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Sadielady3's Diary

@ladee , I just feel a lot of distrust towards my T at the moment. I rationally know that his irritated tone of voice probably had more to do with the video service not being available but it just felt like he was angry at me for being dysfunctional. I should just give up. He's not the right person to help me and I don't think I have it in me at the moment to start over with someone new.
 
It seems you are having some cognitive distortions right now. (Google it) and you are projecting what you 'THINK' is going on.

Stop and really think about this. Is it distrust of your T, or fear of the history intake?

And here's the bottom line Sadie. If you are not ready for therapy, you don't need anyone's permission to stop. Most everyone goes thru what you are experiencing. A lot of fear of the unknowns. But if you aren't ready, or just don't want to do it, make your choice and be ok with it. Nothing wrong with not being ready. Or changing your mind.

You know help is available if and when you are ready. I wish you some peace of mind with all this.

But please take some time to see if it's fear of the history intake. That can feel very vulnerable. Either way, you are a grown woman and have the right to make the choice that is right for you. No judgment. Therapy is a commitment. And if you aren't ready or just can't do it right now, doesn't mean you won't ever do it. Just means the time is not right.

There is a saying 'I am sick and tired of being sick and tired'. and that usually is a precursor to seeking help and staying with it. I call it 'picking your pain'.

It's ok to make whatever choice is right for you. again, no judgment.
 
@ladee , actually, no, I want to do the history. I want him to have every piece of information. I want him to ask me some questions. I want him to see so that if he tells me he's in this with me, I can rationally believe him and work on the emotional side of my belief system. I want enough ammo to fight the good fight. I'm exhausted both mentally and physically these days. I'm honestly ready to answer his questions, whatever they may be. If he gives up on me, well, then I have some hard choices to make. But honestly, sincerely, and truly, I can't live where I've been trying to live the last couple of months anymore. I can't keep trying to sit around and wait whole months to spit out whatever I have the courage and opportunity to say on a given day. Let's get all of my crazy, all of my brokenness, all of my dysfunction, and all of that pain and lay it at his feet and see if he picks it up. At least then I can move forward, one way or another. I'm genuinely ready to shit or get off this pot. I may not know how to just spit it out but answering questions feels a lot easier because if he's asking, then I know he needs to know instead of me guessing at what he might need to know.

No, I figured out what bothered me about today. The computer system was down so we couldn't meet over video. Not seeing facing expressions is hard. Yes, in person is better for many people (although a part of me is terrified about meeting in person someday- my whole real relationship with him has been built by video chats and I have no idea if it will translate well in person but that's future me's problem). I'm certain that played a role. I am fully aware he has other patients. Many other patients. I'm probably somewhere around 1 in 80 people that he sees. He sees me once per month. With the computer system down, he couldn't access his notes on me. Some of the questions he asked were a bit odd. It felt like I was talking to a stranger a bit. He couldn't quite play his normal role because he couldn't read the stage notes to remember the exact part. Like he said at one point that he was sure other therapists have worked with me on how to interact with my mother. We've literally talked in the past about how I've never really thought about that relationship in depth before. When I referenced my suicide attempt (well, the one I've told him about), he seemed surprised and asked me questions about it. He claimed that I never told him the details but I did. You don't forget telling someone something like that. He had completely forgotten about the EMDR in January. No, today I saw the man behind the curtain controlling the big dazzling display I normally get to look at.

Honestly, who can keep track of the intimate details of 80 different people? Today really just told me that I'm not someone who stands out to him in any particular way. And I guess that's okay but a little hard. I sort of already knew that anyway. I think it's almost universal for patients to be much more attached and feel more strongly about our Ts than they do about us. It's the same for me in teaching. My students have about 8 teachers, give or take while I have 140 students this year. Most students float through my room and I forget who they were within a year or two. I did genuinely care about them while they were with me but they just weren't special. It's a bit daunting to know you're one of the forgettable students when you're about to bare your soul to someone. I guess I liked having this illusion of the relationship being real even though I always knew down deep that it's not.
 
Sadie, until you have some solid therapy under your belt you probably will not allow yourself to be reassured that things are going to work out.

Would you be interested in possibly doing some reading on different things that might help you to not feel so overwhelmed? If so, let me know. There are some topics I feel would help you to understand what you experiencing and possibly gain some tools to help.

It's things I had to investigate for myself and it did help me to understand myself more.

I'm sorry you are having such a hard time and staying in turmoil. It's such a hard place to be in. I understand as this past year for me has been very hard too and I've had to refresh my memory about ways to move forward.

This is just a complicated journey. Regardless of the reasons we are seeking help. My heart goes out to you not having any peace. It is exhausting.

So let me know if I can suggest anything that might help.

You can also start a thread about things you are having a hard time with and get feedback from different people. It helps so much to know it's not our fault but just trying to find our way.

Hoping you get some rest without nightmares. Hope you get to have some fun too. It's important to find things to do that are relaxing too. Thinking of you.
 
@ladee , I would be very open to reading about things that might help me be less overwhelmed. Thank you very much.

I've been thinking about the therapy thing and I wonder if maybe, even if it's just for a little while, need to pay out of pocket for a private therapist. This once per month thing isn't really working out for me, at least not right now. It might be good to put some distance between me and my current T as well.

It's hard for me to even identify exactly what is going on with me these days and why my brain is going so haywire. I don't know if I'd even know what to write to other people for help with.

I'm sincerely hoping the nightmares stop soon too. I am so incredibly tired.
 
Well, I managed to stay on task for a couple of hours and got some schoolwork done. I still have a lot to catch up on but at least I made some headway. I feel slightly less stressed.

I had my guitar lesson today. I didn't practice this past week. I really need to make time to practice. It's how I will really learn to play. I think it would be a good calming strategy if I could go to the basement and strum out some songs when I'm stressed out. If I could learn at least two or three songs well enough to really play them, it would be a reasonable strategy.

I'd like to create a calming box. I want to put things in it and cards around the sides or something for things I can do when I'm stressed and not coping well. I think having something I can look at that will remind me of things I can do to help myself between sessions is a good idea. I have safe space and container exercises. But what else can I do to cope? I don't do well at all with meditation- I freak out so badly. Mindfulness, specifically my sudoku channel (which I haven't been on in awhile), can work for me at times. I should do some research on this. It might make EMDR a lot easier and it might help me to be more patient if I can ease the pain a bit better during these long stretches between sessions.

I still want to bring up the diagnosis thing with my T. He and I are in different places with what's going on with me, I think. Even though I knew our relationship is fake, I think I'm still more upset about feeling disconnected to him and like we're on different pages. That's the work that needs to be done now to move forward. If I can learn to cope and if I can get him with me, things will be okay. I remembered him remembering on Tuesday night at group that I was a musician and he did put in my case notes from Friday about the guitar again (even though we didn't talk about that on Friday). Maybe Friday was a bad day- he might have gotten flustered over the website not working. He's human after all. I shouldn't throw away a year long relationship and give up on him so easily. I still think I would benefit from weekly therapy but when I spoke to my husband about it earlier tonight, he said that we simply can't afford to pay for that out of pocket. And right now the therapy through my HMO, including two groups, is completely free. He's right. Sometimes money is a real constraint, as much as I wish it weren't.
 
Just wanted to share some things that have helped all of us here in some form or other. Of course, take what you need and leave the rest.

Read up on Distorted Cognitions. It helps to understand why we think the way we do and why it's so hard to let go.

Read up on Projection of our feelings onto others. Which goes with the first one.

Read some things about being raised by a Narc. The man who I refuse to call dad, was a narc. Long story about how he messed me up so bad in how I felt about myself as a female, a girl, a woman. I have three failed marriages of proof of that damage.

Try not to overload yourself. And if something comes up you have questions about, write it down to talk with your T about. Only seeing him once a month is hard.

Hopefully, it will help you to understand why you are so overwhelmed and still not sure about therapy.

There are hundreds of things to watch on Youtube that may help you to understand yourself better and not be so hard on yourself.

I'm in a bit of a bad place and can not remember names of people to search for. When I do, I will come back and add them. Or you may find them on your own in your search.

What I am saying to you is, the whole purpose of recovery is to rewire our brains. Brains that have been bombarded with emotional upsets until we have no idea who we are except messed up broken people that can't be helped.

The place IS FULL of people who came from narc backgrounds and are healing. But we also have to want to investigate our lives. Or at least I did. I wanted answers and a way to get this show on the road.

Hope some of this helps, and again, take what you need and leave the rest.
 
@ladee , I know a decent amount about cognitive distortions. Not only do I remember learning about them in my psych classes in college but they were covered in the IOP program I went to in January. Projection I know about too. You're right- these are definitely relevant topics for me. The truth is that I'm so overwhelmed with emotions that I'm struggling to challenge these things at the moment. I'm not actually used to having emotions. I had shut those down for a couple of decades without even realizing it. Along with the trauma, they were buried for a long time. All of my anxiety and depression kept me from feeling genuine emotions about anything. Now I live in a constant state of fear and sadness. It's hard to challenge much of anything when you're that drained from that much awful coursing through your body.

I've been reading through the book "The Body Keeps the Score". So far it's effect has been making me want to get my brain scanned, lol. I want to see how my brain reacts and what the scans could tell someone about my issues. Down deep, a part of me feels like my memories and experiences are wrong, that I'm making all of this up and shouldn't be believed. And after all of these years, shouldn't I just be okay now? Shouldn't I just be able to knock all of this off and act and feel the way that I'm supposed to? I wish I had some sort of proof that my brain is different. It's hard to feel like anything I'm going through is legitimate because I just feel crazy. I don't make a lot of sense to me.

I've listened to and watched a whole pile of YouTube videos trying to figure myself out. I've read countless articles on Psychology Today and other seemingly legitimate websites. That's how I reached the conclusion that I have C-PTSD. I debated on BPD for awhile but it doesn't really fit. I'm not impulsive with my decisions typically. I really want to quit therapy and have deeply wanted to quit for months now and still haven't done it because I know I can't. I also don't really waver in my relationships. It takes a lot for me to dislike someone once I have decided I like them. Sure, I get mad at my husband occasionally (who doesn't?) but I will always tell you how much I truly love him. My opinion of who he is as a person doesn't change. Same with friends and other people in my life. It takes a lot for me to start lowering my opinion or raising my opinion of someone once I've formed it. There are online tests for BPD and they always come back as a low chance that I have it as well. There is no test for C-PTSD but there are online tests for PTSD. I have taken many different tests on seemingly legitimate websites for PTSD and it always comes out as extremely likely and that I should talk to a trained professional about this.

I've been searching and seeking all over the internet. I think I've figured a lot of things out about myself. The trouble is, my T is completely unaware of any of my thinking. He has no clue where I am anymore and I have no clue what he's thinking or seeing. But because I don't have any proof that I'm right, I am afraid to tell him this because what if I'm wrong? What if it makes him angry at me or starts to think I really am crazy and has me committed? Then I put a lot of pressure on myself at my once per month sessions because I have to get this right and I only have 45 minutes or I have to wait another month to try again. And I know a lot of my difficulties with trusting him to be on my side comes from the insane transference I have with him. I know I catastrophize the outcomes of this conversation and it's highly unlikely in reality that he will get angry or have me committed. He's even addressed my fear of being committed and I believe his response because it makes logical sense and this conversation wouldn't meet the criteria. And I know the only way to start working through that is to trust him with stuff. I am so scared to do much of anything with all of this because at the end of the day, I never really learned the rules. My past experiences and my mother's voice inside of my head says that speaking up and having a voice will go very wrong. I don't really know how people will react when I try to advocate for myself because I've done so very little of it. My friends would all describe me as a major pushover. I don't know how to take up space or how to matter. I don't actually matter to myself so how can I believe I matter in the world or to others? I know that these are exactly the problem with me and I know it all stems out of trauma. But I don't know how to fix it and I'm at a place where I can't tell the person who might know where to go next anything about all of this. Maybe he's picked up on some things but there's no way he could possibly know the bulk of what's going on. I wish there was some magical guide on how to do therapy correctly. I've searched for that too. That doesn't seem to exist.
 
I did a thing. I can't email my T about the stuff I'm going through but I know I need to tell him. I'd write him a letter and mail it to him but he's working from home. Sure, I could mail it to the office but I have no idea when he'd actually get it and that anticipation would probably kill me. Given that my current primary diagnosis was ascribed to me by a psychiatrist and I was sent to my psychiatrist for ADHD screening back in September, I emailed my psychiatrist. I also emailed her about getting something to help with the nightmares. I started with the nightmares then I asked her how to get screened for PTSD. I also told her that I think it's more likely to be C-PTSD. I tried to make it clear that I am aware that I'm not a medical professional but that I'm really struggling and I need something that I'm currently not getting so I'd like to explore this avenue. She'll likely write back tomorrow or Tuesday. She may even end up forwarding the email to my T if she doesn't do it. At the very least, I was brave enough to finally tell a medical professional some of what I think is going on with me. Maybe just starting to talk to someone about it will make it easier to talk to my T about it. If I can finally have the conversation with him that I've needed to have for months, maybe I'll start settling down a bit. It won't solve the problem (and the work ahead will still be difficult) but I can feel maybe like he's with me to help me with this. Then maybe I can believe him at least a little bit about not jumping ship. I like my psychiatrist but she's not really important to me. If she somehow gets offended by my self-diagnostics, I don't really care that much. She's really just the person who writes my scripts for gabapentin. She doesn't really even know me beyond what she can read in my chart and the two brief conversations we've had.

Hopefully this is at least a start. I'm content with moving at a snail's pace once I know I've got someone to support me with the work. At least I finally did something beyond just stressing and despairing about it.
 
Good for you Sadie. I was thinking last night about you possibly writing him a letter. But you did even better than that!!! I keep saying 'you got this Sadie and you do. You found out what works for you. And that is half the battle!!

Hope you hear from her soon and something starts moving for you!!!

And getting tested will ease your mind too!!!! Great news on the 'Sadie Front'!!!
 
I heard back from my psychiatrist. She definitely thinks I have PTSD after reviewing my file. So I feel a lot better about that now. I've been searching and trying to figure out my deal on my own for months. It's nice to hear that I've been on the right track! Also, the file she would have reviewed would have been my T's notes so maybe he's seeing a lot more than I'm giving him credit for. That makes me feel a lot less alone. The amount of relief that washed over me when getting that email from her put a huge grin on my face. It's not like I want to have PTSD (I doubt anyone has ever wanted it) but it's nice to know that I'm not crazy and that we can move forward in treated what's actually wrong with me instead of focusing on depression. My chart won't reflect it but I'm totally fine with that.

She's prescribing prazosin to help with the nightmares. Hopefully I will start sleeping a lot better soon!
 
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