Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Support Group
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Once again I want to express how thankful I am to have this group and the pretty great people in it. I am not just sucking up....I mean it.
Lately I have been pretty self centered. So much has been bouncing around my head and so very many feelings...almost all bad.
I sat and cried for 15 minutes this morning before I could get out the door to work. I have one to three panic attacks a night ( though tdoc said today he thinks I may be having flashbacks instead of panic attacks.....something about feelings before I had words.)
Tdoc and I talked about the baby sitting incident when I was 10. He doesn't really sugar coat things. He did say that I was willing to give myself a life sentence for losing control for a few seconds when I was 10 but not holding my abuser responsible for what he did. We talked about my mom some and how I loved her but she was manipulative and at times didn't care. He said that sometimes I did things that weren't lovable. I think I know what he was referring to. Yes, there were many times growing up that I hated her. I was so angry with her. I think she hated me too and yes, sometimes she had reason to. I was a very angry kid.
Anyway...the question in this is that tdoc thinks a lot of my increased irritability and anger and anxiety and general angst was because we hadn't had a session in 3 weeks because he was on vaca and I might have felt abandoned. Of course I disagreed. Is it possible????
I realized today how much I want his approval. I hate that. I hate how vulnerable it makes me feel to need his approval.
Lately I have been pretty self centered. So much has been bouncing around my head and so very many feelings...almost all bad.
I sat and cried for 15 minutes this morning before I could get out the door to work. I have one to three panic attacks a night ( though tdoc said today he thinks I may be having flashbacks instead of panic attacks.....something about feelings before I had words.)
Tdoc and I talked about the baby sitting incident when I was 10. He doesn't really sugar coat things. He did say that I was willing to give myself a life sentence for losing control for a few seconds when I was 10 but not holding my abuser responsible for what he did. We talked about my mom some and how I loved her but she was manipulative and at times didn't care. He said that sometimes I did things that weren't lovable. I think I know what he was referring to. Yes, there were many times growing up that I hated her. I was so angry with her. I think she hated me too and yes, sometimes she had reason to. I was a very angry kid.
Anyway...the question in this is that tdoc thinks a lot of my increased irritability and anger and anxiety and general angst was because we hadn't had a session in 3 weeks because he was on vaca and I might have felt abandoned. Of course I disagreed. Is it possible????
I realized today how much I want his approval. I hate that. I hate how vulnerable it makes me feel to need his approval.
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I haven't written in my diary on my computer since May because I thought that my computer was dying. I got away from writing but my computer is hanging in there. I think that I will start writing in it again. It's so therapeutic.
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First, I hope everyone is doing well, and continuing to fight that good fight! Keep up the great work on yourselves; I'm rooting for all of you!So, I started doing therapy at the beginning of the year, when I was in my most depressed state, but with my therapist, I made big changes and steps in the right direction. But, over a month ago, she couldn't take my insurance anymore, and I had to stop...
i do worse sans therapist for my own reason... namely, i am trying to not let my stuff "out" at home.... just here and therapy.... it is my caretaker thing, maybe some shame, and also a little fear that i will mess up my lifeetc....
but I think if you tell him about approval issues, and how you hate that sense of vulnerability? You may get one of those golden insights.
BTW, I will forgive anyone before i forgive myself. one small error from me looms as large as a criminal act in my psyche. yet if we never had bitchy moods, etc., we would not be human! not that i take my own advice, LOL.
not alone on the path, CEcilB.
gentle purrs of support,
Leo
hugs and hope
yadlim
Continuing down that path, is it possible that you are responding to a need for that maintenance more than wanting his approval? Pure conjecture on my part...
Yeah, I hate feeling vulnerable, too, but I am learning that permitting vulnerability opens avenues for growth my control issues won't permit.
Gentle validation while you sort through yours, Cecil.
You know, I hate to say this, but your therapist is really a tool for your recovery. I totally understand wanting his approval but HE totally understands that you are going through a psychological healing process, and what you are going through is completely normal and to be expected. It all looms much smaller in his eyes than it does in yours.
About your "life sentence". You know, I only just met my new therapist but she already said something very interesting. She says it's as if I have two buckets - one that holds all the bad things I've ever done, and one that holds the good. Well the bad bucket never loses a drop - I carry that stuff everywhere. But the good bucket has holes and everything just leaks right out. She said if I want to have any quality of life I have to plug the holes in that bucket. I am SURE that applies to you too!
Your mother cannot be excused for hating you. You were the child, you were innocent. She set things up. In ACOA I picked up a handout of a statement by Alice Miller that starts out "The Child is always Innocent"- I'm going to find it and post it in a separate thread. I had to remind myself of that many times when I wanted to blame my own kids for my anger and so forth, but I believe it with all my heart. The child is innocent. The child is born into a world of the parents' creation and it's the parents' job to help them navigate it. You didn't always behave nicely as a little girl? Well little girls with mean or neglectful or HOSTILE parents can be mean sometimes - but do we blame the child or do we sorrow for her? Pain never improved anyone's temperament, in my experience. But you were a perfect, innocent child and only behaved like a normal child in abnormal circumstances. You must never side with the mother against that little girl. She is your treasure!
I think I wanted him to somehow absolve me of guilt and responsibility of the babysitting incident. Of course he didn't. He is good at letting me be responsible for my own crap. . He is right though. That will never be erased and it was wrong just like some of the crap I did to my mom was wrong. I think I have always tried to keep my "good" away from my "bad" instead of admitting I have both and they are all tangled up in the same me.
During most of the session I read the titles of every book that is in his bookcase. It helped me to not feel anything.
I really regret emailing him. He thinks I was missing him. He is convinced of that.
I am so appreciative of the responses. Insights and encouragement is welcome. I think what I am doing is trying to off load some of the thought process. Coming here helps me empty the overloaded thought box in my head. If that makes sense.
Cecil, okay, first off? Yeah. I think a lot of us try to keep our "goods" away from our "bads" so we don't feel so shi**y about the bads--- that balancing act is part of my healing, so that's where I'm speaking from.
As for therapy and maintenance---hey, you take the car in for tune-ups, right? Right.
A good measure of what really was going on might be, next time your therapist is unavailable, for him to give you someone *else*'s number for if you need to call or e-mail---and see if what you need is the sense of safety (which is natural) or if it's "him" specifically. Did that make sense? I ask b/c when I lost my therapist and ahd to rely on my p-doc for what I might get? It was feeling unsafe that got to me.
GEntle hugs,
leo