hello from nowhere

[yoyo_girl]

Hi guys..

i say hello from nowhere because that is exactly where i am. Nowhere. i did so much to make somuch progress in my life, especially logistically... now splat. Nada. Nothing. i go around and around and around.

With BP it's a little different because chemicals toss us about, but outside of that part i am wondering if therapy really helps anyone. i am thinking that simply filling in a mood assessment form once a week/month/whatever and having it reviewed by a pdoc who would adjust meds as needed is about all anyone can do. The rest seems to be heavy on the bull **** and light on the recovery.

This board and other boards meant for medical conditions are a little bit of an exception, as i said. One would expect progress and regress in combination and opposition. But honest to the queen of isam, look at every other type of mental health board out there... especially the ones meant for "psychology" in general, and psychotherapy... holy flying ratshit... does anyone get better?

i am pondering. Pondering the nature of it... and i am also pondering as to whether in internet provides a warped and wonderful sample. The forums, IMO more than the people on the forums, become your friends. Braintalk is a friend of mine. (of course you guys are friends but colour inside the lines with me ok?) Board X is a friend of mine. i go to these "friends" for comfort. If i get better... do i stop going? as i am sure some people do and thus make the appearance of "well" individuals seem less obvious... or do i suddenly regress, have a crisis, or invent one, so that my "friend" will come to my side?

The same is true within therapy i think... getting better might jeopardize the special relationship.... right?

It's not how i feel, it's what i see when i read the psychotherapy boards all over the place. i mean, people in psychoanalytic style therapy should expect a few years of therapy about 2-3 times per week... just due to how it's done and what it's meant to do. But TWENTY-TWO YEARS???!!! and you not DONE yet? In fact, you can't seem to get it out of your head that you are a little girl and the T is your mommy??????????????? QUack? quack? quackadoodle?

i know the forums provide a whacked out view of the world of anything... but what i am seeing overall is that people progress rapidly at first in therapy, then either stop or do the back and forth dance.

hypothetical example:

well educated female, just starting on a promising career and without any medical mental illness (been assessed and does not have BP for example). She has been in therapy for three years, doing primarily a flexible CBT type therapy. Her anxiety is still through the roof and especially so when anything gets better in life... meaning something improves around her like she finishes her master's thesis or something... and she has a brief interlude of happiness followed by a "meltdown."

And then these people are advising others. They are all over the boards with advice about this or that in getting better, about how therapy helped them so much.... yet you can look back over four years worth of posting and see nothing but the same pattern that is happening right now. i mean, wtf?

and so here i sit. Sucking. i'm doing the around-we-go dance. Yes, i do have BP and so i have the chemical nightmare... but the other issues in my life have not resolved themselves. And i am left wondering what, if anything, therapy will do about it. Am i spending $140 an hour to humour myself?

i just don't know.

i apologize for not coming back after my last crisis... to tell everyone i was ok. Something has been wrong with me for months now. It's still not sorted out but seems to be hormonal... pdoc put me on estrace and it has helped, which is a sign we are on the right track at least. But i suffer from terrible fatigue and depression... where does one end and the other begin? There is so much crap in my life that it's no wonder i am down a lot... but what can i do?

i need to resolve some things, but i can't. Or i feel like i can't. i feel pathetic really. i think the main reason i stick with my T is that he has to listen to me whine about it... whereas i have pretty much stopped talking about it with friends, etc because everyone is freaking sick of it. So am i.

anyway... don't know if there was a question in here somewhere or not. rambling nonsense i guess.

[houghchrst]

yoyo, we by no means became sick of listening to you "whine" as you say. Is that not the whole reason for this board? You are right about the t not working for some. Maybe you feel as though your T is not working because you are stuck in a holding pattern and not taking any action in resolving the issues you need to take care of. What do you expect of your T? Does he not help you see what it is that you need to resolve? If he does isn't he doing his job? You have to do the actual work honey. I know making a decision and acting on it is an excrutiatingly scary process. Sometimes there is sadness and an almost mental hangover after but AAAHHHHH... the freedom after is all worth it.

I am glad to see you posting. I think about you everyday. Figured you would not answer if I posted for you and didn't want to intrude. Stay here.

You are right about not starting a thread and then complaining about how slow that board is. For a while I felt that I really had no right because everyone has been here longer than me but I guess that I need to get over that undeserving issue that I have.

I wish you a few peaceful moments throughout your day.

[bizi]

Dear Yo-yo girl,
Good to see you.
Perhaps you could look at this another way.
The fact that you are still with us...means that your therapy is working.
What if you did not have anyone else to share talk vent to.....
I am glad that you have been able to talk thru some things...Your therapist should be able to help you sort out things and help you make decisions...
You make these decisions they don't make them for you.
Keep posting here...that is what we are here for.
We are your friends on a different level and have been for many years.
My memory sucks most of the time so sometimes I have to ask for explanations again and again. If you will forgive me for this.
just wanted you to know that we care.
((((HUGS))))
bizi*hug

[waves]

QUack? quack? quackadoodle?roflmao :D

the other issues in my life have not resolved themselves. And i am left wondering what, if anything, therapy will do about it. Am i spending $140 an hour to humour myself? [.........] i think the main reason i stick with my T is that he has to listen to mei have done both. sometimes i need/ed that kind of support - where i can expect a 'safe' therapeutic environment, and avoid dealing with the deeper issues in favor of some event. so the big issues remain unexplored.
Something has been wrong with me for months now. It's still not sorted out but [...] we are on the right track at least. good. hormones and such can really really mess up your moods bad. fixing this will probably get you feeling better all around.
i suffer from terrible fatigue and depression... where does one end and the other begin? the chicken and the egg, once they get started. what can you do. my doctor told me to rest. that i was fatigued because of stress and all the stuff in my life and to rest. two weeks later he decided i was depressed. there were other aspects besides fatigue. but still, the recipe was to go ahead and rest.

~ waves ~ wishes you better

[yoyo_girl]

i think maybe i phrased it wrong.. by saying "what, if anything, will therapy do about it?" i know it has to be me doing whatever it is, i know my T won't do my work and therapy won't just wave things away. That's not what i meant really. What i was getting at was the state of mind... will therapy actually put me in a better place mentally? Will it do something for me that will change me or prompt me to change? Will things around me change, will i change anything, because i have been in therapy?

i see so many people who go into therapy, whether they stay for years or shorter periods, who sing the praises of therapy yet seem to have only learned to gloss over thier issues. i can think of several examples among people i know... a man who spent years in therapy and basically has learned to blame everyone but himself for everything. He sees it as him having great self esteem, but nothing ever seems to be his fault. When something goes wrong it is all about someone else. His therapy resulted in denial of responsibility. ANother example, a woman i know who has been in therapy for four years. She has repeated explosive episodes, yelling at people around her, taking extreme offense at everything, assuming the worst of everyone, including her T. She has left accusatory messages for people on their voicemail. She fancied that there was a strong attraction between herself and her T and when he broke that bubble she decided he was in denial, was a bad therapist and switched to a new one. The kicker? SHe's studying to become a T. She's a sweet person, very caring much of the time and i like her a lot... but when i have tracked her online entries over the course of her time in therapy, the patterns are exactly the same... despite her claims of huge progress she behaves the same and posts the same stuff in the same way.

So, what i see is that therapy hasn't helped these people make change in their lives... it has helped them believe it has. Are they happier? well, they seem to be because they can let go of any responsibility for anything.

To use a more upbeat phrase, it has changed how they see the world... and i want to change how i see myself and the world, but i'd like to see it as it is, not replace one damaged filter for another.

You're right Bizi, i am here still because i had a lifeline during some pretty bad times. But is that what i am there for? Can't i get that through free mental health crisis workers? Isn't therapy supposed to help you make life changes?

A friend sent me an email today in which she said that therapy didn't remove her obstacles, just taught her how to deal with them better. That isn't what i am after at all... i want to destroy obstacles. i want to become what i could have been if i hadn't had obstacles placed in my way.

waves honey..i honestly can't rest. i can't. If i rest there is no one to keep things moving. i work even though my job is crippling me, i am trying to build other sources of income, i am trying to develop my art career and hunt down opportunities, i am trying to battle so many medical conditions... i counted the other day... 9 different meds in the morning alone. i see a GP, a pdoc, a physiatrist, a rheumatologist, a chiropractor, a pain mangement doc and an orthopedist. There is no one to hold my life together but me. i have no way to rest. God.. i wish i could just take some time off just for me.

Today my GP decided that the hormone that my pdoc gave me is too risky and has commanded me to stop taking it. She put me in the line of fire between her and him. He is on vacation so she can't talk to him by phone and neither can i. i don't know what to do. The hormone has helped me somewhat, but i don't know that i'd rave about it... and now i am on prozac too... she had a lot of good reasons i should stop, but she's also a pompus ***** and i have been with him for 10 years. She was right about it not being his specialty, but at least he was willing to do something when she hadn't. He had suggested a gyno but she said talk to your pdoc about your moods... so i did and he did something... now she says i should have seen a gyno??

i don't know what to do. Now there is a use for my T... but he's away too. :(

[bizi]

I had no idea that you were dealing with all of these health issues.
Could you still go see a gyno?
It sounds as if you are juggling it all pretty well.
You should be proud of that and give yourself a pat on the back.
You are able to work...this is great in and of itself.
As far as the changes go...I am not sure if you are talking about your personality? I don't really thing we can change our personalites....We can retrain oursleves to think about different things, work on improving our self esteems. Learn how to be more open, better communicator...this takes practice. like a mantra,,,I want to be a kind person so I must learn how to be kind to people.
not sure if this makes sense at all...
(((HUGS)))
bizi
any changes are hard and it takes 3 weeks to make a habit!

[houghchrst]

yoyo, I understand exactly what you mean about the T. Some therapists have skewed ideas as to what is the right way to treat someone and some I think are in the biz for the ego trip. My therapist is great but I am not getting some issues dealt with. I too want to change some things about me but she jsut keeps telling me that I am not getting the benefit of mood stabilizers to help me. Well I don't give a damn about the meds, I have issues that I want to know how to make them go away. I don't want look at them differently, I want to make them go away. Just tell me what to do. These are not things that meds will make go away. I don't know if this is what you mean and I wasn't trying to make this about me just using it as an example.

[yoyo_girl]

no christina, that is a pretty good example of some of what i mean. i want to make some issues go away. i mean, hoorah for positive thinking and all that crap, but affirmations just don't cut it. i am smart enough thank you to come up with more rational ways of viewing things (at times at least), what i need are ways to change things which are deeper than that.

Bizi.. i'm not sure how to explain what i mean by change... :confused: i'm not wanting to change my "personality" exactly.. i'm sorry sweetie, i don't know how to say it.. "being" and "acting/behaving" are such post Ellis concepts and they have flooded psychology. There is an integration i am looking for, a re-organization of the parts which make up me... that probably sounds more confusing than less. i want to tear down walls, not take a class in masonry.

so much of therapy has become quantified. So very sad. CBT is the most common and supposedly most effective... but there really isn't a way to really test that because other therapy types aren't easily tested. CBT fits so nicely in little boxes. Equally as sad is the long and meandering path of the very old school PA therapists... long on insight, short on strategy.

Good gawd... have none of the therapy styles into between been both caring, insightful *and* helpful??

it's ok about the medical stuff... well, it's not ok, but it's ok you had no idea. How would you? i don't talk about it a lot. i just took a medical leave for a week and i'm now just working 4 hr shifts. All of that stuff i can handle as it comes. i just wish someone would figure out what the fudgecookie is wrong with my chemicals/hormones!!

[waves]

i want to tear down walls, not take a class in masonry.definitely deep PA stuff. thing is our unconscious, or psychological "organization" however it actually is... is extremely engrained. reactions emotions... and some are neurological developments that may occur even at the fetal stage. i was reading this about BPD - Borderline Personality Disorder.
so much of therapy has become quantified. So very sad. CBT is the most common and supposedly most effective... but there really isn't a way to really test that because other therapy types aren't easily tested. CBT fits so nicely in little boxes. yes, convenient isn't it. there's a lotta press on CBT, but the problem is the "cognitive" part... where is the "emotional" part :rolleyes:? The part that is messed up, themoreso with mood disorders? where does that get addressed, rather than deviated from with "adaptive" thinking and behaviours.

i wonder anyway if we are like a squishbag, and what can't come out one way will come out another if it's just squished/adapted. even physically. i have been reading about that lately too - somatization, converstion. i wonder about that guy who blamed everybody else tho... his T musta been a quack - or got sick of him.

Good gawd... have none of the therapy styles into between been both caring, insightful *and* helpful??Can you believe i was considering having 2 therapists, one for CBT and one to help me address deeper issues. Probably would need a third for support or it would mess up the other two. now how reasonable is that.

yet my pdoc seems to veer all over the place, but i can't say i blame him too much because i do too. mind you, he will sometimes deviate me due to his own issues (resistance - he is mostly a situational/CBT guy but i guess he didn't count on me). but what can he do the times i come in all bent out of shape about something and steamroll the hour on that instead of my "issues." so, between my lack of focus and his resistance, the urgent stuff has more often than not snuffed any deeper/existential stuff. that is why i was considering 2 people. nuts. i may go down to ZERO therapists for a while instead. and i don't always feel better when i get out of therapy sessions. sometimes i feel worse... much worse.

[yoyo_girl]

hey wavy :)

sorry it took so long to respond, but that's another thread. *sigh

but what can he do the times i come in all bent out of shape about something and steamroll the hour on that instead of my "issues." so, between my lack of focus and his resistance, the urgent stuff has more often than not snuffed any deeper/existential stuff. that is why i was considering 2 people. nuts. i may go down to ZERO therapists for a while instead. and i don't always feel better when i get out of therapy sessions. sometimes i feel worse... much worse.

see, that has been a HUGE problem for my T and i. Crisises..? crisiss? cris..#!@.... bad stuff. All the time due to medical and home situation/financial. There has rarely been a week in which we don't spend our time dealing with some explosion or other. Never a chance to start anything bigger. i think my T is frustrated with that now too. But what can i do? the problems i bring in each week are real things, big things.

i don't think 2 T's is the way to go, it would be hard for both of them and confusing for you. It would be better to make a plan for how to spend your hour with a T. Maybe 1/2 and 1/2 or less for the weekly stuff if it's smaller... but give him permission to set limits? i am confused a bit, do you have a T and a pdoc now? or is he 2 in 1? because if he is then it would make perfect sense to have him for meds alone and a T for the rest.

feeling worse when you leave is not good :( and it's not productive or helpful. Maybe you really do need to make a plan for some sort of time schedule. What about 10 in the beginning for weekly stuff, which would mean editing on your part ( a good thing too?), then 30 for "work" and another 10 to try to do stuff which makes you feel validated and good. i am guessing you have the 50 minute hour :rolleyes: i don't know what makes you feel good... for me it's when he spends some time reassuring me about not leaving me or re-emphasizing something *he* understood from the work we did.. something that leaves me feeling connected and heard. Would that help you?

i also write him letters all the time, trying to dissect out the stuff that seems important to me. i leave them with him at the end of session and sometimes we talk about that stuff next time and sometimes not. i know he has marked a few for a later date. Either way i know he has that stuff, i can just talk about other things if i want to.

[houghchrst]

Maybe I should try that writing things down and leaving it with my T. I feel so inarticulate when I am there. She says why do you think that is or what do you mean and I say uh..uh..uh.. I don't know. I am much better at explaining things on paper instead of just babbling on incoherently and then not getting anything resolved.

[yoyo_girl]

you should :) It helps a lot. Often times i tell him about a lot of what i wrote, but it helps so that i know what i need to say. i mean, get your money's worth right?

[houghchrst]

Criminy I got a list for all three, the PCP, pdoc, and my T. How frustrating that the docs are in such control of so many lives. I have a btich of a time trying to get treated for my pain because it seems that everything conflicts with being mentally ill and taking the meds. Gee do I not take some of the pain meds and get more depressed because I hurt so bad or do I take the pain meds and not particular psych drugs and be depressed. Think I will just go back to pot LOL, JUST KIDDING!!!!!