Help A Freak To Survive The Clinic

[Philippa]

Yeah, I got the twitch thing as well, when I went off mine. Crazy isn't it.

I thought it was an acid flashback:D

 

[freakofnurture]

I'm glad to hear that the twitching went away for you two.

Today I woke up with my right jaw muscle cramped so tightly that I can't shut my mouth (yes, I can't shut it; can't chew also). The muscles around my left hip joint are so cramped that I incorporated the pain into my dreams. My lower back is cramped also and my neck and upper back are tense. I don't know if it has anything to do with the meds, but it hurts like a m*therf*cker.

Since pain impairs my normally so acute thinking skills, I totally took another pill from my new meds today. Did I only lengthen my suffering thusly? Who knows! We will see. I'm still twitching, though. Twitchety twitch. I should have lowered the dose further before going down to zero. Ah, too late.

And now I'll go to sleep.

 

[maddog]

Thinking of you Freak, have just come home from my own in-patient programme and so feel oddly close to the place you are right now. Probably a good thing I didn't have the ability to post here while I was away, though I do feel as though I lost one of my greatest channels for processing and connecting.

The world of institutionalisation is such a surreal one...

Maddog

 

[freakofnurture]

Wop wop wop...

@Maddog: I found my thread helpful to reconstruct the process I went through during my last-inpatient programme; helped me to figure out how much I actually benefited and learned. Now I write a diary about what I did, how I felt, what I thought about etc.

Twitching is much better now. I took half a step back and am now taking 1/4 Trevilor once daily for another day, then I'll go down to 1/8 and maybe 1/16 if I can be assed to do the fumbling around with those little retard pearl thingies. Cramping was gone the next day and I'm feeling okay right now.

The doctor wasn't happy. Not. happy. at. all. when I told her that I didn't stick to my medication plan. Said I acted very much on my own authority; said I should have talked to her colleague who filled in for her while she was on a vacation. And what would that guy have done? Made a note in my file that she would have read when? Today? Eh...

I still haven't taken any pictures of the Gestaltungen I made... Tomorrow. I'll do it tomorrow.

 

[mamachick]

Great work.
Glad the twitching is gone.

 

[freakofnurture]

I was supposed to stay at the clinic until May 3rd, but I am leaving two full weeks early (i.e. on Monday).

Why? Because on Wednesday I could only stand the group sessions by hiding behind a blanket, only peeking over the brim occasionally, on Thursday I had to full on hide under a blanked, and today I couldn't even stand Imagination therapy under the blanket - after managing to break my terrified stiffness I fled the room (my T later told that I was intelligent enough to realise that I could have left the room quietly - wtf does that have to do with intelligence, and how the f*ck are you supposed to care about you noise level when you are running away in a panic?)

Apparently I am 'hard to deal with'. I know they don't mean it like this but still I feel like they say that I am just being difficult because I can.

My T also told me I should think it over on the weekend. As if I could just think and then come to the conclusion that I really am able to stand another group session and was just panicking today because I thought I had to.

I don't want to go. Aside from accepting that I simply am not able to spend time with people without getting massively anxious, I haven't achieved anything during this round of therapy. Yeah, okay, maybe it's a big shift in perspective, just accepting the way I am and no longer feeling like I'm the wrong way up. But what do I make of this?

I don't have any new projects, therapy wise. All the stuff that's still painful for me is stuff that talking doesn't help.

Self-hatred and the inability to trust. How would one work on that in therapy? I don't know. I have no clue.

The only thing I know is that I won't be able to enter a room full of people for at least the next six months.

And this after it all started out so well. I didn't feel threatened in the group. But still I left a session early already during the second week of my stay. What the f*ck is wrong with me??? I don't get it! The people in my group are still nice! I actually kind of like two of them!

I don't f*cking get it! And I'm pissed off. Just so you know. *fumes*

 

[freakofnurture]

I have no idea what I am supposed to say to my t on Monday. I'm still so pissed about this whole story. I feel so let down.

They put so much pressure on me during my last stay, saying that I had to push myself when I was sitting there crying because I couldn't take it anymore. And now they're like "Oh, so good for you that you finally realised that you don't have to follow outside pressure".

What. Really. Are you f*cking kidding me?!

I just don't get it.

 

[mamachick]

freakofnurture-I am so sorry for what is happening. I don't know much about how these groups you are at work, how many people, how intensive, etc. Im sure you are not responding this way just because you can. Are you permitted to quietly get up and exit before your reaction becomes so strong?

It sound to me like being in the group has been a huge challange and you have accomplished that. I heard you speaking of accepting it and even liking some people. That is a huge accomplishment. I hear you saying that you will not be able to enter a room full of people for another 6 month? are you sure you can not work this out with your therapist as you have been doing groups, do think it was the topic, some change , or something else?

How do you work on self hatred and trust in group therapy? I know this takes a leap of faith. I find that the lack of trust is about the belief that others can cause me to cease to exist (at the very root), can hurt me, and that many will. In the group setting, you have the choice to take that chance, share, and see how others respond. What do you have to loose. Please know I dont have enough knowledge to respond very well, I just want you to know that you have my support whatever you do. I hear you being really hard on yourself, and you need self compassion right now.

What does the T say you should do with this level of anxiety? I hope you can be open with T on Monday and see what she recomends. You are there and I know the most growth often happens following the worst discomfort. Im rooting for you .

 

[freakofnurture]

Brat, thanks so much for your reply. It was good to read it :)

Are you permitted to quietly get up and exit before your reaction becomes so strong?

We are in fact encouraged to leave the group when we get too stressed. It's thought of as 'self-care'. But I feel like it's understood that it should only happen so often and that it's somehow a failure on the part of the leaving when it happens 'all the time'.

I left a number of times and for me it was always an accomplishment to not see it as a defeat and to still participate in the next group after that, no matter how stressed out I already felt (had I excused myself from every session I didn't feel like participating in I would have been given a 'talk' much sooner). Now it seems to me that I left once ore twice too often and that it was expected of me to not get petrified with fear and then flee, but to leave somehow gracefully, no matter what the circumstance.

Oh, and the day I left 'too loudly' I asked my T for a quick talk and she told me that she had wanted to talk to me anyways because of my behaviour. -.- Welcome back to school. That's how it sounded.

are you sure you can not work this out with your therapist as you have been doing groups, do think it was the topic, some change , or something else?

You mean work out the reason that I came from not feeling threatened and kind of liking people to being terrified?

I think the feeling threatened just has to do with me only having so much energy to suppress my fear. The batteries get discharged slowly and eventually my defenses are down and I feel like people could turn into monsters and attack me any second now.

Topics, yes, they were problematic but not in and of themselves; it's their repetitiveness that I can't cope with. I've had so much skills training and stuff about inner aspects and how you're supposed to make room for pleasurable things in your day etc. and I already know all this stuff forwards and backwards and now it's explained to me for the dozenth time with the same old examples and same old questions coming from the group. It just bores me to the point where I can either leave the room or act out in inappropriate ways.

I know it's completely irrational but a part of me actually feels insulted that I should have to hear this lesson again as if I had never been in therapy before and wasn't already applying all this stuff every day to manage my condition. I could make so much better use of my time but I am forced to waste it, and that while being terrified of the whole situation.

How do you work on self hatred and trust in group therapy?

You don't. It's not possible.

My experience with my self-hatred is that I have to practice working against self-defacing thoughts via the stop technique plus various distraction techniques; aside from exchange about techniques there's nothing a group could do for me here.

And trust - I don't know if I really distrust people. I'm just scared that they'll change into monsters who hate me. The fact that it hasn't happened yet doesn't mean that it will never happen in the future, and if people assure me that they won't hurt me, who says that they aren't just trying to lull me in order to carry out a brutal surprise attack when I least expect it? You can trust individuals, but you can't trust a group.

In the group setting, you have the choice to take that chance, share, and see how others respond. What do you have to loose.

My life. My existence, basically. You know this fear as well as I do, and I am even scared of people just thinking about me. It doesn't matter if it are positive or negative thoughts, it makes me feel powerless just the same to be shoved around inside someone's brain, analysed, compared, judged... And the closer the person is to me, the harder it gets to stand because I can't evade the behavioural results of their thoughts about me.

I don't know if this makes sense.

I hear you being really hard on yourself, and you need self compassion right now.

Yah, I guess you're right. I should write it all down in a neat little list and sort it out to get my thoughts in order. Somewhere in my head I already know that it's not the tragedy I'm making it all out to be.

What does the T say you should do with this level of anxiety?

I'm supposed to use skills to reduce the anxiety and better stand it. But skills only do so much for me; they help only for a very limited amount of time and what little effectiveness they have decreases the longer the situation lasts. After a while I get too scared to even use skills because it seems too risky. What if I relax and then the people turn to monsters? I wouldn't be prepared to fight.

It's not supposed to go like this. I'm supposed to get better at standing groups. But my brain doesn't want to do what it's supposed to.

You are there and I know the most growth often happens following the worst discomfort.

Oh god, don't say that. I'm so scared that someone will try to force me to stay beyond what I can stand and go through the terror to see if maybe I'll just come out better on the other side.

I've endured this state of terror for hours already - I think it was six hours during a weekend seminar - and it hasn't helped me. I dissociated and was shaking like crazy for the rest of the day.

Im rooting for you.

Thanks, I appreciate that :D

 

[mamachick]

Please know I am not minimizing any of your situation. I just know that from an outsider, I hate for you to leave early, particularly if you do not really want to, and it sounds that you do not. The last thing I want to do is sound critical because I am not.

You never have to be forced to stay beyond what you can stand. Im sure that you do know what is best for you and what your limits are. I am just sorry this is not working as you hoped and am here to listen.

 

[freakofnurture]

Please know I am not minimizing any of your situation.

Dude, I didn't think you were. I'm sincerely sorry if I sounded pissed at you in any way because the case is quite the opposite. It was nice to read your post, really seriously :)

My talk today went well. I was a bit afraid that I'd act out my anger and direct it at my T, or that I'd be hurtful or destructive, because I know I can be when I'm frustrated and want to let someone know.

But I think I figured something important out: I was totally fixated on this whole 'getting along'-thing, and totally fixated on the fact that I needed an in-patient environment in order to make it work. So when the whole 'getting along'-thing dropped I was left with a feeling of 'I need to achieve something as an in-patient, I need this stay, I can only achieve this vital thing here'. The motif was gone, but the drive was still there, the emotional cramping and narrow horizon on what is the right thing for me, right now.

I partly blame the chief of staff for that because when I was a nervous wreck last year*, crying and shouting because I couldn't stand the thought of another group session, she signaled me with all her might that I could't just go, that I could't just 'give up', that I had to fight through etc. She didn't see me at all, she only saw the treatment programme that had to be enacted with me, no matter what.

The correct, professional reaction would have been to accept the way I was feeling right then, maybe signalling concern if I should be making decisions while in such an emotional state, but mostly validating me, that I had done a lot already, that it was okay to feel weak, but that I didn't have to act on this feeling immediately. She would have achieved the same thing of not encouraging me in 'giving up', and she would have avoided the big no-no of telling a patient what to want, think and feel.

And this year? She was one of those who congratulated me to my 'brave breakthrough' in realising that 'getting along' is not what I need right now, and that I don't want any more social pressure exerted on me in this regard.

The most f*cked up thing about the situation last year was that she told me: "It's really easy to get over fear of people." I didn't get around to asking her what it was (I wish I had during that very situation; I would have ripped her a new one!). Because when I asked her about it this year she said: "Well, you have to practice."

What. The. Holy. M*ther. Of. f*ck?? Practice? What the f*ck did she think I had been doing all those 7.5 weeks that I had been staying at the clinic! I had practiced, every day of the week, 3 to 4 hours each day! And all it achieved was to make me more and more fearful and cramped. Practice? Are you kidding me?? She was lucky that prior to that talk I had primed myself for acting dignified and calm, so flipping out was not an option that even existed in the same universe as me.

I really don't know what she was thinking or how she was doing her job. I'm just really disappointed in her, and kind of shocked that a T's singular mistake can have such an impact.

So, what I'm saying is: Her aggressive reaction to my breakdown enforced the idea that I had to do this and had to kick my ass through this, and that giving in was not an option. So it wasn't an option. Now it is. And it's the option that I chose.

I'm feeling calm now. My thoughts feel relaxed though my body is still crampy. I'll just manage my life like I did last year and the year before. I'll live from day to day, doing whatever work I can do, accepting whatever work I can't do on a given day. It brought me this far and it will bring me further still.

EDIT: I just realised that I never talked about my early leaving from therapy here. How did that happen??

-----------
Ah well. I panicked, flipped out during ward round because I just wanted to go home and that was it. Three days before my stay had ended anyways. Makes the chief of staff's reaction even stranger.

 

[mamachick]

You should be very proud. Good job. I am glad to hear that you are staying and getting the most out of it. Sometimes we just gotta accept our set backs and start the day over. You have the ability to achieve as an inpatient and it sounds like a great opportunity. Glad to hear you are making your own choices.
Thinking of you
Mary