Posted by fallsfall on February 12, 2004, at 23:09:28
In reply to Re: Why do they do this to me? » pegasus, posted by Pandabear on February 12, 2004, at 19:11:03
I certainly can relate to you! I was obsessed with a friend, and then started therapy. The friendship ended (painfully) and I became obsessed with my therapist (except we called it "dependent").
She wanted to make me less dependent by limiting my sessions. I had stopped calling her because I was afraid that she would think I was "dependent" and I knew that was "bad". I will say that I did develop some pretty good distress tolerance skills. So it was a long story, but I had to terminate with her and now I have a different therapist (she does CBT, he does Psychodynamic). I am dependent on him, too - but he handles it differently. I see him twice a week (which I thinks helps me), and I can call him (but if I call more than once in two weeks I think I'm calling too much). Sometimes he tries to get me to tolerate not getting what I need (right now that is approval), but when it gets intolerable for me he gives me enough of what I need so that I can function again.
So, yes, I know what you are going through and how hard it is. There are different ideas of what will help, and if you have a long talk with your therapist, and you don't like what she is proposing, tell her that and see if the two of you can come up with another idea.
Distress tolerance suggestions:
1. Write a letter to your therapist (or 2, or 3, or 15 if you want)
2. Call a friend and rant and rave for a limited time (15 minutes?).
3. Watch a movie (on TV or rented) - this works best if it is a good movie and you haven't seen it before.
4. Read Psychology books (the more technical, the better)
5. Take a nap.
6. Cuddle with your dog or cat.
7. Draw a picture with crayons (they smell really nice)
8. Go for a walk with a friend and don't talk about therapy at all
9. Go to work.
10. Become addicted to a computer game (my favorites are Snood and MahJong Solitaire)
11. Post a lot on Babble
12. If you live in a warm climate find a playground with the old fashioned swings with the really long chains and see how high you can go
13. Play with a child
14. Walk around a craft store and look at every object (book stores work for me, too)
15. Some people like to clean, but I hate it.
16. Read "The Woman's Comfort Book" and try some things it suggests
17. Clean MY oven??? Please?
18. Anything else that you think is fun. Try to keep busy.Set up some kind of reward system - Put 3 M&Ms in a bowl for every hour you don't call - then eat them before you go to bed. Or let yourself play a computer game every 2 hours or 1 hour or 30 minutes or whatever if you don't call. Or ask a friend to call you twice a day to congratulate you for making it that far.
Good luck.
poster:fallsfall
thread:310266
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20040211/msgs/312664.html