Still here! Still arguing with my psychologist!

I haven't quit blogging! I still haven't managed to get my laptop fixed though so it's difficult to write and read as much as I'd like to at the moment. Sad me. Sad, sad me. I miss my blogging friends and the support this blog provides me. Writing here and reading about other people who share similar experiences to me has been one of the greatest things the Internet has offered me and has helped me over the last few years to know that I am not alone in the things I experience in my life with dissociative identity disorder and dissociation in general.

Living in Northern Ireland it's easy to get to thinking there is no one else like me out there. I am reminded of this every week with my new psychologist as I can almost see her internal panic rising each time I visit her and she struggles with something that's so new to her. I'm sure there are others around me with this condition. The Internet brings me in touch with people across the world who have similar issues and this is reassuring. I hope also that in some small way other people might get something from my blog. I know it's not for everyone... maybe not for many at all actually, but even if someone feels it's helpful to them then that makes me feel really happy.

Things are ticking along for me. I've been off work sick now for three months. The plan is that I will start a phased return to work in May. This week is the first I have been able to think about the prospect of returning to work without feeling completely overwhelmed, so that's progress. I have been on some medication now for a few months too and I guess that may be helping, although I still have days where I wonder if it is doing anything at all. But at least I'm not thinking about killing myself all the time and I haven't self harmed in... gosh, it must be nearly six weeks? Over a month anyway. I'm pleased about that. I wouldn't say things are great, but I do think things have settled down a good deal.

NP is still both delighting and infuriating me. I will catch you up on that hopefully soon because there have been a few sessions I haven't told you about now. One week it goes great and the next it's a disaster. We had another fall out last week because we got to talking about an argument I'd had with Adam and she made a huge assumption and accused me of thinking that Adam is a bad person because of something small that is consistently unreliable about him. She was trying to BPD pigeonhole me again... which confuses me because I outright asked her a few weeks ago if she thought I had BPD because of her frequent references to it and she said she didn't. Anyway, I told her she was making assumptions and we argued about it a bit.

I stewed over this all weekend and thought over the conversation and got to realising she had misunderstood me. At my next session we talked about it again and I explained that I felt she had misunderstood me. I also confronted her about the way she interrupts me a lot and I told her that sometimes it seems like she's not listening. I said that I felt she was perhaps anxious about working with me because of my condition and that sometimes I sense she is nervous. I said I felt she has a very intellectual approach and that sometimes I can almost see her brain working over things while I'm talking: like she's trying to figure out what to do, but it means she's not really hearing what I'm saying. I said that if this was the case she would be better off just relaxing and trying to get to know me better. Phwew! I give her a run for her money don't I?!

Well, I said all of that in a gentle way and it was a really useful conversation in the end actually. She seemed to really be listening and wasn't defensive. She then told me that she does feel a bit anxious about my condition because it's new to her and she's learning as she goes and finding her way through it. She thanked me for being patient with her and she said she was aware that I have already forgiven her for a few things. I guess she was referring to all the other times she has pissed me off since January.

We talked a little bit about the differences between her and T (my usual psychologist who is off for a while) and she admitted that she feels a bit of pressure because T is her boss. She didn't explain very well exactly what that pressure is. She said that it impacts on what she can and can't do. I'm guessing though that the pressure she feels is that she will be judged by T and so she's anxious about doing a 'good job' with me. You know, maybe that's why she coped SO badly when I had that huge crisis in January. Maybe she felt it would suggest to T that she hadn't done her job properly if T came back and I'd fallen apart completely, or worse: if I wasn't here anymore. I really don't think T will make any judgements like that on NP.

We moved on to other things anyway but then at the end she said: "I feel like I have to say: I am really interested  in your welfare. I do care about what happens to your mental health and your well being. I empathise with your position; I think it sounds like you've been through a lot and I think it must be difficult and confusing. I am trying to help. I'm not always going to get it right."

I felt a bit sorry for her after that! I offered that in a way I feel perhaps that I want to be angry with her because it's easier for me if I am because I don't want to risk having positive feelings for someone else and then lose them again. After all, this is temporary. T is coming back in the summer. Hopefully.

I will tell you more about what else has been occuring in my sessions and in life in general. Tomorrow I have to go to see a psychiatrist (Arrrgh!). I've been referred by my work's occupational health. I've been told it's just to see if there are any medications that could help me better than the one I'm currently on so hopefully I'm not going to get interrogated and it would be good to know if there was anything better I could take.

Bye for now.