Discussing the letter to my therapist

Warning: this post contains some very long sentences which some readers may find mentally exhausting. Do not read unless you are a glutton for punishment... cup of tea and comfy chair might also help.

Phew, I've been way too busy! I survived the horrible talk on the complicated health condition complicated by another complicated health condition, however I've been dreaming about it the condition for two nights since so I think I am still getting over the stress of it. The talk itself went OK I think. 

So I want to tell you about why I left therapy with a smile on my face this week. I will try to break it up into two posts as I don't want to overwhelm you with all of the details at once (I'm grateful that anyone reads this blog so I do try to make it easier to follow. I'm sure reading some of my posts is like trying to eat a leather sandwich). Besides, I'm still figuring it all out in my own head...

OK so obviously, T wanted to talk about the letter I wrote her (I want to post it on my blog but I don't know if that's OK to do yet). She had read it, which was a bit of a surprise. Her initial comments were that it was very well written and quite insightful and she wanted to know which part had written it (hard question to answer). She asked if it was the part that writes on the blog. I felt like it was me but then, I also felt like it was me in the session too; but obviously the me that writes letters and on this blog comes across very differently to the me that she speaks to in therapy as it seemed rather clear to her that the person sitting in front of her was not the one who wrote the letter. Indeed, she gave me a copy of the letter for me to reference as she wanted to discuss it, and looking at what I had written and contemplating trying to discuss it with her, I felt as though it had been written by someone else. Needless to say, I didn't do a very good job at 'discussing' it with her. It was more her telling me her thoughts on what I had said and me giving the odd nod or agreement. But then maybe that was just because I felt I had already said everything I had to say in the letter. I don't know. I did feel like I had come to therapy without my brain though, which is never helpful. I feel sometimes that I must be one of the hardest people to work with in therapy, because I can be so quiet and unobliging with my reflections.

 

Despite the disadvantage of me having left my brain at home, the session progressed and T laid out the points that she wanted to talk about from the letter. Firstly, she said that when she was reading the letter she felt like she was reading a letter from another therapist giving insights and reflections about someone else. I was quite taken aback by this comment and my initial thoughts were that she was about to give me a lecture about her being the therapist and that it's not my place to be trying to do her job or that I shouldn't be 'intellectualising'. However, she surprised me further by saying that she would like to view this part as a 'co-therapist' who could help do some work on some of the issues in the therapeutic process. 

Huh? Well, it was hard to conceive of myself being any help in the process at all at that moment, having as aforementioned: no brain. But I was open to the notion that perhaps at other times, I do have a brain so I agreed that this could be considered.

She didn't really go into 'how' this part could help but she did say we would talk about that. I think this could be a great idea, dependent on what exactly it is that she requires me to do, however, I just hope she doesn't expect some kind of presence in therapy sessions, because it seems to be mainly 'Stupid C'. Stupid C can certainly act as a messenger though to relay the tasks back to someone more intelligent for them to work on between sessions.

In my letter, as an aside, I had gotten talking about how I hate having two weeks between our sessions. T already knew this as I have raised it before. I was simply raising it in the letter as a detail in my explanation as to why our sessions run on too late (IE it's a long time until the next one so I need to make the most of it). 

Well, T surprised me again by announcing that she would be willing to give me weekly appointments from now on! (Cue celebratory marching band of alters with acrobatics, drummers, pipes, whistles...). She said they would need to be only 50 minute sessions though (band crashes to halt causing pile up... legs and drum sticks everywhere). OK so that's fair enough really. I wasn't expecting her to offer anything as a response to my comment (I had actually stated that I wasn't telling her this to try to get it changed because she already told me in the past it wasn't an option) but I'm not sure about shorter sessions, even if it does mean a session every week. I also HATED how short the sessions were when I had weekly sessions with my first therapist. At least with having sessions every other week, they last an hour and a half which gives me time to not be panicking about how fast time is going. There are pros and cons of each. I can't have my cake and eat it.

 

So I was ambivalent. I'm sure she probably thought I was an ungrateful bitch for not being more excited about her offer. She reminded me that she was only offering it to help reduce the stress that I had talked about with having the sessions every other week. I asked if we could give it a try with the option of going back to the old way if I don't like it, which she agreed to.

So, I'm overall quite excited about this development, meaning I now have a therapy session this coming week. The bad news is she's pissing off on holiday for two weeks after that so I will have an even longer break than usual. I'd probably be more upset about this long break if I wasn't still feeling the after effects of her recent let downs. I'm still feeling defensive so part of me couldn't care less about her at the moment. It makes a pleasant change from being obsessed with her. Maybe we should have a big fall out before she leaves for good and then I will be too angry to mourn her abandonment.

Dissociating by getting stuck: is it under my control?... and what happened next...

Alright, enough procrastination! I will now tell you what happened in the clinical psychology session of last week. Ironically... (or is it ironic? My husband gets on his high horse about people using the term 'ironic' when the situation isn't actually ironic, which makes me nervous about using the word incorrectly and being scoffed at by all the intelligent people in the world... anyway, ironically or not....) this ending of the procrastination is in itself a way of procrastinating from some study I should be doing for work. Best to do this though before this week's psychology session.

Just to give you a recap in brief of what had been happening previous to the session to set the scene... I'd had a difficult few weeks because of:

1. becoming aware of an apparent wish of some part of me to be dead (the 'becoming aware' part involving me being an observer of the act of preparing for a hanging on numerous occasions)
2. Some general internal chaos and a feeling of 'me' being dragged along behind while the other alters were on some kind of mission to break free.
3. having dissociated badly in the previous psychology session (which I talked about here) and feeling generally crap as a result of that
4. My T emailing me to see how I was after the dissociating badly in the session and then failing to respond to me at all when I told her I was not good; on the edge and really scared because of my thoughts and actions, hence leaving me feeling angry with myself for having thought she cared and trusting someone against other parts' better judgements and also leaving me no better off in the current crisis that I was in (which I also wrote about in this post).
5. work being really, really, really stressful (that has now eased off a bit, thank goodness)

So, I went along to therapy last week with all my parts in tow and all of these things hanging over my head. I always look forward to going to therapy but once I get there become really scared and anxious as my alters stir up inside and because of the potential threat of what terrible thing T could do to me or make me talk about. Sometimes she has an agenda for the session, sometimes she asks me what I want to talk about. I usually prefer it when she has an agenda as it takes the pressure off me a lot, but this week I did not like her agenda. 

She started off by stating, in a manner that seemed to me to be quite short, that the last session had run very late over time (because of me being stuck to my chair) and that we needed to sort out the 'dilemma'. She said that it's stressful for her and unfair on the caretaker who was waiting to close up the building. She said we could consider moving the time of the sessions to a different time of day but that it doesn't negate the fact that over two hours is much too long for a session (it should be an hour and a half) and that if she saw me earlier she'd probably see other patients afterwards and that she 'certainly wouldn't keep them waiting'. She said that she understands that it's a struggle for me when I am in that state but that it is in my control on some level because it is another part that's stopping me from leaving.

Now, these are all fair points and she had a right to raise the issue. But it seemed to me by her tone that she was quite annoyed with me and that despite acknowledging that it is another part that is causing the difficulty, that she feels maybe I could just try a bit harder if I really wanted to not be a nuisance. As a result, I instantly went into 'defensive mode'. If I am accused or confronted in a negative way I have an immediate reaction of a sort of closing off. It's like we are all living in a fortress. I try to keep the doors open and one or two people hanging around outside, but at any sign of attack, everyone runs inside, the doors go up, some parts go into hiding while others take up position in their stations ready to defend. I think she picked up on this pretty quickly as I went silent and probably didn't look too happy. My heart was hammering in my chest, my vision blurred, my head spinning. Someone inside was saying: “Lift your bag and make a run for it!”

T was repeating the aforementioned points and saying she hoped we could discuss it together and I was hearing: “I hate you! You are a horrible patient! You are trying to manipulate me by staying longer in the sessions. You are selfish and just want more time and you can't have it because I only get paid to see you for x amount of time. I don't care about you any more than that. In fact, there's probably not even anything wrong with you, you're just looking for attention!” Of course, that is not what she said. That is just me being over-sensitive. 

 

My silence continued. She asked how my parts were feeling about her having raised the issue. I told her I felt she was angry with me and she agreed that she got the sense that I thought she was and that I was annoyed in return. Well observed T (I probably had it written all over my face though)! She told me to stick to the facts of the case so I told her, that the fact was that she seemed annoyed. She didn't say she wasn't but she wanted to know what it would mean to me if she was angry (typical psychologist!).

Well, I don't plan to dictate to you my entire memories of the conversation (I'm sure you will be relieved to know) but it kind of went on that way. Me in silence, feeling like I was going to die off and seething with anger that she thought it was in my control to be able to get up and leave during those horrible episodes of whatever is going on and her going over the same statements about how she wanted to understand why some part of me doesn't want to leave the sessions and what I thought could be done to fix this problem. 

 

Her statements pissed me off for a number of reasons: one, is that they assume that some part of me doesn't want to leave and that I as the 'host' or whatever, would know if and why this was the case and also what would change it. Secondly, I felt angry that it was me who was being 'told off' when it's not 'me' who is causing me to be in that state. During those times, I feel so separate from myself. I am like an outsider, willing the other parts to let me back in or get up and leave. I was angry with her for holding 'me' responsible and angry with the rest of me for getting me in trouble when I spend my whole fucking life trying to be 'good' and 'normal' and blend in despite being full of a whole rainbow of nutters who are all bursting to get out and live in a way which would be conducive to losing my job and any relationships I currently could claim to have a feeble grasp on. 

 

I wasn't so much aware of the next reason for my anger at the time, but on reflection I know that am angry about it: I had been feeling like my alters were moving forward without me. They were learning or I was learning to let them be independent of me in communicating with T. The perceived attack of last session sent them scampering away back into hiding. Then she wanted to hear what their thoughts and feelings about the issue were. By this stage they were so far away, there was no chance of anyone communicating with them. I think Little C had already had her confidence knocked a few weeks before and given that I think it could be a part that is in great distress who has been trying to communicate with C during times that I am dissociating, they then felt castigated for having caused so much trouble. I feel this could be a big setback in the already possibly hopeless task of trying to learn to trust that people aren't going to hurt us.

T continued to want me to talk about the issue throughout the session. I don't think she could really understand how impossible it was going to be for me to be able to have the insight or let my guard down enough to talk sensibly about it. I tried going out to the toilet to pull myself together but it didn't help: every time she tried to raise the issue again I felt my heart rate rising and my vision going again. I kept trying to explain how I was feeling and she kept saying: “does that mean we can't have a conversation about it?” So frustrating!

On reflection in the time since the last session, I have been asking myself the question: “Did I have justification to believe she was quite short in her tone and manner of raising the issue or did I just perceive it to be that way?” In honesty, I really don't know. Maybe she was nervous about raising it with me in case I did react badly and this came across to me as blunt. Maybe it was just my wrong perceptions and that's all. It is important to me that she is not angry, because if she is, it suggests she really doesn't understand how out of my own control the problem is. 

 

I didn't want to leave the issue hanging without any attempt at trying to fix things though, so I sat down and wrote T a letter explaining what was going on for me when she confronted me in that way and then, what I felt we could try to do to help prevent the sessions from running over time in future. I also told her how I had felt about her lack of response to my email a few weeks back. I felt my suggestions for what could help were feeble (because if I had better ones wouldn't I already be trying to use them?). I still feel angry too. I guess I also feel, she should be the one with the answers. Surely I'm not the only person in therapy who experiences dissociation? Well, if there are others then can't she find out from some source what can be done to help? I sent her the letter by email anyway, although part of me feels she cares so little that she probably won't even bother reading it. Another part says, who gives a fuck if she doesn't. She raised the issue so if she doesn't read it, it's her loss. 

 

I have been feeling numb for the main part since the session. In the glimmers of emotion I have had over the last week or two I have noted 'fear' about going the next session which will be on Wednesday. I know that my anger is still not far from the surface and I also feel the part that thinks 'to fuck with therapy' is not far away either. I have also sensed feelings of 'loss' and a disappointing feeling of reconfirmation that no one could ever see anything good in a person like me and that I should have never hoped for anything different. I haven't seen the kids around much as I mentioned here, but I have a sense that they are feeling pretty bad for getting in trouble. Pan might be angry, but that's just a guess as I haven't seen him. I think they are hiding.