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The Aftermath Of The Week

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desiderata310

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Today's session had me freaked the f*ck out. After the last several days,(where I was at a 10.5) I actually felt better: normal even and on a scale of 1 to 10 on the suicidal thoughts and feeling, I am registering about a 3. Barely even a whisper of something like that. But the idea that I would have to talk to my therapist about it had me on high alert. After dancing around the events of that day and what happened, I just put it out there. Yeah, it was more than just a bad day: I had the pills in one hand and the Jameson in the other and what had really stopped me was a phone call.

He pointed to that - that I had answered and not hit ignore- as a sign that I was a fighter. *shrug*

He didn't freak out. Obviously, I had not attempted: I was still sitting there and not talking to him from the psychiatric hospital nor was he trying to identify my body at the morgue .And while I was anxious about talking to him about it I wasn't ACTIVELY suicidal. I was sitting there calmly relating the story.. or well...yeah, I was calm.

We talked through the week and my thought process while it was happening. I told him about how it would ebb and flow and cycle so quickly. He kept asking me if this surprised me. well, yeah, it does! I'm better than that. My thought were ones of "I am so tired of fighting" I listed off a number of stupid fights that were headed my way. I had actually not connected those to my stress and my suicidal thoughts. I knew that my insomnia was directly linked but not to what extent.

My therapist's assessment was that:
1) I don't really seem to know when my stress level is climbing and it doesn't usually send off alarms till I get to "11"
2)My lack of sleep has had a HUGE bearing in my ability to process and deal with my stressors
3) S's emails were not good for me and was a huge contributor to all of this.
4) EMDR has poked a hole in my 'box'. That is to say, I can't use my old coping mechanisms because we've started the integration process and things won't go back the way they were. We have to press forward. He kind of apologized for that.
5) The past two weeks I've only had one session per week. He believed that having two is important since I seem to need the support.

Talked back through my nightmares. He was surprised that it wasn't about specifics we had worked on with EMDR but guessed that the more immediate threat that I felt (that S was out to get me) would more than explain that.

He promoted more self care. (HAAHAHAHA) and took a jab at my age (which made us both laugh) and told me to figure out when I really DO need to pull back and learn to go home early. Bad ass or no.

We moved my schedule around again. No more Saturdays(which weren't working for me anyway) but we are still on a two-a-week schedule: Mondays and Fridays. So now I am really looking at about 3 days between each session, unlike my Saturday to Wednesday stretch. I can't describe how that makes me feel: it's somewhere between being completely grateful and relieved to disappointed in myself and ashamed that I need two a week. I am nothing if not diametrically opposed to help.

Talked about T's observations of my weakness and my therapist pointed out that the things T had done were done in compassion: leaving the room and deflecting people so I could get my shit together, hanging the sledgehammer on the wall, etc. I am very much alone out here. I feel it every day. Then there was the gentle nudge from my therapist to make friends. Someone I could really confide in and talk to and do shit with. He said he understood it was safer since my trust had been violated so many times to stick to being alone but it wasn't doing me much good and he pointed out (as though he was sitting inside my head) how lonely I am. "It might be safer but it's sad and lonely in there".

Easier said than done. I understand it but I don't make friends easily or quickly.

I watched a YouTube video that I had watched many times before about the way that Facebook was making us more lonely. I'm not sure if I want to reopen my Facebook account, at least not for now. I don't know that it attributed to it but I know it didn't help. There were all these people on Facebook and I didn't really feel like I could tell any of the 200 or so people, listed as friends that I was about to kill myself. Of course, I couldn't tell any one in real life either. In many ways, I felt more alone than I ever had the last time I looked at Facebook.

I doubt anyone on there really misses me anyway.
With everyone having 200+ "friends" no one will notice that my name doesn't pop up anymore.

In all it was an ok session. The biggest part is he isn't putting me in the hospital or even discussing it. We both know I need the sessions to be safe for now (again, I can't describe the terrible feeling of self loathing that puts in the pit of my stomach) and he seems to have some sort of plan of action. It was, indeed, a huge risk on my part to tell him about the almost attempt. It wasn't supposed to be a test but I suppose it was and he passed. I feel I can trust him more. And whether he was aware of it or not, I was aware that I made eye contact with him several times. I tried. I needed to see if I could trust him with what I had told him and I can.
 
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I want your therapist ;)

It's taken over a year of me telling the local Mental Health Unit 1 and 2 of your therapist's assessment and them ignoring it every time and me ending up in the hospital. This last time my social worker said "I've learned a lot about you with ths (last) hospitalisation - that when you say you aren't ok and are suicidal you really mean it and at that stage, I need to get you into the hospital straight away". I was shocked, I couldn't wrap my head around that I would lie or over-exaggerate my feelings (which I minimize greatly), or that if I admitted to feeling like a danger to myself to others or said I needed to go to the hospital, that was huge for me and I really did need it. I know that's quite different from you and you don't want to go to the hospital, but it's the fact that he listened and acknowledged your feelings rather than brushed them off or did something you didn't want.

I deleted my facebook a few years ago and though I re-opened it, I still think about shutting it down. Though now I only have my sisters and one's partner, my 1 friend and his wife who live 200 miles away. Sure - Facebook can't understand why I only have 5 friends or why I don't want more, but it makes it easier. Still I'd rather text my friend occasionally and when my sisters leave possible do Skype or something. But everyone on there knows my trauma history well enough to never post anything bad and there's never any drama. To be honest, we're all a bit naff at using it so it goes untouched for days on end sometimes. I'd say go for deleting it and feel free, also apparently you can "un-delete" it for about a month after, just see how you get on!
 
Kas, I had actually reached a point on Friday where I had accepted that I was a probabaly going into the hospital and it was going to be me asking to do it. At that point I realized that I was beyond miserable and that things were either going to end with my death or me in the hospital. I no longer really cared which and I just couldn't stand feeling like that anymore. If I had called him and said that he probably would have made it happen and/ or met with me immediately. Instead I rode it out and felt better the next day.

I know he takes a risk in trusting that I won't attempt. I could hear it in his voice at the end of the session when he thanked me again for telling him. I kind of feel bad for putting him in that position and that particular night I can't say that I was actually going to call him.(per our agreement) I was having trouble thinking at all.

It's hard for him to read my stress level since I hide it so well. It's hard for me to know what it is since I tend to muscle through my stress and cover it so well even I don't know how I'm doing.

The more I know my therapist and the more I read about some that others have the more I like mine. He actually gets me. Which is a bit scary. He says we are a lot alike so I guess that helps him kind of predict my reactions. When I was hit by a car 3 weeks ago, he even texted me to ask if the bike was ok ( it's a road cyclist thing).

All that said, I don't want to go into the hospital. I am alone in a new, very small town, where everyone knows everyone else's business. No friends here, a kid at home and a new job that I feel somewhat vulnerable about losing since I have a year long probation. I am as far away from everyone I know as I can possibly be. Going into the hospital right now would be... Disastrous.
 
Just wanted to say that you are doing an amazing job re-articulating your experience, and that is a critical part of learning. I think its easy to forget this: there's an aspect of trauma therapy (any therapy) that is about learning yourself, your patterns, inhibitions, wants, needs, and identifying values and preferred behaviours, wants, needs.

You are learning AND you're healing. It's awesome. I really identify with the loss of the "old" coping mechanism but the not having a new one yet. And your therapist sounds like mine! :) As in amazing, supportive, smart, and level.

I get that you don't want to go to the hospital, though it does sound like you know you will go if you need to. Does your therapist put himself forward as a resource for a crisis call before you take action on something like that? Just curious.
 
@joeylittle yes. He said that I could call any time and he knows me well enough that if I am CALLING then something is up; I don't necessarily have to be able to articulate it . That was a problem I encountered early on: I just couldn't figure out what to say to him when I got to that point so I didn't call.

I am terrified that a "voluntary" (which is not REALLY voluntary) would turn involuntary. no I have zero desire to go. That said, if I were
still like I was thursday I would be there today.
 
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