Posted by cricket on May 25, 2005, at 9:23:05
I decided to start a new thread rather than intrude on Daisy's age states one above even though the issues seem similar and I do hope you jump in here Daisy.
For me, I've always known about the voices. They've been with me ever since I can remember. They are a few adults and some kids of all ages, both male and female. Sometimes some of them will bring in someone else, either for a short period of time or more long term, I call it sub-contracting, and I don't really know too much about the sub-contractors other than what the main person tells me. The voices do change and develop. But they do seem frozen in age states as Daisy said.
And I've functioned with them all my life. I know what each one likes and dislikes and even though those likes and dislikes are often conflicting I try to attend to each of them as best I can. Yup, there are certainly screaming sessions in my head and at times of extreme stress it feels like the top of my head is coming off, but I've always managed. Never been hospitalized, no meds, a high-pressure job, a husband and child. Of course, I've never been happy and I've never had a real relationship with a real person but high level functional oh yeah no problem there.
But now the problem is that when I am at therapy, the voices have started fighting inside me. Maybe that's a good thing and shows a certain level of attachment to my T, an attachment I intellectually deny. I don't even feel like I like the guy very much most of the time.
Now, this past week, if asked if some of my problems talking are due to the voices screaming inside my head. I said yes, that's true and it is although my silence is really more complicated than that. He said, "So let's play a game and each one can have a session to talk." The problem is that I think it is indeed all a game to my T. I don't think that he has a clue about how I function with all of these people. I feel like he's laughing inside at me. "Let's humor her and see what the voices have to say." The way you might deal with a batty old lady. The other problem is that many of these voices have some pretty nasty stuff to say about him and he won't deal with that very well. One time when one of them (a rebellious, defiant adolescent girl) slipped out and said to him "I don't believe you, I don't believe anything you say. Nada, nada, nada" (that one speaks spanish a lot) he got real quiet and took a piece of paper and tore it up in bits, which felt incredibly aggressive and punitive.
So I don't think I am going to play this "game" of his.
I don't really know much about my T, except that he's a fairly prominent pdoc in a large city. He's been practicing for quite a number of years so I assume he has some experience in my problems or so he claims. I'm not sure that he's the right T for me at all and every time I go there's a part of me that hopes he will just refer me on. But I have invested a lot of time and money with him and I am reluctant just to quit, especially without a referral.
poster:cricket
thread:502661
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20050521/msgs/502661.html