She still can't breathe...she is alive ~ but she is not living....

I had a very expensive 'chat' this afternoon with someone I used to be able to connect with, someone whom I used to trust and depend on to help me during the times I cannot breathe.  This afternoon, the therapist and I talked about the hus's Christmas party, my new blackberry, my concern about my daughter refusing to eat her salad on Sunday night, work, volunteer work...nothing I wouldn't talk about to a co-worker, or my friend, the starbucks barista in the morning ~ even she recognizes when I'm tired and asks if I want a tripleshot on those days. 

I told the therapist I feel like I'm starting over now, with the "therapeutic relationship".  That my perception of her turning from a warm, accepting, caring therapist into a Marsha Pod Person was so extreme that I'm way to freaked to trust her now.  I don't think she understands that there is a difference between "thinking" about hurting myself and actually following through with those thoughts ~ she says she does ~ but I'm expressing MY perceptions on the past situations ~ and that's all I have to go on.  She says she did not drink the Marsha kool-aid ~ but I have *mindfullness* and *MeaningMaking* and *Distract yourself and have some tea* emails from her that challenge that ~ should she liken to see them....and in fact, I told her today, I would have rather been freakin' hospitalized than endure the TRAUMA of DBT week after week after week - which only made my SI and SUI behavior worse! 


My friend Lynn stepped into a therapeutic minefield earlier this week and is now wondering if it's better to just try to fumble through all of it alone, without the help of a 'trusted professional'.   Lynn's thoughts on therapy and "help" ~ and I have often thought the same thing.  I mean, really, we are alone, aren't we?  At least that's how I feel ~ that's just the nature of the life of a trauma survivor (and I use the term survivor loosely).  Maybe there really is just "too much" trauma for anyone to help sometimes.  Hell ~ the therapist can't even remember to email when she says she will....why the hell should I trust that if I am, in fact, stepping out onto the ledge of no return that she will actually be there?  I can't. 

For weeks now, I could not feel further apart, emotionally, from the therapist.  She could be sitting in a different room all-together ~ for the lack of connection I feel.  And it isn't her, it's me.  I can't find my way back.  I am not suicidal.  And it's been a long, long time since I've found myself sitting on the bathroom floor in a pool of blood.  But I am not "good"...I am far from good.  But I can't talk to the therapist about it any more than I could have talked to the host body then...there's no one left. 

It is all inside of me, poisoning me, making me even more hopeless and bitter and angry.  And my previous outlet of being able to communicate, safely, to the therapist, is gone.  And I feel *hopeless*.  I'm alive.  I get up every morning, I get my kids dressed, check homework, get them to school, get myself to work, get dinner ready, do the laundry...I am a productive member of society!  But I am not breathing.  I am alive but I am not living.  I am not suicidal but I often think about the ages of my children and count the years until I no longer have an obligation to be here. 

I feel alone in this all the time now...hopeless...and it is poisoning me ~ weakening me, killing me slowly.  I won't talk to anyone else and I can't figure out a way to let the therapist back in...because now I am afraid of her. I think I am too traumatized to help.    Maybe this is as good as it gets....that's really disheartening to accept ~ but I think maybe it's true.  Maybe the demons are just too big to fight. 

I step on a landmine every single night.  Alone...by myself...just like then....there is no help.  No reason to reach out because no one is there.  Hopeless.  I'll never let anyone else in.  No way!  I think I'm done too, Lynn...I think I'm done too....


Please excuse me while I retire to the bathroom floor and bury my head in the toilet because I feel sick and defeated~ I am alive ~ but I am not living.