i don't know what to do. i am trying to limit my time online talking about this. i am trying to limit how much i can write about this at home. i even dreamt that T gave me a limit of a certain number of words!

i really don't know what to do.

i am so caught up in my feelings and thoughts surrounding therapy that i can't focus and i need to focus. This isn't about taking time for me to heal,etc.. this is about being able to keep functioning. i can't give up my whole life, plus i really don't think it's healthy to spend that much time dwelling on everything.

this week is a bit special.. %#@&#! hit the fan and splattered over my whole life.. so i need T more. and we have had a few intense sessions so i am freaked out and fearful

i just have to manage better somehow. Any suggestions?

i am thinking of going down to once per week vs. twice. As much as i prefer twice and it does ease my anxiety about losing him, i find it's keeping me looped in thinking about this. It cranked up the intensity... i don't think i need to have it cranked up all the time.

there's more... but as i said, i left a meter running on my time. i can't come back until i get some things accomplished. i am going to try a reward system.. get xnumber of things done and i can have 1 hour.

[Mouse_]

Gerber, I've had similar thoughts to you. T said whether I choose to work on my issues or not doesn't alter the fact that they are there and they will seep out in some other area of my life. Until therapy I wasn't functioning. It is very hard at first to balance life, family, work with therapy, but it does get better. I am glad I have struggled to get where I am today. Its hard I know!

all i want is to be able to function each day... it's not even my issues which are consuming me, although they do to some degree... it's more the therapy process and relationship which eats at me. My issues affected me, of course, but i ended up in therapy to deal with a huge life crisis and decided that now would be a good time to tackle the longer term patterns, etc. They were affecting my life overall, but not the daily functioning. Now i still have the overall junk *and* interruption in my daily functioning.

i have a high level of pressure on me in my life. i have high standards and with good reason, without them i am facing disaster. Now is the time i have to lay groundwork for later. i cannot afford to mess this up.

it's gotten so bad, so intense that i am considering giving up therapy, even though i think the hard work might pay off for me. i just can't lose everything in the process... and ironically, i did i wouldn't be able to finish therapy anyway

Don't shy away. Don't let the fear of the intesity of dealing with the stuff make you give up or run away. You can conquer this!

what? no... i'm not afraid of intensity.. i just need to be able to function. It can't take up every minute of everyday.

[ECHOES]

Have you and T talked about this?

Yeah, you do have to be able to function. But it's so common for therapy to be on our minds nearly all the time. In fact, I read that it's a good sign because it is so important.

I think about it all the time and it's good, but also I can become frantic and worried and kind of overly consumed with it. I have meltdowns and after another major one this week she wants to work on holding on to good feelings when she's not there and I think this will help me. So, I'm wondering if you talk with T about it if there might be a way to make it more comfortable for you.

[Perna]

I think if you don't work on regulating your ability to function, then something else on the "outside" will come along and throw you off in the future? If you opt for allowing your dysfunction to "win" and getting rid of the external therapy, then I think the next thing that comes along and tests your functioning abilities will have an easier time of it and you'll swamp easier.

[MissCharlotte]

((gerber))

I have had similar thoughts of cutting back to once per week because of the intensity of work now that I am going twice. But in the long run I do feel like I am making more progress, holding on to T for longer periods, and accepting the process more. So I will stay at twice for now.

Therapy is very challenging and difficult work. I think about mine all the time also. T is with me always. And yes, I have not functioned so well in other areas. I have given up a lot to focus on my therapy but I find I am willing to give up even more. If I could quit my job I would. So, the heck with housework and anything else that is not absolutely vital. Things that used to seem important no longer feel even necessary.

</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
it's more the therapy process and relationship which eats at me.

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

Our issues, and wounds are reflected in the relationship. That's why it's "eating" you.
I think you should discuss this with T and see if you can ease the pain somewhat.

housework? oh, i don't do much of that. i don't really have a lot else i could give up.

i don't think it should be in our minds all the time. i don't know where that perception comes from... can anyone point me to something that supports this? i know it is on a lot of people's minds, but i just don't think it needs to be, and definitely not to this degree.. i'm open to understand this better if there is something out there to help me.

i don't mean to offend anyone.. i am just questioning and trying to figure out what to do.

perna.. i'm a little unsure what you mean? can you clarify? forgive me, i'm a little frazzled

[okiedokie]

Hi Gerber,
Timing is everything. If this is not the right time for you to delve into your "overall patterns" then don't just yet. Sounds like you've got a lot on your platter right now. It'll all patiently wait for you when the time is right. I'm in favor of functioning.
take care,
Okie

so sorry. i think i misread your post.

[ECHOES]

... "someone"... like me who said it?!

Here is where I read it, a quote from www.guidetopsychology.com. I go there often when I'm wondering about things and I find it helpful most of the time. I hope this reassures you.



</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
Question: As a person is trying to deal with all these issues, please advise on how to maintain the rest of his or her life. For example, since I am thinking non-stop about each appointment, my home life and career is suffering horribly. How does a person find balance, yet, still move toward feeling better?


Answer: When I tell the story about the philosopher on my Consultation page, I’m really serious. If psychotherapy is to be successful, it must be more important to you than anything else in your life. It really is a life-and-death matter because the rest of your life depends on it—and, if you are like most people, you’re stuck in a sort of psychological oblivion right now. And so it is essential that you think about your therapy all the time.

Of course, how you think about your treatment really determines its outcome. If you think about it as you describe, most likely you feel as overwhelmed as you do because you are secretly trying to control the psychotherapy process. You’re wondering about what to say. You’re wondering about what to leave out. You’re afraid that your deepest secrets will come to light. Well, all of these concerns and fears create nothing but anxiety.

But if you approach psychotherapy with joy in your heart because you have finally begun the process of true healing, then you can think about your treatment without anxiety. You will be thinking about it all the time, yes, but you will be thinking about connections. How are your experiences connected to your emotions? How is the present connected to the past? It will be a process of joyful discovery—punctuated with moments of pain and sorrow, of course—but with faith and hope in the process you will find the balance between ordinary, daily experiences and your emotional reactions to those experiences.

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

[Perna]

You say you are losing your ability to function in day-to-day life because you are spending too much time focusing on your therapy.

I think you are saying this is the fault of therapy. You need to limit therapy to get back some "time" to function.

I would keep working hard to gain ability to function. Ability is like a muscle and unless you strengthen your ability to function while it is under "assault", through practice, then functioning ability will weaken.

People who are anxious and afraid (such as myself) unless they confront their fears will gradually get more and more fears and "retreat" to smaller and smaller spaces trying to find "safety". I use to think of myself like a walled city that had interior walls and when I'd get afraid (or did something I didn't want to like cry :-) I'd "retreat" to the next level inward. I think, were I you, I'd fight to learn to balance therapy with the rest of my life, rather than give up something (therapy or anything else). It's not the therapy that is the problem or solution, but the learning to focus in spite of the therapy that is so difficult but crucial to everything else.

[Flowerb]

I think perhaps it is on our minds all the time, because it is our minds we are dealing with. Humans are unique creatures, to be able to think about thinking.

I think therapy is a little like falling in love - it is a force unto itself and it feels so good and so awful and all we want to do is be in it 24/7. But it does ease off, even thought it remains important and minutes can go by without thinking about it. I'm up to hours now!

I think the reward system is a fantastic idea.

> You say you are losing your ability to function in day-to-day life because you are spending too much time focusing on your therapy.

Perna said that, but I thought it was a good take so it was worth repeating :-)

I think... That it sounds to me like things are a bit overwhelming right now and so right now is when the focus is supposed to shift.

This happened with me not so long ago. I was becoming consumed with thinking about my childhood pain all the time. Thinking about it, feeling it. Feeling bad. Thinking about it, feeling it. Feeling worse. Lying in bed thinking about it, feeling it. Avoiding people. Avoiding work. Feeling guilty for avoiding people and for avoiding work. Beating myself up. Er... How is this helping again????

So: I had a chat with my t. Told him that I needed to function. Had important deadlines and needed them to function. Lets face it... If you don't have very much in your life that you are happy with then you can afford to throw everything you have into therapy. I've done that at points in the past and it was an appropriate thing for me to do. But now... Er... I've got myself a little bit of a life with things that are important to me. If it comes to choosing between keeping those things in my life in appropriate order or going to therapy then it would be a step backwards for me if I were to choose therapy over my life. Because... Therapy is supposed to be about helping people get things that are meaningful in their life... How is it helping if it is getting in the jolly road all the time?????

I guess I would have a think about whether you need to reduce the frequency of the sessions (cutting back to once per week and twice every second week could be a comprimise) or whether it is more about reducing the intensity of the sessions. More frequent sessions doesn't have to result in greater intensity of sessions. I've started talking more about the present than the past with my t now. It is intense in its own way. But I'm not getting caught / lost in childhood pain.

Hang in there... Try not to beat yourself up...

Practice those coping skills... Its okay to think about (and even enjoy) your life instead of worrying about therapy stuff all the time...

Hope your deadlines work out okay!

i guess that's it... a compromise.. at least give that a try. i'm about ready to ditch it altogether but a compromise is worth a try. i appreciate everyone's thoughts and advice, i am listening and mulling it all over.

one thing i discovered as i was writing earlier today in my journal... and again as i was reading here... the intensity.. it comes from the material, sure, but a HUGE chunk of it comes from being afraid of him telling me to get out. i feel time limited and pressured.. so i feel like i have to "get to it" all as fast as possible. i think i am driving the intensity up myself. Every time a session is a little slow or not intense, i feel like i wasted my time and his... which means i have lost my chance to do something before he forces me to leave.

he tells me all the time he won't leave me... he says "i'm not going anywhere." But i can't help it. i feel like he's going to force me to go away.

i'm going to go check out that link... i have a hard time agreeing with that idea. Functioning is life or death, and maybe therapy is too, i dunno, but sacrificing functioning doesn't make any sense. Like Alex said, i've got some stuff that means something, good stuff.. and i went into therapy to solve patterns so i could keep the good stuff.. maybe even get other good stuff too.

ty perna... i get what you're saying now. i had to use that principle to deal with social anxiety... i spent a year unwilling to leave my house. The world shrinks and you have to push back.

i do have a lot on my plate.. too much.. and i wonder too about my timing... it's hard to know what to do... i always thought that when your heart told you that it was time, then you needed to do it... but my heart doesn't know anything about the paper i have due, or the solo show, or anything else that makes life important to me.

i'm vulnerable.. i have had two+ yrs of living hell which have robbed me of all reserves... beaten down into the ground. Crying in my car on my way home every day. Feeling sick when i'd get up. Frightened nearly constantly. Life was unstable, precarious. i didn't always have food, and i never had love. Those years drained what was me away... so now, i don't have reserve strength. i'm the first and the last person to need therapy now.

*sad smile...

thanks for answering

[sunrise]

</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
gerber said:
i'm vulnerable.. i have had two+ yrs of living hell which have robbed me of all reserves... beaten down into the ground. Crying in my car on my way home every day. Feeling sick when i'd get up. Frightened nearly constantly. Life was unstable, precarious. i didn't always have food, and i never had love. Those years drained what was me away... so now, i don't have reserve strength. i'm the first and the last person to need therapy now.

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">
gerber, that paragraph reminded me a lot of myself and where I was a couple of years ago. I was at the bottom and that was when I first sought therapy. Just falling apart and hardly able to function. Crying non-stop. I did start therapy and the therapist was of the CBT type, and offered coping strategies. We never did any deep work. I was not capable, and I'm not sure she did that type of work, anyway. I worked with her a while, got more functional, stopped seeing her, and then over a year later, found my current T. I was ready to work with him, go deep, and really make progress. I sometimes wonder how it would have been if I had gone to him first. I really would not have been able to do the intensity and depth of work that we did, because when I did go to him, I had recovered somewhat, built up some reserves of strength, and also cultivated some outside sources of support--friends, family, etc. Anyway, sometimes I do think we are indeed not ready to do deep and intense therapy due to our lack of strength and ability to cope with what life has thrown us. I think it is OK to use therapy as a way to get "strong enough" again to function in life and then maybe in the future, to go deep with the therapist. Sometimes we just aren't strong enough to "do it now", and that is OK. Grow strong. Use therapy for that. Take care.

There is a lot of controversy... Over whether the 'deep work' or the 'exploratory work' helps in a way that people wouldn't be helped if they didn't do it... Or whether the 'deep work' or the 'exploratory work' harms in a way that people wouldn't be harmed if they didn't do it.

Opinions are divided...

One thing we can do with our life is try our best to immerse ourself in it. Work on immersing ourself in it as much as possible. Developing coping strategies etc such that we function better than before. Developing relationships etc such that we function better than before. Basically focusing on present difficulties and present problems in coping and trying to shore things up (make the person stronger and more resilient) by working on the stuff that is problematic.

Another thing we can do with our life is spend some time in the present wondering and trying to figure out how we got to be the way we are. The thought is that if we can figure that out (achieve insight) then we will be better able to immerse ourselves in life.

I think that sometimes the latter project can actually interfeare with the former project to the extent that what is really holding one back in life is spending so much time worrying about the latter project! If I spend a lot of time remembering and feeling horrible experiences that I had as a kid then that is preventing me from becoming immersed in my current life. What is the point? To spend a lot of time remembering and feeling horrible experiences that I had as a kid until... I don't feel them anymore? If I immerse myself in life then I don't feel them anymore. Yet somehow people get the notion that I'm 'avoiding' when personally I prefer to refer to it as 'living'.

Balance... Neither pushing the horrible experiences away (all the time)... Nor clinging to them (feeling them all the time).

Where is the real progress? What is the real way forward? I think... That each of us needs to find our own balance and our own path and that either extreme can be positively harmful.

Gerber... Maybe you are pushing yourself too hard sweetie to do something that isn't what you need (isn't helpful for you) at present. I could be off... But your situation really is reminding me of my situation where that situation started about a month ago for me.

I'm terrified that my therapist will grow bored with me. Find me uninteresting. Not want to see me anymore.

And so... A little question that I ask myself (whether consciously or unconsciously) is 'what does he want me to do?' 'who does he want me to be?' 'what do I have to do such that he will still be interested in me and still want to work with me and still want to help me?'

And I often find myself doing / saying... Things that I think will make it more likely that he won't grow bored / sick of me. And then the trouble is... That I feel like I'm misrepresenting myself / performing... And never really being able to be authentic in a way that is truely healing.

So if I think t wants me to cry about and feel those horrible childhood feelings then I'll do that. Even though my biggest worry during the week is how to assert myself with the person scheduling talk times. And then I'll feel guilty for not being authentic so I'll spend the week ruminating on / crying about / feeling those horrible childhood feelings so that I am authentic. Then scheduling a talk time isn't problematic so much as the fact that I haven't written my %#@&#! talk.

And so... I started talking to my therapist about feeling unauthentic. And about feeling afraid that he would grow bored with me / leave me. And... Somehow... He seems to be getting this now / letting me take the initiative more. So talking to him about that doesn't mean that I need to remember and cry about the horrible feelings I had when my Father left. There isn't anything that my therapist can say to me to make me feel less afraid that he will leave me / grow bored with me. But... He can show me he cares about ME and not what it is that he wants me to be. And... That helps. Helps me be assertive (and not worry that the talk scheduler will get pissed with me and hate me forever and ever). Helps me get my talk written (and not worry that the audience will think I'm stupid or boring or whatever).

Living Gerber, don't forget its supposed to be about your quality of life!

(Sometimes I find that I am spending a lot of time ruminating on hard stuff... Sometimes the thing to do is to get better at putting that away and getting into life. Sometimes the thing to do is to allow myself to feel the pain and to grieve for a little while. How do I know what the thing to do is? Well... I'm still learning... But there is a difference between HEALING grieving and WINDING ONESELF UP).

growing strong... i think that is what T wants me to do now, he has not pushed at all for the early trauma stuff.. he says there is lots of time for that.. it's me who feels rushed b/c i feel i will be given the boot.

Alex, the thing is... i'm not spending all my time thinking about the traumas themselves... but about therapy, the process, the relationship, which way it should go, how i feel... etc etc etc. Sometimes, sure, it's about trauma work, but generally that has been relatively rare and contained. We simply haven't done much of it yet.

what we do most is recent past trauma... the stuff that landed me here. And it's important because it's an issue still. My life is a %#@&#! train wreck. He feels i need to work through that stuff so i can connect with how i felt... because it will greatly impact how i handle what is going on now..

i've not yet done a session in a way i felt he wanted me to, but as someone else said above.. i do think i want to control it all.

in the type of therapy we do - schema - the idea is not to just discover why i feel or act as i do, but to discover patterns over my life and then alter those. It's sort of a blend of the different schools...

tomorrow i am asking to reduce down to one per week. i refuse to do any early trauma work right now... until other hurdles have been dealt with.

i have to find a way myself though, to limit the amount of time i read about therapy, spend here or elsewhere talking about it and so on... even doing that would give me back more of my life

Hey. Yeah, I thought (from what you had said) that it was you who was pushing... What I was trying to do is get you to maybe have a little think about whether it is helpful for you to push in those ways, or whether you might be helped a whole lot more by easing up on yourself a little.

Maybe... Instead of thinking about what therapy 'should' be like or what therapy is 'supposed' to be like or what your therapist would like therapy to be like... Just go along and see what you feel like talking about.

> i've not yet done a session in a way i felt he wanted me to

Can you talk to him about that? It might be that you think he has an expectation that actually... He doesn't.

> the idea is not to just discover why i feel or act as i do, but to discover patterns over my life and then alter those.

Do you feel that that will be helpful for you right now or would you like to try something a bit different?

well, i feel like the immediate stuff needs addressing when it boils over, but i see it as the product of the patterns and i won't solve anything until i solve those. i deliberately asked to switch from the weekly crisis points to something larger because i knew we'd be doing that forever. i asked him if in the 9months we'd been seeing each other at the time if he recall any week in which nothing big happening and he said none came to mind. My life is a tornado.

i do have to talk with him about my expectations and his, surrounding therapy i mean. we touched on it today when i told him i feel pressured to "do something" each time or do more, faster. It's because i don't want to let him down and because i am terrified he'll just say that i have been doing this long enough, get out. He said we definitely have to talk about that until i can believe and trust him.

i freeze up if i go in and just see what i want to talk about. i just go blank. And even if he has no set agenda or time-frame... i simply can't financially afford to have many sessions in which i just stare at the floor. That's a thing too.. i need to make sure i do what i can, i am pretty poor and i spend almost all i have on therapy.

i do need to push less... but honestly, i don't have a lot of choice sometimes. i feel like a vulcano and the pressure builds, if i don't let it out then it will explode

> i do have to talk with him about my expectations and his, surrounding therapy i mean. we touched on it today when i told him i feel pressured to "do something" each time or do more, faster. It's because i don't want to let him down and because i am terrified he'll just say that i have been doing this long enough, get out. He said we definitely have to talk about that until i can believe and trust him.

thats great! I'm really glad that you brought it up :-)

> i simply can't financially afford to have many sessions in which i just stare at the floor.

that is interesting... i guess... that sometimes... we have this view of what counts as progress and what doesn't. sometimes progress consists in a certain thing (to our mind) and there can be pressure to get to that.

a couple weeks back i didn't know what to say so we kind of sat in silence for a bit when i arrived. then he asked me whether silences were okay for me or whether i'd prefer it if he said something to break them. i said that mostly they were okayish... but that sometimes i did need him to break them but that i could probably indicate that okay. then we sat in silence for a bit.

then i said 'i can think of stuff to say but i feel like none of it really matters. that it is just avoiding or something'.

and so we talked about that for a bit. about pressure to 'perform' or to talk about something that is considered 'worthy' and about pressure to conform to some model of what constitutes progress. and he said that he probably hadn't helped with that so much (with letting me know i could talk about whatever).

and i talked for a bit about stuff that i didn't think really mattered. and after some time... i got to talking about how i feel like i have to perform sometimes and i dont' feel authentic and stuff like that.

and it ended up being a really good (and productive) session. felt freer afterwards. freer to be me and not spend my life running around conforming to what i think other people might expect of me.

it wore of, of course...

but i just mean to say that sometimes progress comes when you don't seek it directly. and sometimes... well... having half a session in silence might really help that second half be truely meaningful.

perhaps.

i think i might print your response off alex... and maybe give it to T, but i will definitely bring up some of your points with him

last week was kind of that way, except instead of silence i challenged and pushed him into frustration, which he admitted. It was that honesty and self-disclosure of feelings that changed everything. Instead of him walking away all pissed off at me (like everyone else does), he talked about it. It put me in a different place and the second half was the best ever.

silence.. not so good. i think i would get up and leave.. my head would explode... right now anyway. i hope i can get to the point at which i don't feel that need to perform and then i can cope with silence sometimes. Right now he rescues me.. and that's ok.

and yeah, those feelings wear off.. the good ones. T says it's because they go against your beliefs, and if you could change them quickly then they wouldn't be beliefs at all.

that notion os progress/performance.. it's huge. i am always performing for someone.. it's how i have survived at all really. The real me is so dysfunctional, so unlikable that i drive people away... performing is how i manage. It's no surprise i would try to please him... and he has unwittingly helped that along... offhand comments that he won't even remember but that impacted me. He asked me one day a while ago what i thought i was getting from therapy... innocent question right? Nope. To me that says "you need to prove to me that there is progress or we are done, i can't help you."

he has tried hard to repair various ruptures in trust... and i have been as honest as i can be about when they happen. We had a huge discussion about how i was making a baby step that i had been proud of, but his expectation raised the bar too high and robbed me of that accomplishment. He felt pretty bad about that... and it still affects me.

not good enough, fast enough

he knows i feel a lot of this, but i think he is really getting just how bad that is... especially in therapy.

god... why does he have to be so %#@&#! nice? It would be easy if i could just get mad at him... but he sidesteps my attempts. Damn him