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If I take a break will I ever go back?

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FauxLiz

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I am struggling right now. Which all things considered is unusual as I am usually coming out of my worst struggles by this point in the year. I am questioning whether it is prudent to continue therapy when I can recognize a singular issue that can't be resolved. My T and I have done really good work in the last three years but this past year has been particularly difficult with the pandemic challenges and having to rely on virtual sessions. I have been considering a lot of changes in my life a big one includes considering a tattoo something that until 6 months ago I had always said I would never do. I haven't done it yet and at first, I had thought I was considering it as a way to stay connected to someone I had started seeing in 2019 that ghosted me under the guise of "pandemic restrictions" (I got that seeing each other was risky but he all of a sudden was too busy to talk on the phone or text either unless he needed something). But last week was a mess and on Friday I reached out to my T to see if he had time for an urgent session, he fit me in for 30 minutes but it wasn't enough. I spent the weekend in bed went to work and lost my cool over an issue with a member of my board of directors and started just venting in the office this morning, not to the board member just about the situation because honestly, I was just feeling like I am at the end of my rope lately. One thing that crossed my mind was that I may be developing unhealthy transference for my T. My T has quite a few pieces of body art, and I can't remember the last time I saw him in person. I am lonely, alone, don't have anyone other than my T that I can talk to about my issues so now I am wondering if my sudden change in my preference against body art is connected to trying to find a connection/create a lasting unbreakable connection with someone in my life.

And with all that, the transference, the disconnection I am feeling from everyone and everything in my life, the fact that we were supposed to go back to my 5 pm session time at the first of the year and he informed me he had forgotten and booked another client out several months for that slot and with getting ready to return to the office full time soon my current session time of 3 pm would mean I have to take a half-day every week or try and figure out someplace where I can have privacy for an hour at work and stick with virtual until who knows when. But I don't have it in me to start with someone new and right now we are not even treading water. I feel as though I am loosing my trust in him and can't figure out a way to rebuild it if we only see each other virtually.
 
I am the same in that I have lost a lot of trust in my therapist (and apparently he doesn't have anything more to offer). I'm taking a break and don't know if I'll ever go back or not, but this happened once before and, after a loooonnnngggg break, I did go back. To a different therapist.

Starting over would just be impossible for me, so unless I go back to this T, I won't. Sometimes, it helps to step back and gain perspective on the situation. And sometimes, it's good to do that alone.

I hope this all works out for you!
 
So I had part of the hard conversation with my T today and I am still feeling conflicted about the conversation. I started to write him an email as prep for the session but didn't send it which I thought was a good thing but instead, I ended up unloading on him today and now I don't know how I can go back. We talked about taking a break, talked about my quitting therapy and we did talk about the fact that I am tired of people telling me they understand how I feel when all it is false empathy. I am lonely, and yes I know that the pandemic has increased loneliness in just about everyone. But at the end of the day, he goes home to his spouse, his kids. He grew up in the metro area where he practices and has extended family and lifelong friends. By contrast, I am divorced, live over 1,000 miles from my closest extended family member other than my son who is at college 250 miles away. I live in a community where I am considered an outsider because I wasn't born and raised here and try though I might to make friends being single I can't tell you how many times I hear after an event that they thought I would feel uncomfortable because all the other guests were couples. I even get excluded from fundraisers based upon that excuse.

I don't know if it will make a difference for anyone else but when the conversation turned to my SI was probably when I just let go. I told him I was tired of people telling me that suicide would hurt my family. That death that way will do unimaginable damage to my kids which I told him is the only reason I am still here. But that I am also sick and tired of being guilted into living. Staying alive to protect other people what the hell kind of life is that? If I had a terminal illness no one would tell me that I have to live to protect other people its acceptable to acknowledge that physical health can take you to a point where you want to die. But a lifelong pattern of abuse, neglect, and trauma - gee get over it, find the positive things in life.

Sorry, I am just at a point where I am tired of continuing to live a life of constantly trying to find a reason to live.
 
I am so sorry. Even though I have a loving husband I have felt this way many many times before. And still do at times. I honestly don’t have an answer. Sometimes it has felt to me that the pain is too large to keep going. It is my life after all and if I don’t want to live it who is anyone to tell me what to do? But then at times a song hits me a bit different, the sun shines just a tad more one day, something at work works, I feel short glimps of life and I stay.
I am sorry for the pain you have been through. I hope you can stay for you. I am here if you need to talk.
 
@FauxLiz
What are some things you would still like to accomplish in this life? Realistic things, not like becoming an astronaut at age 50. Those things aren't realistic. For me its going to Big Sky Montana, seeing the Aurora from Alaska, doing a fall cruise up the east coast into Maine, getting one of those huts on the water in Bali, watching my son graduate and get married one day, having grandkids, etc. Otherwise, I have the exact same mindset as you do. No, you can't be guilted in to living bc of the pain that it causes others if you were to kill yourself. Yes, you can send your own desires out there and go achieve them and live for yourself bc there are things you want to do. This is where I believe in CBT and changes your cognitions in to affirmations. Self talk does matter. If you say it's miserable enough times, it will become miserable regardless. I am so sorry things are not going well for you. I hope that changes soon. Sending you loads of support and prayers for a better day today....
 
Hi @FauxLiz I'm sorry that your suffering at the moment. I also feel that way. I hope it passes for you soon and you can get things sorted with your therapist. Hang in there! 😊
 
So I had part of the hard conversation with my T today
Did he have a response to that conversation?

You didn't really ask for an opinion on whether or not you should take a break, I guess, but it seems like a time when SI is a major problem is not a good time to take a break from therapy. That's the kind of thing where you really can't handle it alone, you just go deeper down the rabbit hole. (And, guilting someone into staying alive is, I suppose, due to people not knowing what else to say, but, you're right, you need and deserve something better than that to live for.)

My T has continued to see people in person through the pandemic, which I appreciate. But, I had surgery back in Dec, so I couldn't drive and then there was some weather stuff.... I went quite awhile without an appointment. Going back has been........weird? Last week was kind of ok, but it hasn't really been a matter of picking up where we left off. I've thought a lot about quitting. Decided to ride it out awhile and see if this is just "a phase". Because it seems possible, with all the uproar in the world these days, that feeling disconnected might actually be "normal" and it will pass. We'll see. Whatever you decide, you matter.
 
What are some things you would still like to accomplish in this life?
@Rumors I can't say there is anything that I want to accomplish in this life. I will hold on until spring 2022 most likely as that is when my son (youngest kid) will graduate from college. See my kids get married? No, that has never been something I think of, maybe because my marriage was such a disaster but partially because I have never wanted to be someone that pushes the social norm of marriage and family are necessary to be happy. Grandkids? Again not something I ever think about. Worried for years that one of my two kids would either get pregnant or get someone pregnant before they were ready and then trapped into a life they didn't want or expect, also I am just not a kid friendly person, I had a previous T talk about a need to get in touch with my child-like self but I was never a "kid" in the traditional sense. I grew up in a large farming family and all of us kids were expected to work pretty much from the time we could manage any tasks unsupervised from caring for the chickens, feeding, watering and collecting eggs, cleaning out the coop, helping with the family garden, on to larger tasks as we got older. Problem was and made me more of the outcast than I already was hiding the secret of my brothers molestation was that I have a severe allergy to the primary crop that my family grew. Therefore, the farm work that my siblings did and were paid handsomely to complete I couldn't do so in a much less happy Cinderella type story my mother abdicated household responsibilities to me. I did the laundry, cooked two meals a day when not in school, cleaned the house all starting in early elementary school.

I left the summer I was 18 and screwed up my first attempt at college because by that time I had been molested, raped multiple times by different men and endured other traumas and all I wanted to do once I was on my own was self-medicate the thoughts and pain away. It didn't work so I married the first guy that didn't expect sex on the first date only to find out his gentlemanly behavior would end with I do and spent the next 12 years being raped multiple times a week because as he told me "I didn't get married to NOT be able to have sex whenever I want".

I have finished my bachelor's and master's, I have a job/career that should be rewarding but I have long since lost any of the joy it brought me I used to dream of traveling abroad seeing Europe, Greece, Australia and New Zealand but that all takes money and no matter how hard I work pretty much every dime I make goes to bills, or some form of medical care: appointments, procedures, medications. Before I even pay taxes 15% of my income goes to those expenses and that doesn't include monthly insurance premiums. As I look down the road to retirement age my income will decrease, my medical care expenses won't decrease but will most likely increase with age so what is there look forward to in that?

Sorry, I am really in a bad place right now. I took my first "vacation" that was supposed to be just what I wanted, didn't include traveling to see family or attend an extended family event in early February and I enjoyed it, but I was given a free place to stay, air fares were cheap because of the pandemic and I ate my meals in as I had a kitchen. I had a two bedroom/two bath timeshare and couldn't find a single person to share the vacation with and it was the first "vacation" I had taken since 2007.
 
Did he have a response to that conversation?
His response was that considering quitting was something I should consider. I know he would never say out loud that he doesn't want to work with me, he generally responds with "I care about you because others have cared about me, I have a waitlist of people for appointments and I choose to use my resources and time with you" but what I hear and yes it is probably my distorted thinking is "I have people I could actually help but I will get them through CPT in 12-15 weeks and with you, I have steady guaranteed income each week and have for 2.5 years so I choose the certain over the short-term"

My T has continued seeing people through the pandemic and we did for as long as we could but after the first of the year I went back to the office full time and my T's office is over an hour away and my session time is 3pm. So my options are virtual or take a 1/2 day vacation to go to therapy each week.
 
how is it going @FauxLiz
It is slow, we had a decent conversation last week where I just put it out there that I have to return to in-person sessions because the virtual is causing me to disconnect, lose trust and shut-down. I also said I would rather go to twice a month in-person if necessary than to continue weekly virtual sessions. The next few weeks are going to be a mess, no consistent schedule for at least the next month but this week will be my last virtual session unless one of us gets ill or exposed but as I will have completed my second vaccine dose in 2 1/2 more weeks hopefully that will be less of an issue. I think he finally understood what I was saying and feeling as he has promised me a consistent weekly schedule starting in August but that is still 4 1/2 months away and a lot can change between then and now.

I had sent him a topic I wanted to address this week, but that is probably going to be placed on the back burner as I got blindsided at work on Friday and have spent the last two days catastrophizing about losing my job, being unemployed in the middle of all of this pandemic/high unemployment and terrified that I won't be able to find a job and my only option will be to move back to my hometown and in with my dad which I can promise would be a disaster for my mental health. I will find out what is going on tomorrow night but until then I am panicking and a mess.
 
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