Tuesday, December 8, 2009

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.

5 comments:

  1. oh Grace.

    I feel for you, I really do.
    I can hear your pain and the despair you are feeling.
    Have you considered trying a new therapist?
    Therapy without trust can not be done.
    I've found a therapist that I absolutely love and feel that I can work with, now I am actually longing for her to get back from her sick leave so we can get started again. Odd? Perhaps. But I do think there is a therapist out there that will work for you. And is this as good as it gets? Absolutely not.
    You can become whole again. I firmly believe in you...

    xx

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  2. Hi Zan, I wish I had the words to explain all that has played out in the big TR over the past near 4 years.
    I don't think it's odd that you long to start your work again with your t, not at all. I have been there.
    I want to trust the therapsit again, and when I feel that trust/support ~ that voice once again tells me, "remember when she hurt you so bad?" and even though I truly believe it was unintentional, and that I am a walking time bomb, emotionally, she is a professional; so part of me screams she should have known that it would destroy the trust I had built with her - and a much smaller voice whispers that she is human...I don't know - it's complicated...
    and i'm just really tired. I feel like I am doing "better" - like not SIing in over 2 months (almost 3 now) - haven't really thought of SUI - but I also know that it's because I have reverted back to the ultimate fake Grace I was before. Not "here" on my blog - but everywhere else, IRL.

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  3. Grace, it's a long story and I'm too exhausted to tell it right now, but... so much has happened in the last 24 hours (yes - I got slammed with fallout), but I am reconsidering my thoughts about therapy. Maybe they CAN help me. I think, between the two of them...

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  4. Lynn, I'm not sure what to say about the 'fallout' since we didn't speak last night...but I am anxious to hear about your thoughts/reconsiderations re: therapy and how they can help you and what made you change your mind. I'm sure it wasn't easy, but somehow there has to be a balance, right?...between doing it alone vs having some help/support? (at least that's what the therapist keeps saying to me - and I have a hard time grasping it since I'm a black/white girl).

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  5. Real quick, while I have the lucid thought of this fact, I will admit that they can help me now because there are TWO of them. That protects me because I don't need either one to excess because I have the other one. And if one dumps me or something, I still have the other one while I search out yet another.

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