wolfalohalani
Bronze Member
Hello all -
I've been having a hard time. My work is great, I love it, but it's high-pressure. I've been working in a conference room with 6 guys (I'm female), and when things get hairy they'll often shout curses and pound the table. After a few days of that I'm really triggered. Because of a head injury I also don't do well when I'm tired, and the project I'm on is requiring lots of overtime - great for the pocketbook, but I get very worn down by the end of the week. On top of it all I'm in physical pain a lot of the time, from a malformed spine that I've had 2 surgeries on.
A couple of weekends ago my wife and I had an argument. I walked away, went into the bedroom, locked the door. She followed, and was afraid I was going to hurt myself. She said, "Open the door, or I'll break it down." Which probably wasn't the best thing to say, because my Dad would say that, I'd open the door, he'd beat me.
I opened the door, and she yelled at me. I don't remember what she said, but the berserker limbic rage kicked in, and by the time it wore off I had punched her several times on the shoulders, slapped her, and shouted if she didn't stop f*'ing with me I was going to f*'ing kill her.
I've never done that before. My life is over, any pretense I have of being a decent human being has gone out the window, I'm a waste of breath, I should just go blow my brains out and save everybody the trouble. (No, I'm not going to do this.)
So, off to therapy. And it was one of the single worst hours of my life. She asked me how often I beat my wife, like I do it every day, and lectured me that I can't use violence to control people. Like I wanted to - like I hadn't spent every night since howling with grief and pain and the impossibility of taking it all back. I didn't think it would be possible to feel worse, going in. Going out, I thought it might be a good idea to just throw myself under a truck.
But, you know, it's just not okay to kill yourself, no matter how much you may feel like you deserve it. So I started trying to repair things with my wife, who's astonishingly still speaking to me, and figure out how to make sure it will never happen again. And the next session with the therapist was better - supportive, insightful, and I had some hope that things would be okay.
Week after that, she tells me that the insurance doesn't want to pay for treatment - pre-existing condition, and I'm in debt to her for hundreds of dollars. I say that I'd prefer to know right away about these things - she had been holding onto the news until she saw me. I said that, had I known about this, I might have chosen to not see her that week, but that she had taken that choice from me by not telling me. I didn't see anything particularly horrible about that comment, but she sure did, got angry, and in an angrily raised voice told me I wasn't going to get away with trying to 'put that on her.'
I was shocked, and triggered so badly my heart raced, my palms sweated, I thought I was going to throw up. I said I didn't do well when people yelled at me. She said she hadn't yelled. Then she smiled a great big smile and said she was glad this had happened, I needed to learn how to deal with anger. I said that she didn't look like she was dealing with it very well, and horribly, she started crying.
The longer this conversation went on the more I just wanted to get up and walk out, because I didn't want to get into a fight. Eventually I did that, she asked me if I wanted to cancel the rest of my appointments with her, I said I wanted to think about it, but she pressured me. I said okay, cancel the appointments then, and fled.
Now I don't have a therapist, but the insurance wouldn't pay for therapy anyway and besides what do I need to be yelled at over nothing? But, somewhere inside, there's a little girl part who's saying of course this would happen, because no one cares, and no one should, and WTF do I keep trying for when I just want to die and get it over with?
wolfalohalani
I've been having a hard time. My work is great, I love it, but it's high-pressure. I've been working in a conference room with 6 guys (I'm female), and when things get hairy they'll often shout curses and pound the table. After a few days of that I'm really triggered. Because of a head injury I also don't do well when I'm tired, and the project I'm on is requiring lots of overtime - great for the pocketbook, but I get very worn down by the end of the week. On top of it all I'm in physical pain a lot of the time, from a malformed spine that I've had 2 surgeries on.
A couple of weekends ago my wife and I had an argument. I walked away, went into the bedroom, locked the door. She followed, and was afraid I was going to hurt myself. She said, "Open the door, or I'll break it down." Which probably wasn't the best thing to say, because my Dad would say that, I'd open the door, he'd beat me.
I opened the door, and she yelled at me. I don't remember what she said, but the berserker limbic rage kicked in, and by the time it wore off I had punched her several times on the shoulders, slapped her, and shouted if she didn't stop f*'ing with me I was going to f*'ing kill her.
I've never done that before. My life is over, any pretense I have of being a decent human being has gone out the window, I'm a waste of breath, I should just go blow my brains out and save everybody the trouble. (No, I'm not going to do this.)
So, off to therapy. And it was one of the single worst hours of my life. She asked me how often I beat my wife, like I do it every day, and lectured me that I can't use violence to control people. Like I wanted to - like I hadn't spent every night since howling with grief and pain and the impossibility of taking it all back. I didn't think it would be possible to feel worse, going in. Going out, I thought it might be a good idea to just throw myself under a truck.
But, you know, it's just not okay to kill yourself, no matter how much you may feel like you deserve it. So I started trying to repair things with my wife, who's astonishingly still speaking to me, and figure out how to make sure it will never happen again. And the next session with the therapist was better - supportive, insightful, and I had some hope that things would be okay.
Week after that, she tells me that the insurance doesn't want to pay for treatment - pre-existing condition, and I'm in debt to her for hundreds of dollars. I say that I'd prefer to know right away about these things - she had been holding onto the news until she saw me. I said that, had I known about this, I might have chosen to not see her that week, but that she had taken that choice from me by not telling me. I didn't see anything particularly horrible about that comment, but she sure did, got angry, and in an angrily raised voice told me I wasn't going to get away with trying to 'put that on her.'
I was shocked, and triggered so badly my heart raced, my palms sweated, I thought I was going to throw up. I said I didn't do well when people yelled at me. She said she hadn't yelled. Then she smiled a great big smile and said she was glad this had happened, I needed to learn how to deal with anger. I said that she didn't look like she was dealing with it very well, and horribly, she started crying.
The longer this conversation went on the more I just wanted to get up and walk out, because I didn't want to get into a fight. Eventually I did that, she asked me if I wanted to cancel the rest of my appointments with her, I said I wanted to think about it, but she pressured me. I said okay, cancel the appointments then, and fled.
Now I don't have a therapist, but the insurance wouldn't pay for therapy anyway and besides what do I need to be yelled at over nothing? But, somewhere inside, there's a little girl part who's saying of course this would happen, because no one cares, and no one should, and WTF do I keep trying for when I just want to die and get it over with?
wolfalohalani
