Couch 242: madam i'm adam

As someone else who works freelance, I completely understand this. Right now, I feel sort of on edge/anxious because I only have one assignment right now, even though I had a ton of work that I submitted last week, and it would be good for me to have a few days off. I only make money when I work, and I feel I need to be making extra to justify my current amount of therapy and other spending. And also, it's something that keeps me busy. And can help me avoid dealing with some other things, like you mentioned.

But I also have the problem, like you mentioned, of having no real end to my work day. There's no "Oh, it's Friday at 5 p.m.! Now no more work until Monday!" And there's not even a "it's Monday at 5 p.m.--no more work until tomorrow morning!" Some of that is how I choose to set my schedule (wanting a bit of free time during the day), but some of it is also due to D's schedule, etc.

Anyway, I'm saying all this and now making it about me, so I'm sorry. I don't really have a solution, just saying that I understand. For myself, I think I eventually need to go back to full-time work, even if it's all remote. But not yet.

And I think I also need to choose to take vacations from work, to say "I'm not taking any work for the next week" or even the next 3 days. Is this a case where you took time off due to being ill and also having other stress going on? Or is there work for you right now? I get how it can feel difficult having that time off. And maybe fear you're being unreliable and won't get work again?

Right now, I'd just try to think that a bit of time without much work can be a good thing, taking care of yourself. I think it's common to throw oneself into one's work to avoid dealing with emotions or other life things. Maybe this could be something you talk about in therapy? I think it can help just to be aware of that, too.

Hugs, if wanted.

Hugs, if wanted NP. I'm sorry you're dealing with all this. I identify with struggling to deal with feelings toward your therapist and wanting more from the relationship than there is.

In my case, Dr. T recently said that we need to talk more about what it is I'm looking for from the relationship and try to figure it out, that he's not sure that either of us fully understand it. Which is a bit scary. Because they're things I feel like I'm not supposed to want. Which makes me feel shame. (I did say the other day that one thing I get from him is intellectual conversation, though I know I need to be looking for that elsewhere. And he confirmed yesterday that it's OK.)

I'm sorry that seeing the dietician is dredging up all these feelings. Was it that session you ended early, or one with P? If the former, is it possible that this particular dietician is a bad fit for you? Like maybe they seem judgmental, not empathetic enough?

I'm sorry that P brought up the pattern of quitting. I also have a tendency to stop things early, or not even get to the point of trying them at all, which is something that came up recently in therapy. I wish that P had realized you were just trying to talk it out, not saying you wanted to quit. Did he seem to understand later?

The birth mother stuff sounds very difficult as well. Are you considering contacting any of them? One of my friends recently met her birth mother and a half-sibling, and she found it to be very rewarding. But I know people's experiences from that can vary quite a bit. I know that in a way you're an outsider, but it's entirely possible they'd be very welcoming and excited to meet you.

I understand not wanting to tell all this to P. (I mean, God knows, I recently had a pretty rough experience sharing some of that with Dr. T, though I think it's all OK now, and we understand each other.) But I'm not sure that quitting is the answer.

Could you tell him you're struggling with continuing with him? And struggling with the limitations of the relationship, without necessarily going into everything you're feeling? And also share how you're struggling with this other outside stuff? Maybe you could start by talking about some of the birth mother and half-sibling parts. As I imagine that's part of what is dredging up some of the feelings regarding him--seeing this other family that you weren't a part of growing up.

You've had a long, if tumultuous at times, relationship with him. I think it's worth trying to bring some of it up and seeing how it goes.

Thanks for understanding, LT.

I appreciate you sharing your experience.
I took time off due to being unwell, but showed up to today's virtual kids' workshop, because that would've been cancelled if I hadn't.

I'm down on myself because I missed the first meeting of the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion group I was so keen to be involved in.



There's the work I'm paid for, and then there's the stuff I do just because.
I think down time is supposed to be about actually resting, not planning the next project?

I am not currently considering contacting my birth family. I have to work through my own feelings, then I have to talk to my mom about all this. If they rejected me, I would not handle that very well. I'm not there yet. One of the pictures I found was the birth mother and half-sister taken in a restaurant sitting close together looking all cozy. I'm not sure I can put into words how seeing that makes me feel. Like a traitor to my family, grateful for my family, like a creepy stalker, like an outsider, rejected, jealous, abandoned. It's basically a mess in my head.

I ended the dietitian (dietician?) session early. I don't think she's a bad fit for the reasons I mentioned (she might be because she doesn't focus on losing weight and that is a goal of mine, but I'm trying to be flexible in how I think about that). It's just that talking to her about my eating/weight issues is triggering me. I think I'd feel that way talking to anyone.

P did seem to understand after the fact that I wasn't saying I was going to quit and he did say he wished that he'd said things differently. He also knows all about the birth mother and dietitian struggles. When I'm not actively avoiding talking about these things, that's what we've been focusing on lately.

I have said things to P in the past about wishing we were friends. The whole Stutz/love topic came up, so he knows that I have feelings of love towards him. I'm just not sure he understands how painfully intense these feelings can get for me. I usually just power through it and appreciate what we do have, but right now it feels like I can't do that. And it does feel shameful because it feels like I shouldn't want this. I keep fantasizing about writing him a letter and shoving it through his mail slot along with a book he lent me and not showing up on Monday. I feel like if I email him about this, I'm just being an attention seeker (which is something else I'm struggling with lately for a completely unrelated reason). I don't think I can have a face-to-face talk about the intensity of my feelings. The shame might kill me. And I'm so afraid of rejection right now. Just to be clear, he's never given me any indication that he is one of those therapists that can't deal with this kind of thing. I think he knows and understands these feelings. He told me once he wished his therapist was his dad, so I think he gets it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by RTerroni My Therapist abruptly ended things with me today so needless to say I am feeling pretty sad.

Oh, no. I'm so sorry RT.

Quote:

Originally Posted by LostOnTheTrail ... Anybody have any thoughts on how to balance caring about your work and caring about yourself a little better? ...

A pedicure can be incredibly relaxing and a great way to self-care.

Cool Whip!

NP, this all sounds incredibly hard. Just the birth family stuff OR the body stuff OR the intensity of the P thing would be a lot, but all of it together at once sounds completely overwhelming.

It is likely that your body has stored a lot of trauma over your lifetime (maybe starting from when you were separated from your birth mother) even if your brain doesn't think of it that way. I think it's commendable that you're seeking out a dietician to support you with your body and health stuff, and I'm wondering if it's just too soon in the process. I'm glad you noticed that you got triggered. Your system got overwhelmed and wasn't able to handle everything that was coming up. It was too much. Being aware of that is the first step toward dealing with it.

I'm wondering if the intermediate step that's missing is some way to help your body metabolize the stored trauma before you're able to cognitively process the other pieces. I think seeing a trauma therapist in addition to P even just for a short while might help bring down your body's reactivity so that other things you're putting effort into will be more fruitful. Both of my therapists have a lot of training in dealing with trauma, and both of them work with people who have eating disorders. I don't have an eating disorder and I'm not saying that you do either, but I think that element of their backgrounds has been enormously helpful for me when body or food things come up because they see the roots more easily than somebody who just works with the food side (like a dietician).

I have also found it really, really helpful to talk to my EMDR therapist about my main therapist. I was (and sometimes still am) skeptical about needing therapy to talk about my therapy, but the truth is that my bond to my main therapist is extremely important to me and sometimes I can't deal with some of my shame around attachment with her directly. Having somebody to talk to about everything that has come up has helped me see the relationship with my main therapist more clearly, has validated how important she is and why, and has helped reduce the intensity of the shame. I still feel very connected to my main therapist but I can be more matter of fact about the whole thing.

I hope something in there was helpful for you. I can see how incredibly hard you're working and how painful this all is. Whatever you decide to do, I wish you peace and stability.

Hi Couch.
Thanks for listening to my work tirade last week. I decided to just work this job while I look for another. Hopefully I'll be able to quit in a few weeks. I just gave up, but I can't just quit this one without another because I can't financially afford to do so. My mother and my sister hate the fact that I didn't give it a fighting chance, but I don't have the fight in me. I can't come home distraught, losing sleep and anxiety ridden over a job. This is just where I am right now as a person.

I'm sorry it didn't work out better for you, Jersey.
You deserve to find a job that fits you, where you feel valued.

Hugs Jersey. I hope you find something that fits you better and where you're happy and feel valued.

Hugs, Jersey. I think it's completely fine--healthy even--to just realize a job isn't for you early on and start looking for something else. You shouldn't stay there just to make your mother and sister happy. I stayed at a job that made me miserable and stressed for a year and a half at one point and wish I'd left much sooner than I did. Sometimes, you just know.

I hope you can find something else soon!

good posting, LT. I stayed at Cox waaaaay longer than I should have years ago (that job was the most miserable of my adult life). It's very hard for me to quit jobs because I feel so uncomfortable with having to find new ones - but I will never let myself get to that point of misery at a job again. Thinking about working there makes me appreciate where I work now, that's for sure. Yeah, I get tired of the overtime January through March - but for the most part, it's a good place to work and I have had some really good supervisors. A couple of turkeys, but mostly good ones.

Well, I guess I screwed up. I sent P an email saying I couldn't meet Monday but that I couldn't tell him why right now. I didn't want to tell him why but I also didn't want to lie and make something up. I guess I've disappointed him because I didn't give an explanation. That's the best word I can come up with for the tone of his response to me. I responded with this.
I haven't heard anything back in several hours. I hope I haven't ruined everything.

Hopefully he's thinking about how he can respond in the most helpful way possible. I understand your fear, though.

I think your email is excellent @NP_Complete. It's fair, clear, and makes sense. I truly doubt you've ruined everything. He's most likely thinking over a good reply - and doing Saturday stuff. I'll be surprised if he doesn't reply to you in a bit.

Hugs, NP. I'm sorry you're struggling so much and hope you hear something supportive from him soon.

I wonder if he's reacting to your canceling? My T has reacted oddly to my canceling before. The most recent time, he was understanding (he knew we were in a conflict and got that I needed a bit of space). But there was a time last summer when I canceled while we were in conflict, then later asked for the session back (or maybe it was for one the next day). He gave it to me, but said he was tempted not to, even though it was available, sort of out of spite. But he said he realized that was childish, so he let me have the session.


I know this is a different situation, and I'm not saying this is what's going on with P, that's he's reacting to your canceling. But that could potentially be a part of it, along with his being confused about what's going on. Would you consider going and talking to him if he has the session available? Just wondering if he might offer that. If you need space, I completely understand that, too, as it helped me to have that last month.

^^^ I agree. T's often take it very personally when clients cancel, it seems...I've had t's tell me that they fear failing a client. And I also encourage you to go to the session if it's still open. I have the feeling you'd come away feeling better about things.

I think he took it personally that I initially didn't tell him why I was cancelling. He said in his response he was confused and worried but he was giving me the benefit of the doubt and was not going to take it personally.

He responded after my last post here. Thanked me for telling him. I know you don't want to talk about it and probably feel like there is nothing to be done about it but we really need to. Otherwise we'll forever be stuck. He said he'd reach out tomorrow to talk about meeting next week. I feel so ashamed right now. I don't want to give up on working with him, but I don't know how to sit in a room with him and tell him how I feel all the while thinking that he wouldn't want to be more than just my therapist. I think what triggered this was seeing the photo of my birth mother and her daughter. I had an overwhelming sense of wanting to belong somewhere, to have a family. I thought I wish P was my family. I don't necessarily mean family as in blood, but family as in the people you surround yourself with (friends, romantic partners, and also blood family).

I guess I could just go in tomorrow anyway. I'll think about it between now and then.

I'm glad he replied. Do you know if your session tomorrow is still available? If so, maybe it would be good to still go? And will you not see him again this week if you don't go then? I was thinking you were twice a week, but I know his schedule is weird at times. Maybe you could go and focus on the stuff about your birth mother?

I doubt he gave my session away since I only sent my cancellation email just before noon today. I don't think he'd give my session away based on just one email trying to cancel anyway. Most weeks we meet 3x, so if I don't go tomorrow there are other sessions that I haven't tried to cancel yet. I'll see how I'm feeling about this in the morning. I'm sure if I go we'll have to talk about this and not something else.

Cool Whip!

Ah, OK, I think I misunderstood his line about seeing about sessions next week. I guess he meant what I would call *this* week (if I were emailing on a Sunday). That's good that even if you end up not seeing him today, you'd likely still see him later in the week a couple times. (When I canceled with Dr. T last month, I had been tempted to cancel a few sessions at once, but only did the one, in case I changed my mind about leaving--which I did.)

And you're probably right that he didn't give your session away--I don't think he's seeing many clients right now anyway, right? I hope you'll still be able to see him if that's what you feel you want. And that it's a helpful session.

Thanks for the recognition and feedback on my email saga.

It's a weird thing, and hard to know how to handle it.

Being able to rely on email is important to me, because it's one element of my wellbeing plan.

I might have to brave having a conversation about it after all.