[Waterloo12345]

Hi All, not sure if this will fuel my emotional deregulation but hey ho.

My GP emailed me earlier, after me writing him a number of emails that indicate a downwards spiral, that the surgery was closed over Christmas and boxing day and to go to the local hospital or call 111. He added that he was confident I wouldn't need them and I'd done really well this year. There were also other good bits.

Am now lying on my sofa, siblings having gone out to parties like normal people, thinking, have I really done well this year?

I'd bet all my Christmas presents I was lying in the sofa a year ago at this time. I'm defo not in the deepest darkest depression I was in then but with the year I've had with trauma unfolding and therapy and SuA, and not working, and generally lurching from crises to crises am like really? I've done well?? What the hell is your base line???

I'm getting better (at a snail's pace) but it's been a heck of a year and a path I would wish on no one.

Should prob just go to sleep

ETA: there was a point to this oh woe is me post.

What have been the differences for you over the year? Has therapy helped?

[DP_2017]

Last year was the first Xmas without my dog, my T stepped up and made it the best it could be all things considered, we were close, I was happy.

A year later, T has now left me around Xmas and I have no real life support.... I still miss my dog and now him as well. I feel confused and abandoned.

Has much changed in the last year? Not really... just learning to adjust to life without my boy. I'm still the same loser I've always been with the same issues.... only made a few small steps in changing. Therapy helped to a point but in the end, I regret ever going.

Not sure I'll ever be able to love Christmas again

[ChickenNoodleSoup]

Last Christmas I had just come back from an internship a few hours away from home. I struggled a lot during that time away from home, started to have flashbacks, started to abuse substances more frequently and more SH. After coming back home, I still was like that. I was also worried about finding a laboratory to do my thesis in.

I proceeded to find such a lab, but still struggled a lot. A person really close to me died in May. At the same time, a friend of mine kind of dumped me. I was almost always in crisis, my T offered me a lot of phone calls but didn't seem to catch how badly I was doing. He went away for his Summer vacation and when he came back I was in some sort of constant panic state paired with some dissociation. He decided to switch to twice a week and put me on meds.

This was in September. Since then I've improved a lot. I don't feel anxious anymore, probably due to the meds. I am able to implement positive changes like meditation that I will hopefully keep doing for a while if not forever. I'm eating more healthy food, I try to work out more often. My T has been supportive and I can see some changes in my behavior in therapy as well. I've been able to start processing some of my trauma and am learning to trust people more. I don't have suicidal ideation anymore for the most part and I manage to not SH in most situations.

Overall, the year started out a bit bumpy but in the last few months it has really improved. Therapy has helped me a lot and I'm really grateful for it.

[piggy momma]

Therapy has helped immensely. I have to say though, I've been with my therapist for 15 months and I feel like we just finally "clicked" in the past four weeks.

I usually work a tonne over the holidays. I work for an airline, so there are always hours to pick up. I don't have kids or family to celebrate with, so I may as well work.

School starts back January 7.

[guilloche]

I don't know. I think I'm probably worse. Worse every year, little by little. T hasn't helped. I can't seem to figure out how to do therapy... it just feels weird to me. I try. The T tries. But somehow it doesn't really ever add up to anything. Nothing feels good right now but I'm trying to stay busy.

[Merope]

I was beginning to finally work through my issues. I’d been in therapy for a few months and was beginning to get attached.

This year I’m anxious that he’ll leave me because I’ve been in therapy for over a year and I’m having a hard time with my dysfunctional family, but I know I have him to go back to when the stupid holidays are over.

[Waterloo12345]

Thanks guys for all the responses- a positive thing for me, having had a good nights sleep, is I've just in the past couple of weeks shared with my family- I'm hopeful that can lead to increased closeness in the future. Plus I have a garden to tend. Hugs.

I think I have had a lot of changes this year which makes me feel like I have progressed but I am not sure how far that is an illusion and actually I need constant change to feel better.

Therapy wise this is my third year and I finally feel like I am opening up albeit slowly. Very slowly. I am scared of a dependence forming. I think part of the reason why I have opened up more is because I broke up with my gf and therefore am becoming more reliant on my T to fill that gap. I think this is dangerous for me and I don't like being over reliant.

[winterblues17]

Last Christmas was a relatively good one as far as Christmas goes, I spent time with family and I felt really close and connected to my T. Even though I still had many issues, last Christmas I had a little hope.
Fast forward a year, I'm spending it alone, and my T has left me. The strength of the therapeutic relationship I think was underestimated by us both, with my T by my side I felt I was strong enough to keep going and move forward with the blows because I knew that come the end of the week I would have her to go to. Without that and with everything else going on, I'm left feeling alone and depressed more than ever.

Like DP said, therapy has helped along the way, it gave me a couple of years of warmth and safety, a sense of closeness and belonging. Right now though I regret ever going, ever allowing myself to feel care about and worthwhile.

The higher up u are, the bigger the fall!

[Lemoncake]

I was studying for my immunology exam, which was the biggest subject of the winter semester and I was attempting to all do it preterm= early before examination period officially begins. I had broken up with my best friends in may so it was 5 months on from that. I remember crying because because I was scared and knew like I knew that he would leave me after his break.

Now I feel like after my recent acting out spell, I can actually trust him to be there for me. I don't have the same holiday angst that I did previously have with him being away. When I was younger I used to wish I could be someone else. At the age of 27 I finally feel more comfortable just being myself. I've learnt to have more self respect, the harsh voice in my head has been toned down. I don't feel as fragmented as I did. I'm actually enjoying school and my classes and I can see that I have a future when I never previously did. I still have my moments but I feel stronger and I have more happier moments.

I moved. That's changed a lot of things for me in a positive way.

[Anne2.0]

This year, I quit a part time job that wasn't worth it, after an extensive costs-benefits analysis, and continued to work for myself, where I call all the shots that are callable. It was my most important goal to figure out whether I could swing this, and T was encouraging and supportive all the way. No doubt, no flinching.

[stopdog]

The past year I have come out of intense grieving over my person just a bit.
Therapy had nothing to do with my year really. I have not seen the first woman in over a year as a therapist and she is now retired and I have not seen the second one in over 7 months because she retired suddenly due to her husband.

Last year I took a two-week vacation during this holiday season and it was wonderfully relaxing. This year I am not doing it because I have a bunch of looming work deadlines and travel in January and February and don't want to stress myself crazy too close to them. Am more just enjoying some peace, i.e. that most of my colleagues and clients are on vacation and don't contact me constantly.

One thing that concluded during the past year and I am particularly happy about is my immigration process. It wasn't a tricky one for me but a long process and there were so many administrative errors and sloppiness for years outside of my control... what should have been a straightforward process for me turned very chaotic and nerve wracking, it kinda left me with PTSD and the challenges never seemed to end for a long while. I am so glad it is finally over, I sense quite a big difference in my anxiety level due to it. Of course dealing with this stuff comes with the wandering lifestyle I have lived for so many years and it is great to have this security now and a place I don't only call hime but actually feel that way. Was never the case in my youth.

Mental health-wise in general, the last ~4 years have brought lots of gradual improvements and it's very satisfying because I've worked pretty hard for it. I have not been in therapy for >2 years now, don't miss it at all and don't plan to do more anytime soon.

I have some plans for the coming year that, if I move forward will them, are expected to bring a couple quite big changes and also some new risks. We'll see!

[koru_kiwi]

i think it was almost exactly a year ago today that ex-T was popping by for a quick visit to my house to drop off copies of his hand written notes of my early therapy sessions (a few months after i ended therapy, i requested copies of my sessions notes and he use to take hand written notes for about the first 18 months of my therapy). so i spent a good portion of the holiday season reading through 6 years of detailed session notes. T offered to meet with me after i completed reading them so we could discuss anything that may had come up for me or if i needed clarification. we met a couple of times casually afterwards and i had the opportunity to openly share my feelings and reactions to his perceptions and interpretations, not only of my therapy, but also his insight into who i was as a client/person, especially 'in relationship' with him. having the opportunities to spend time openly and honestly discussing our work together and the 'therapeutic relationship' was incredibly beneficial to helping me process many of my feelings post therapy, especially in regard to how i now experince him as person and the significant role he played in my life for so many years. although he could be spot on and attuned to me at times, from reading his notes, i could see just how often he was way off the mark when it came to really understanding me. over the many years of therapy, i did have a prevailing sense that he never could quite 'see' me...he never fully recognised my true or core self. i was able to share this with him as we discussed his notes, and in return, he both acknowledged and apologised to me admitting that he now understands that he did not have the full competency or training to handle my complex trauma (he shared with me that since i ended therapy he has started partaking in new training and is learning new methods for addressing and responding to complex trauma issues and it has opened his eyes to recognising how often he actually handled my truama poorly).

even though i no longer participate in therapy and it has been 18 months since ending, overall this year has still been incredibly healing and a positive growing experince for me with the post therapy 'relationship' and contact that i still have with my ex-T, especially when we can continue to have these kind of honest conversations. also, i can confidently say that i feel quite secure in myself knowing that i do continue to deeply care for him, but no longer fear him, and because of that, the limited relationship that i chose to maintain with him feels quite healthy and normal.