feel so intangible - much like actual physical growth. I don't have any marks on the wall to measure against.

But if I really think about it.

I'm honing in an the root causes for my insecurities and anxious behaviors and learning a lot about my family structure and patterns.

I'm developing better ways of recognizing stress, coping, pausing negative cognitive habits and staying healthy.

I've reached out to and connected with my family in a more honest way.

I'm getting better at speaking up for myself, trusting my own perceptions, allowing my own emotions to happen, and recognizing my emotional needs.

I'm barely.. just barely getting better at being nice to myself and not making a bad day worse by beating myself up so much.

I'm giving myself permission to be creative again.... sometimes. This is really my ultimate goal, to develop and sustain a regular creative life.

Things are turning around for me especially after a recent med adjustment, I think I finally got off this horrible mental rollercoaster ride that had me with terrible thoughts on a daily basis. I've been more clear headed and it's been only nearly 6 days -- I haven't consistently felt this good for that long so this is major for me.

As hard as it's been opening up in therapy I'm starting to make a little progress there as well. Still a lot of things to work on but this is something. I think I can actually say that I now have the best T I've ever had. I'm starting to feel a little bit of relief.

I have a greater sense of 'self'. It feels the vacuum that once was.

My therapist has been on vacation for about a week now, incommunicado except for a three or four line note midweek. That's a long gap for us- usually it's twice-weekly sessions and lengthy emails every day. We're skipping three sessions altogether.

And for the first time since I've started therapy, I've felt really good in general about her absence, that I was comfortable enough in my life not to need as much support, and not to fret so much about losing our connection.

In fact, she just sent me a reply to my messages from the past week and said I got an A+ in soloing away from therapy.

I've come a long way in 2.5 years, not, perhaps so much in *eliminating* my anger (started because of angry outbursts at my daughter), but in accepting it.... moderating it (not perfectly, but consistently much better) and making my life more livable for me, more engaging, more fulfilling, more balanced, less stressful.

The other day my partner was emanating a kind of nuclear winter after we'd fought about some dumb thing, my toddler had a fever and had been cry-whining and pulling at me for hours, I was on the phone with the elder relatives who were telling me some kind of paranoid story about things disappearing from their house and asking me to call a lawyer for them, my older child kept asking when I was gonna make him coooooookies because he was huuuuungry and wanted cooooookies, and I kept getting calls from work from people who really should have been able to make their own decisions but felt they needed my input 3-4 times per hour on the weekend.

I thought I was going to lose it in some very intense way either blowing up in anger, dissolving into tears or some combination of the two. But the situation really called for me to summon my best self and keep it together. I had this image of a deep well that I could draw from, this source of inner okay that could weather this storm. And I accepted that none of it would be perfect and all of it would get done in due course and of all the demands none was pressing except for the sick baby.

It was weird. It was like all the calm, accepting, gentle "you're okay" messages that my therapist had been giving for years (and was often met with an eye roll) suddenly took. And I felt like I was okay and I would still be standing when the dust settled.

I cried the whole hour today. I told her I'm scared I won't get better, scared for my safety, and it physically hurts. It felt good though, she said small steps are fine and she's not going anywhere.

T was amazing again today. I wish I could see here more often that once every 2 weeks. I guess I could just ask like a big girl, huh?
She was able to somehow make me feel comfortable, just enough, so I could actually say the words in front of her. "yes, I would feel sad if I had to say good-bye to you right now". By "good-bye" we meant forever kind of good bye, as in never see you again. I had emailed her earlier in the week about some emotions that had popped up regarding previous T (who passed away last March) and my attachment issues. I then alluded to my "newly" recognized attachment to new T.
I told her that I felt like I was 6 yrs old again and wanted to go hide in shame. She said "We need to show that little girl some compassion and take care of her! She doesn't need to hide." I was so comforted by her words and tone. It was so amazingly helpful. Then she told me she new how hard it was for me to say those words out loud. It was, but now I know it was worth it.

I'm in the thick of doing shadow work again. It is not fun. I told t yesterday that it is not fun. And she said, it's a different kind of fun. I disagreed with her yesterday, but today as I was starting my t homework, I thought hmm. I guess she's right it must be a "different kind of fun" because I keep doing it, don't I? I never knew there was a kind of fun that wasn't fun but is still fun. I think perhaps I am just a mess.

Bad, bad few weeks. Anxiety through the roof. Family may be forcing me to move to a place I feel less secure. Would be forced to go through Mom's stuff at their pace....just going through it and getting rid of it at all is a big deal. Family meeting Sunday. Not sure what family wants now.

I've told T...that this may go bad real quick.
I don't have a psychiatrist...am scared of getting admitted if I lose it.
Just a bunch of bad things happening one after the other and I don't have the money or power to do things in my own way.