In Session Today: Part VI

Well my therapist is pregnant and I have no idea how that is going to play out later when she needs to take time off and stuff. Like how long she will be out and how long we'll have to do virtual and stuff. Basically I was just trying not to lose my ****ing mind that she was having a baby at her age. I thought she looked pregnant. But I thought no way shes too old. And thats not something you ask someone. Then she told me and it just blew my mind. After that I had trouble making eye contact even though my eye contact had been great during all our other sessions. I'm not sure if its my dysphoria or if I was just trying not to stare or what. She said my clothes were baggy and its like ***** these are size 30/30 jeans and an XS hoodie. That comment kinda annoyed me. I think I was just hangry the whole time. She offered me a Fiber One bar but I took half a bite of it and then left it untouched because I hate eating in front of people. I told her this and she said its an eating disorder behavior. I did come home and ate half a bottle of plant based eggs and a tablespoon of Wow butter and I took my Prestiq. So I am not hangry or ornery anymore.

I just froze up today despite having 3 things I really needed to talk about. I don't know what my issue was. I know I have a hard time making eye contact with her now that she is pregnant. She probably knows thats the issue too because I immediatly started the lack of eye contact thing as soon as she told me she was pregnant. I hope she doesn't take it personally. It really isn't her. Its my own own problem that I have to learn to deal with. She said I could email her if I thought of anything else I wanted to talk about.

Today went well. It was virtual and those are really deep for me for some reason. We talked about my new niece and how I wasn't feeling good yesterday. I mentioned I think I may have gotten sick because of how I've been sleeping and eating. She says that is a good point and then my body may also just respond to stress by getting sick. But yeah I know my crappy diet and poor sleep caused me to be sick. I did finally bring up my transference T. But I didn't mention the transference part. Or the email part. I just mentioned the therapist I had before I moved who I was still trying to deal with. She asked about her and I mainly mentioned she didn't want to work with me because she didnt specliaze in eating disorders. Which is the main reason why she said she didnt want to work with me. But I mentioned Christmas 2020 and IOP and feeling cut off before I moved. I knew my therapist didn't totally understand and I know it was because I didn't mention the transference or the emails. But I dont want her thinking I'm having transference with her or that she needs to stop the emails between sessions which we both agree are super helpful.

But today went well.

hope you don't mind me replying here. how old is she? just curious. I was 36 when my son was born back in 1998, my first and only. i worried that i was too old, and I was on bed rest for like the last month before he was born, but everything else was great.

She is 46. She has other children who are adults so my mom is thinking this one may not have been planned. But I don't know, maybe it was planned.

Therapy was very productive today. I was very focused because I had my anxiety and my nausea under control, and I had eaten breakfast and I slept decently last night. We mainly talked about work. My fears and also how I was fact checking at the same time. We talked about my weight and food. She brought it up. I said I was confused about what I wanted. I didn't always like being a small guy when I looked in the mirror, but I also liked seeing lower numbers on the scale and it was hard for me to eat a lot. I told her I would try and eat as much as possible on as little calories. She was alarmed at that and said "that is for sure eating disorder behavior." I was really confused because I've been doing that for literal years and never thought it was an issue. She said she bets I can list off the calories of any food she gives me which is also an ED behavior. I asked if she thought I had one. She said she thinks I'm somewhere in between disordered eating and an eating disorder. She wants me to put on some weight but I don't know if that is necessary.

Anyways today was good because of the steps I took before the session to make it a good session.

Therapy was productive despite me looking and feeling like ****. She was super concerned and said she had been thinking of me. She is just as baffled as everyone else about where I got covid from and why I got it now and not all the other times where it actually made sense that I would have gotten it. Anyways she reassured me about the new therapist taking my insurance. She reassured me that she will be back and I guess she isn't going to be gone for quite as long as she orginally told me. It did worry me about how overly concerned she was about me and how she wanted to me to keep her updated with emails during the week and to let her know about my bloodwork and doctors appointment. She said my cough sounded really bad.

Wow it's been a while since anyone updated. Hope everything is going ok for all. I do enjoy reading these

The past couple of weeks have been about facing up to the reality of the situation. Today, R held space for the hardest conversation we have had to date, and somehow I held it together by the skin of my teeth. Last session of the year next week.

Therapy went fine. It was virtual. I felt like throwing up the whole time and I still feel like it. We did more chatting then normal. Like about movies. She called me her kindred spirit since we like all the same stuff. My transference T just found it creepy when she found out we had stuff in common.

Therapy was ok but I forgot most of what I wanted to talk about so I sent her an email afterwards. My last therapist sent her a video she wanted me to watch. It was the same poodle healthy at any size one I've seen before. Its weird my last therapist is still involved with me. But I'm glad I'm finally getting good mental health care. Plus I had 2 credits so I didn't have to pay for this session or next weeks.

I feel like I need a therapy session to get over my therapy session!

I don't normally feel this bad afterwards, but am really wishing I hadn't gone. Now I have to sit with these feelings for another week. Maybe I'll write it out and see if that helps.

I need to do something other than have this infinity loop of dangerous stuff going round in my head 24/7.

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Therapy last night was really good. I don't know what made it so good exactly. We just talked about my being numb (I was numb last night. Today I am back to having emotional pain.) And how it is hard for me to cry and to feel my feelings and then to talk about them once they have lost their strength. We talked about hallucinations and self harm and missing my friend who is on vacation in Egypt. I'm feeling really crappy today and sent her a text and she responded with such a nice long message that made me feel really heard. It was the session I needed. I didn't want to stop talking to her when it was time. I did though.

I cried through most of my session today. Last session, we'd talked about my trying to make some improvements in my life, and I left session feeling all positive about that. Which didn't last long. I was just filled with despair today, asking "what's the point?" about some things. And saying it felt almost like I was on a hamster wheel.

Dr. T made the realization that part of why I'm struggling right now is that I don't really have anything in particular that I'm aiming/working toward. Whether something like writing (I've talked about a therapy memoir), learning a musical instrument, working on changes to my career, etc. And we discussed how I often have ideas of things I want to do, but almost immediately shut them down for whatever reason. Like, "It would be nice to learn to play the cello, but googling shows that it's one of the most difficult instruments to learn, so there's no point in trying." And he said that I could just try a lesson with a rented instrument and see how it goes; I could always stop, try a different instrument, try something else. (That was just an example--I was also talking about joining a writing group, stuff like that.)

I mentioned going to a restaurant last night and having the host say I could sit wherever I wanted. And I struggled to decide on a table, then was unhappy with the one I picked (H--who was meeting me there--and I ended up moving to the bar). And Dr. T said in a way, that's a perfect metaphor. It's like I'm standing at the door of the restaurant unsure of which table to pick. When I can just pick one, and if it's the wrong one, I can change or just deal with sitting there, and then it's just one meal.

He said the first step is to think about my skills, what I want to be doing more of, what I want to learn. Then from there, come up with some goals of things to try. How that can make life feel more worth living, having something you're striving toward. That it's something he's realized in both his personal and professional life. And he said it seems I feel like I'm not going to succeed at anything. Dr. T: "What happened to the person who was amazing at school? Who was an overachiever? She's still in there." Me: "I don't know that she is." Dr. T: "Yes, she is." It helped to hear that, even if I don't fully believe it.

At the end of the session, he gave my hand a squeeze while shaking it and said, "I hope your next couple of days are better." I did feel better when I left his office. It seemed like we made a sort of breakthrough, as to some of the source of my unhappiness and dissatisfaction with life, and I'm hoping I can make something of it.

I really felt the time pressure in today's session, almost like I had to get everything out at once.

I think that contributed to me feeling like I was speaking a foreign language, but over time R has become near fluent in Lost-ese.

Nonetheless, I wish we had some kind of signal for 'There are words in my brain that won't come out of my mouth.'

I thought I'd told her everything, but now realise I missed out a significant element.

I cried within the first few minutes of today’s session. I told R about my positive test on Sunday.

‘What is the impact of that for you?’
‘Everything gone, and when everything goes…’

I crumbled at that point, and R urged me to let it come out.

‘Let it pour out, Lost. You’ve been holding that in. Have you felt alone with it all week?’

I couldn’t speak, so I gave her a thumbs up.

‘Lots of time to think.’
She asked a few more questions about my experience of COVID.
‘Other than a burning sensation in my nose, I feel OK,’ I said, and then sneezed. ‘And there are the nosebleeds.’

‘Are nosebleeds a symptom?’

‘I think it’s just where I have sneezed and shredded my nose.’

I continued. ‘Before all this started, I got an email from one of my favourite mental health charities with the subject line ‘The End of an Era’.’

‘Which charity is that?’

‘Have you heard of The Blurt Foundation?’

‘No.’

‘Well, you won’t now, because they’re closing.’

‘Funding?’

‘They said there were many problems.’

I told R about the Saturday newsletters, and how they became my ritual after Steve.
‘We both know why there haven’t been any of those…It’s like what you said a couple of weeks ago about being supported without having to ask.’

‘I think I did this,’ she said, interlacing her fingers.

‘There was a common kind of cheerleading…it’s not that, it’s resourcing.’

I spoke about how I would open the Blurt emails at different times of my Saturday according to need.
‘Sometimes I opened them before work, if I wasn’t feeling very confident, or I might open them after work to help deal with the slump.’

I wasn’t sure I had spoken about the dip in my mood after finishing work, but I was surprised when she said she could relate.

‘Not just work, but anything.’

I remarked that the newsletter had left me scrambling to find something else.
‘It sounds like you didn’t know how beneficial it was until it wasn’t there.’
‘A lot of it was stuff I have already got from our relationship, but it’s always good to have a reminder.’
At that point she clocked me trying again to figure out how to hide my image, unsuccessfully.

We had a brief chat about her Zoom issues.
‘I keep asking myself what I need and coming up empty.’

R explained that when she asks that question, the answer is sometimes not practical.
‘It might be that I need some peace, or some space, or to talk to a friend.’
“I need this to not be happening” is resistance.’

‘When you ask what you need, and you can’t answer, where does that lead?’
‘If we take the point at which you start to know yourself as being a teenager, I have known myself half my life. I should be able to answer that question.’

‘There we go! You should…and should leads to shame & guilt.’

R continued ‘Guilt is “I did something bad”. Shame is “I am a bad person,” or “There is a part of me that is bad.” When we are in shame, it is difficult to ask for help and support, because we don’t want to be seen.’

‘I’ve just had a realisation!’

‘What landed for you when I was talking about shame?’

‘Is there a shame component to my grief for Steve?’

‘Good question.’

‘I don’t feel able to pick up the conversation I mentioned in my latest email, but the start of that is…Because I respected and admired Steve, I feel as though I should be OK with his choice.’

R said she wanted to challenge that a bit. ‘Wouldn’t the connection make it harder?’

‘None of the other people I have loved and had to say goodbye to…I will go to great lengths to avoid using that word…’
‘You’re fragile today. You are allowed to protect yourself.’
‘None of those people had a choice.’

R said that it might be possible to separate the person I admired from the choice he made.

‘You felt respect, admiration and love for Steve, but his death brings up anger…’

‘Disappointment.’
‘Disappointment, and loss. Those things belong to his decision to end his life.’
R pointed out that she’d reached a new understanding of me as a result of today’s session.

‘There seems to be a layer of shame over everything here. I’m going to talk about crying…There’s a layer of shame that is a barrier to you getting the support you need.’

‘Yes, but isn’t shame just The Critic in a tux?’

‘When you said that, I pictured a moustache as well.’

‘By the next time I see you, I’ll draw it.’

‘That might be a really useful exercise.’

Our breathing was a mixture of cleansing breaths, releasing tension and anxiety, and connecting at the third eye space.
‘I’m praying you get a negative test soon, so you can get back to your life.’

‘Thank you.’

Today I told my T that I believe I have parental transference towards him. He asked questions I couldn't (or wouldn't?) answer about it, but I told him of when it first seemed to manifest that way (when he told me he was a grandpa). I told him of my dream of him, of him leaving the room, and assured him it that I knew it wasn't his fault that there was less continuity of our sessions of late (lot's of public holidays and some stuff going on in my life). He in turn pointed out that it wasn't my fault either, that it was noones fault.

I told him of my struggles of late, the stress I had in the past 2 or so months, and we also talked about work and future work prospects. We touched on many things, amongst others a subject I discussed on MSF recently, which was the potentiality of writing about past relationships and my experience in them, and to bring these writings to session if they are relevant for us to talk about.

i also had an appointment with my Pdoc today. He seems very much at ease letting me handle the dosage of my medication (1 anti-depressant/ lexapro), espacially as I am in therapy (which he very much supports). He asked what my therapist said about me considering reducing the dosage, but my T doesn't seem to have a clear opinion on the matter, and seems to just support whatever choice I make. It's kind of cool they are treating me like an adult, when I feel like a teenager.

A few things from Friday's session.

I talked about my mom and a long estrangement she's had from her sister, my aunt. How it struck me that she was able to hold a grudge against someone for so long, and I wasn't even sure what exactly it was about (I know some of it relates to my late grandmother, their mother, regarding her long illness and later death, but it was going on off and on before that as well).

Dr. T asked, "So does that make you wonder if it could happen to you, too, that she could decide to stop communicating with you for some reason as well?" Me: "Yeah, I guess so...I hadn't really considered this before, connecting that conflict with the possibility of cutting me off. I mean, I doubt she would, but still...it was her own sister." I also mentioned how she was estranged from my now-late uncle for a few years in there.

Dr. T: "Where is all this new material coming from after 5 years? This is like, something that would be in the season finale, to make sure viewers return next season. Like a coming attractions." There had also been something new I shared a few weeks ago regarding something I'd witnessed between two friends (where he was like, "Why have you never told me about this? It seems important.") So it does seem a part of a pattern. I said I didn't know.

He then went on to share a story of his grandmother--he said his mother's mother--holding a 25-year grudge against her next-door neighbor in Brooklyn, for thinking she'd run over some flowers she'd planted in a shared driveway. But never told the neighbor about it (they later learned that the neighbor had been out of town at the time, and it had likely been her daughter who was house-sitting). At first, he said, "This story will only take a minute." Then partway through, he looked at his Apple Watch and was like, "Sorry, this is taking a bit longer than a minute." Me: "It's OK--it's interesting!" It also seemed a pretty close parallel.

We talked more about my mom and how she judges people. But also can seem very supportive and empathetic toward her friends. I was saying how she seemed very judgmental of my uncle (her brother). And how I guess that colored my own view of him. But that when I learned, maybe 15 years ago, that he was bipolar, my view of him shifted a bit, and some of the things he did made more sense. How I saw him in a different light. Dr. T said, "Lonesome Tonight (using my full name), are you seeing shades of gray in people?"

I said, "I guess, but I think I normally do see shades of gray in other people, less so with myself." He said it does seem like with him (and when I'm talking about ex-MC, too), that it can seem like I either see him as great or awful, with no real in-between. We discussed how the negative view seemed to be particularly when my abandonment/rejection fears are triggered.

This led to my saying, "I know we discussed this a bit before, but I still find it interesting that ex-MC, when he hurt me badly, I couldn't seem to go back to trusting him and had to leave. But with you, I've been hurt multiple times--I mean, I guess I did leave the one time and nearly left recently--but I also came back. And I guess that's because I viewed him in a certain way, and what happened changed that view of him, so that I couldn't go back? Like he was on a pedestal and then wasn't anymore?"

Dr. T said: "When you're on a pedestal, there's a long way to fall. You've never put me up particularly high. What's that saying? 'There's nowhere to fall if you're already on the floor?'" Me: "You're not on the floor. You're at least on a low bench!" We both laughed about that a little.

When I was leaving, we shook hands, and Dr. T asked, "It's Friday?" Me: "Yes." Dr. T: "Have a good weekend." Me: "You, too."

Oh, how could I forget? He was wearing his "All Day Hustle" Under Armour hoodie, which I hadn't seen in maybe a year. I struggled to avoid laughing about it at first, but managed to keep it in.

The new thread is here: Re: In Session Today: Part VII