Saw My Psychiatrist And Now I'm In Crisis

[maryel42]

This morning I saw the psychiatrist. I've been trying to give him the real answers, as opposed to the right answers- the answers that let us all tick off the little boxes that say, stable, well-managed, cautiously optimistic about the future. It's hard to give the real answers.

It's hard when he seemed to want to pick, pick, pick, pick at them. Pick it apart, want me to explain it all for him, unwrap my trail of logic behind what I'm saying. I hate it.

Brings me back to being put on the spot by my father. Back to being wrong. I can't make a successful case for how I think, for why I think, it's too dangerous to just go all trusting and let him have all my thoughts.

It makes me want to just agree with everything and anything that he said. Just, sure. Of course. Whatever you want me to say, I'll agree with, just to get this appointment over with and just to get me out of this office in one piece. Emotionally. Mentally.

I just... I just feel disgusted with myself now. I feel like he told me that I'm lying about my depression and my suicide thoughts. I feel worth nothing because I'm going through all these mental ups and downs and sideways and he keeps telling me I'm doing fine... because I've been giving him the right answers for months. Because I only recently started giving him the real answers.

Because I know I'm not as powerful as him, or as smart, and I'm just a worthless nothing. I'm a leech to everyone in my life, I'm a mess, and the only reason I don't just die and be done with it is because I'd cause more mess by dying than by living.

I spent a long while today pretending that it didn't happen. I got through my day pretending that I wasn't hurt by it. And now that the day is done and I've got a few hours to call my own quiet time? I want to cry. Even though I can't summon the tears. I don't even want to email my therapist tonight. I've just had a couple good days. I had a great session yesterday. It was good. And I just came all the way back down into a horrible black hole of worthlessness.

 

[Lady of Longbourn]

It's hard to voice out loud those things we have tried for so long to not say or were told not too. You are not worthless and you are not a leech.

Healing is hard. I wish you all the best.

 

[Deleted member 20280]

@maryel42 Firstly may I offer you a huge Cyber :hug:

Just being able to post on here with out holding back the emotion that has clearly been welling up inside for you today. Being totally open in your post is a huge milestone in itself. Many a time I gave the 'right' answers but I just guess I am one of the lucky ones whose therapist saw through my bravado, macho man in control act. I eventually did get it all out and he never judged me nor questioned my feelings. You are not worthless like @Ayesha has said you hang on in there.

 

[somuchpain]

Decided it's just not smart to comment on present Govt. interference in medical care. Sorry but just make yourself aware.

 

[maryel42]

Posting online feels safer than saying anything out in real life. Sure, it's not perfect anonymity, but it's still not all up in my face in person, driving down my street and knocking on my door, etc.

On a forum I used to haunt quite regularly, there's a phrase that a lot of people use. Don't challenge me. Basically, from what I understand, it means that they're not in the right headspace for challenges to their thoughts/beliefs/feelings. I never quite understood that until a few weeks ago. Now I think of it often. I'm just... not strong enough for certain people to challenge me.

Kids challenge me all the time, but that's not it. My husband, he challenges me, and we're in this cautious dance of working our way around to open reconciliation, but it's not really out there, and even that is not it. My therapist challenges me, and I think he's got a good enough sense of how I'm thinking and reacting that he can go by his experience and how he's reading my responses. It's not perfect, but I do feel safe enough there. For instance, I can go in and freak out totally about all kinds of stuff and I can come on here and bite my virtual nails down to the quick because of what I may or may not say... and I feel safe doing that. It's a push, but it's a gentle push.

The pain clinic doc pushes my triggers. That's a challenge, and I'm motivated to step up to that one, and I'm willing to push myself during appts to try to deal with it. The psychiatrist, well, I did the whole first post on this thread and I think it really boils down to a simple concept.

"I don't feel safe, I don't trust you much, don't challenge me if you expect either of the first two to change"

My headache is back. The one that comes when I'm repressing things. Stuff. I think that it's the entire emotional upset that I stuffed down inside yesterday. I don't feel strong enough to deal with it yet. My headache is going to be there until I do. See the pattern? not strong enough, my head hurts, I know why my head hurts and how to make it stop, I'm not strong enough to take the action to make it stop.

So I'll knit a while. I'll lay down a bit before the kids come home. I will gather up my mental strength and deal, and then maybe my head feels better and I can enjoy the rest of today, and I'm not going to spiral further down. Something that's proven itself over and over to me is that I've got to trust somebody. Doesn't have to be everybody, doesn't have to be the same person for everything all the time, but I need to trust. If I don't, it just locks me up badly. So I'm trusting my online life, right now it's here. I'm trusting my therapist. Yesterday shook that trust a bit, not because of him but because of that other psych appt- I guess the two things get confuddled in my head sometimes.

 

[maryel42]

It is certainly a tell that my first thing after leaving the psycho office was to drive to my next errand and then email my therapist with my initial not-quite-coherant depressed emoting.

It's also kinda warm and fuzzy that he emailed me back twenty minutes later. I haven't responded to him yet... but I felt good that he knew and saw what I sent.

 

[maryel42]

Ah. So I'm still spiraling, apparantly, despite having slowed down quite a bit on that front. Not crashing down from a large height, just slipping backwards.

Keeping my fingers busy is only working a bit. Right now, I've got to take a break from it because my fingers are cramping. And I'm trying to keep my thoughts busy. And all I can see when I look around is the clutter, is the house I haven't deepcleaned in forever. I don't see the clean kitchen I did this morning. It's like I see it and say well, it's not as good as it could be, and I don't see that it's actually pretty good all by itself.

I'm tired. Emotionally I'm flat. I feel as though I'm being pressured back into doing what's expected of me. Which is, actually, not that bad. I guess it's more that I don't know if I have any other choice but to do it. I do, but I don't. I feel as though all my reservations are so totally idiotic and I need to admit this and that I'm wrong and fall into line and just be grateful for what I've still got.

And gratitude is important. I know it is. I'm not discounting it. I hate myself that it's not enough. It's not enough to make myself suck it up and be happy with what I have. I just don't know how to make it enough.

 

[maryel42]

I should totally for sure send an email to my therapist at some point today, but I am clueless as to how to even begin writing.

Anybody have a clue? I will take anything just now.

 

[Lady of Longbourn]

Start a draft. Write what you feel or want to say. Then go from there. Just becasue you start it today doesn't mean you have to finish it today. What helps me is starting the writing and then taking a break and doing something else. My mind relaxes a bit but I still think about it in the back of my head.