I guess I still have a lot of things on my mind so I might as well write them down. I still don't know how to have this big conversation with my therapist so maybe writing about it will help me find clarity. I want to tell him everything, really lay my cards out on the table. I have this deep need for him to know the big pile of mess that he got when he took me on. I was also randomly assigned to him so he didn't really choose me, nor I him. I have no idea what the rules are with my HMO and if he is allowed to pass me off. There's a lot of guilt here. I have this overwhelming need to get this conversation "right", whatever that actually means.
I started therapy when I was ten years old. Obviously not my choice and I didn't really even know why I had to go. I don't remember much about the sessions and I'm fairly unclear about how long I went for. I remember it being okay but I don't remember anything we talked about. I remember the carpet really clearly- brightly colored with tons of pinstripes of color right next to each other. I remember talking to him at the end of a session about his carpet and he called me a child of the seventies and chuckled. I actually looked the guy up recently just to see if this person really exists. I sometimes feel like maybe I don't remember things correctly- I have such a hard time remembering most things from my childhood. He does exist and is now a professor at a college about an hour from where I grew up. Good for him. I remembered his face when I saw it, albeit a bit more wise now than it was when I was a child. I have no negative connotations with him. What I do remember that I think is relevant is how my time with him ended. I remember at the end of a session, he asked to talk to my mom alone. I don't know, and don't know if I ever knew, what they talked about. When my mom came out, she was enraged. I remember her screaming at me the entire way home- about a twenty minute drive, give or take, but it felt like hours. I felt so trapped in that car. I don't remember everything she screamed about but she told me that I wasn't going back because I would never change. She told me I was a rotten kid and she wished I had never been born. It was snowing outside and I looked out the car window wishing I was a snowflake that could just drift away. I was so numb while she screamed at me. When we got home, she told me that I owed her an apology. I couldn't or refused to speak. She told me that I couldn't come into the house until I was ready to apologize. I held my ground and slept in the car that night. I remember watching the snow peacefully drift by the windows of the car. I couldn't make myself go inside. I don't know if it was fear or stubbornness. All I really remember is the screaming and the beautiful snow.
I remember being in high school and having some major depression issues. I think that I threatened to commit suicide to a friend. I don't remember the details but I do remember she took me to see an adult in the building that she thought could help me. It wasn't my guidance counselor and quite honestly he was useless for anything. I remember walking through the elementary library to get to this person. I remember it was a woman. I don't know that I could pick her face out of a lineup. I don't remember anything about her name. I remember she talked to me for awhile but I don't remember anything about the conversation. She started meeting with me once a week after that. I remember having to miss Spanish class once per week to go and see her. My Spanish teacher was less than thrilled about this arrangement but I was an excellent, straight A student so she really didn't have grounds to say no. I only missed one question on the state test at the end of the school year. It didn't hurt my studies at all. Then my mom found out I was seeing someone for my depression. She forbid me from going anymore. She told me I was an embarrassment and I needed to stop acting out for attention. She grounded me for a month. I didn't really care about being grounded- I was just going to sneak out of the window anyway. The rule in our house was that you didn't get to have supper when you were grounded. One of my neighbors would always let me have supper at their house, which was usually better anyways, when I got grounded. My mom never noticed that I was sneaking out. Or maybe she just didn't care.
When I got to college, I quickly spiraled out of control. Most kids party and have a good time with their new found freedom but I really went wild. I was always drunk or high. I slept around a lot. Kind of a miracle I didn't wind up with some sort of disease. A few of my friends intervened towards the end of my freshman year and got me to go to counseling. I couldn't use my mom's insurance to go somewhere private- not only could I not afford the co-pay but I also couldn't let her find out I was doing therapy. I knew she'd get angry and might take my healthcare away. So, I went to the college's counseling center because it was free and my mom wouldn't find out. The counselor I saw decided in our first meeting that I needed to be on meds. So she arranged for me to see the psychiatrist that worked with the center. He put me on Zoloft. This med did not agree with me at all- I rapidly became more and more suicidal. I eventually binge drank with the intention of it killing me. I did shot after shot of whatever I could get my hands on at a party I went to. It was not well planned out and was an impulsive decision. I remember waking up in the hospital with the doctor telling me that I was lucky to be alive. I wasn't so sure. I decided to stop taking the Zoloft and started feeling better. The psychiatrist then put me on Celexa in my sophomore year. This made me crazed somehow and my roommate came home to find me covered in blood after having dug into different body parts. She took me to the counseling center and I got to check into the hospital's psych ward. It was a terrifying place for me. My roommate may have been schizophrenic and she was definitely having conversations with people who were not in the room. I don't remember much about my time there, just the feeling of being unsafe. When I was discharged, the nurse told me that I needed to stop with the attention seeking behavior. She hoped that this experience had set me straight so that I would be a good girl moving forward. I remember feeling so much shame and wondering why I did what I did.
The psychiatrist switched my meds again but I don't remember the name of the third medication. Whatever it was, it was the worst one for me yet. I became so deeply suicidal that I actually consciously hatched a plan. I bought two of the biggest bottles of Tylenol I could find and a large bottle of rubbing alcohol. It was 2000 pills altogether, I think. I wrote a note, got dressed up with makeup and everything. Spent the next whatever amount of time swallowing all of those pills and washing it down with the rubbing alcohol mixed with cherry Koolaid. Eventually, I laid down and fell asleep. My friend found me and called an ambulance. I woke up at the hospital a day later, hooked up to all sorts of things. I had to stay in the hospital for about a week because I had lost the ability to pee. My chest also really hurt and it was hard to walk. My mom arrived at the hospital when I was first waking up. She screamed at me for this pathetic attempt. She told the doctor it was just attention seeking behavior and if I really wanted to die, I would have taken the prescription drugs I was on instead. She told them that she wouldn't consent to let me be treated and that they should just let me die. She tried to rip the IV out of my arm but was taken out of the room by someone. I remember someone coming in to talk to me about what my home life was like. I remember I was afraid to tell them anything negative. I remember my Dad arriving- he had been in California on a business trip and got back as quickly as he could once he learned what happened. He sat by my bed in the hospital. I was a lot more coherent by the time he arrived. He told me that he loved me. And then he just cried. I'd never seen my dad cry before. I never saw him cry again. I knew at that moment that I couldn't ever attempt to die on purpose again. That moment is the one I always remember when I start thinking about suicide. I learned that I couldn't ever try to take that route again, even though he died 8.5 years ago.
In the midst of all of the medication changes and reactions, I was going to counseling. Sort of. I never stayed with any counselor for long. I kept being referred to other counselors. Two of them told me that I was a "difficult case" and that they couldn't help me. One told me that I was a lost cause. Between medications not working for me and no one wanting to deal with me, I didn't have high hopes. After my suicide attempt, I started seeing a new counselor named Jeff. I now had mandated twice a week counseling, a condition for coming back to campus. He was a generally nice guy. I remember a few sessions in that he brought up my suicide attempt. I simply responded that I was doing it for attention. He frowned at me and said that based on the reports he had seen from the hospital that he thought it was a pretty serious attempt. I don't remember any of the conversation after that but I remember feeling positive, hopeful that maybe someone didn't think I was just an attention seeking junkie. I don't really remember any of my other conversations with him. Eventually, we stopped meeting because he took a leave of absence. I know it had nothing to do with me but can't remember the reason anymore, maybe something to do with his family. My grades and behavior had improved enough that I didn't have mandated counseling anymore. So I stopped going. Honestly, my depression had subsided enough and I was interested enough in the classes I was taking that it was manageable. I even got a 4.0 my last semester. I wound up graduating with a degree in vocal music, a degree in philosophy, and a triple minor in sociology, psychology, and English. It took me six years and a lot of failed classes along the way but I made it.
My degrees didn't exactly set me up to get a good job after graduation. I struggled a lot financially. When I was 28, I had my first panic attack. I didn't know what it was so a friend took me to the hospital. They gave me Xanax and sent me home. In the years following that, my anxiety started to get worse. The depression would come back when the anxiety was bad. I cycled around and around anxiety and depression cycles. They came and went. But they started to get worse after a particularly bad break-up with a guy I had been falling in love with. There was so much manipulation and the break-up went on for a solid month. My friends, who knew nothing of my past, suggested I go to therapy. I called my HMO and got an appointment with a new T. There was something about him that creeped me out. I was nervous being alone in a room with him, which I don't recall ever feeling before. After about three or four sessions, he told me he was transferring to a different location and I was welcome to drive there and continue working with him or I could work with his replacement. I opted for the replacement.
The next T was a nice lady. I generally liked her but I always felt like she hated me. I can't put my finger on why. So I only ever talked to her about things that were bothering me in my life- mostly my job. Nothing was ever really very personal. We didn't discuss anything about my past and I never really worked on any coping skills or anything like that. I stopped seeing her in June of 2018 because I thought my life stresses had calmed down enough that I didn't need therapy.
I started going really downhill in the fall of 2019. I think a lot of these things are shades of gray and I can't tell exactly when it started. I know the panic attacks started coming hard and heavy after my boss got angry with me for something that I honestly didn't do. I ended up talking to an urgent care therapist. He set me up with a new T and a new psychiatrist. He had recommended I go to group therapy but I wasn't interested. My only experience with it was from my time in the psych ward and what I saw in movies. No thanks.
The psychiatrist put me on Prozac. I told her my history with medications but she insisted that I'd be fine because I was older. Maybe statistically that's true for most people but it wasn't for me. On the 10mg dose, a dose so low it's not even considered therapeutic, the panic attacks got worse. I got lost driving to work, a place I'd been going for a solid year and a half. I don't know if it was the Prozac or just the continuation of my downward spiral. But when I went up to 20 mg, all hell broke loose. I was deeply suicidal. I started taking myself back off of the drug- I still had the small dose pills. By the end of the week, I had the worst panic attack of my life and wound up in the hospital thinking I'd had a heart attack. The hospital and subsequently my doctor ruled out a physical problem. I wound up not going back to work. I had to go to an intensive outpatient program. I was really not okay.
The new T had only had one video visit with me at this point. I remember the first visit and him telling me at the end that I was welcome to continue seeing him or I could switch to someone else if I wanted to. I remember thinking that it doesn't matter who I see- all therapists are the same. Later that day with that thought dwelling in my mind I thought, "Besides, you'll find a reason not to work with me soon enough." I remember him calling me after I talked to a psychiatrist (not the same one who put me on the Prozac) and she was referring me to the intensive outpatient program. He sounded less than thrilled that I was going to the program but did help me figure out some logistics. He saw me once in the middle of the IOP program and told me again that I didn't have to stay with him. I told him I'd like to stay with him and he promptly booked me another appointment for as soon as he could- he squeezed me inbetween two other clients for a short session before I returned to work.
The sessions with him have been different. It might be because I reached a point where I acknowledged that I had a problem and needed to work on some things. I was tired of letting my mental illness control my life. I also think he's a great T for me. He's easy to talk to and seems to get me. He will call me out on stuff when he feels I am not being accurate. He seems to really care about me in a professional manner (absolutely nothing inappropriate). But I may also be presenting my best self to him and maybe if he saw all of what I am, he would change his mind. I don't know but I feel fear. And how much do I tell him? How much is enough for him to understand? How much is too much?
I think this rambling, long winded novel helped me to really get all of it out. How relevant some of it is, I don't really know. But it feels good in a way to write my story down. I've never told anyone the whole thing and I doubt anyone here actually made it through the whole entry. But it's not really about that. It felt good just to get it out.
