Posted by mair on April 7, 2005, at 21:16:10
In reply to Re: talking about it » mair, posted by daisym on April 7, 2005, at 18:51:41
" And we talked about this today (again)-- that he is worrying. He asked if knowing that he was worried was taking away my "freedom" to talk about it -- as honestly and detailed as I wanted/needed to. It is really hard to answer, "how does knowing I'm worried make you feel?" I told him I thought he was a bit unfair over the weekend and he said, "totally." And he said with vehemence that he needed to reach me and I had moved really far away. *sigh* He said he'd rather have me mad and alive... *big sigh*
>
> It is a horrible position I've put him in, isn't it? I shouldn't fault him. He's so totally there for me. I mean, how would I feel if he didn't address all of this, wouldn't I think he didn't care? And wouldn't that be worse? "Daisy - I think this is all important - that he cares and that you know it, and also that he understands you need to be able to talk about it. The T I had before my current T (who was also my pdoc) never really picked up on the subject of suicide when I'd raise it. It's not as if he ignored it - he acted pretty forcefully to bring my husband in to meet with us both after I told him I'd written a suicide note and when i would talk about it, he'd ask me if I was "at risk" which I always thought was a question I wasn't competent to answer. But that's about it - he hardly ever asked me follow-up questions and I honestly got the impression that maybe he thought it was better if i didn't talk about it. Maybe it was just his psychoanalytic background - just waiting for me to keep talking.
My current T has debunked the theory that it would ever be better not to talk about it. I really consider it to be sort of a gift - that she's made it a safe topic for me even if for all the times it's become a preoccupation, I've mostly chosen not to discuss it with her. Of course maybe it wouldn't seem like a safe subject at all if I really was able to convince myself that it was my only option.
Daisy, have you considered that some of what you're going through may be medication related? I think medication issues had a hand in both of the instances where I probably was genuinely most at risk. In one instance, getting off a medication seemed to help more than hurt and in the other just making a change from taking a med in the morning to taking it at night made a huge difference. I wasn't suicidal because of the meds, but I think they pushed me a little closer to the edge.
Mair
poster:mair
thread:480204
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20050329/msgs/481377.html