Posted by alexandra_k on April 22, 2009, at 13:58:38
Not quite sure where things were up to in the ongoing saga of alexandra_k. I think it was before I found my t. Was trying to work with someone from women's health and wasn't clicking with her so well. Eventually got referrals and ended up with my current t. He works part time associated with the hospital as a psychiatrist. Has something to do with DBT - maybe more the medication management side of things. Also works part time associated with a private practice. A little medication management but more psychotherapy, I think. Self / systems psychology influenced. In many respects he was exactly what I was looking for. After the first year another slot opened up so I was able to see him twice a week.
I guess we've had our struggles. He does things I don't approve of like taking a month off and saying he will be in email contact and then not being in email contact. It took him a while to understand how important the boards were to me. It took him a while to realize how important email was to me. But it sorts out in the end and I guess I basically feel that he is there and he is accepting. Has helped to stabilize me a lot, I think. The whole dilemma of what was wrong with me that nobody would work with me who also clicked with me. Meeting him and realizing that there are people out there. I'm not so crazy after all. I didn't require something too idealized. We did the whole 'I think I have DID' thing and he was fine with that and then the whole 'I think I'm just borderline' thing and he was fine with that. Then the whole 'you know what, I really don't think I see myself as being mentally ill. Though I get a lot out of seeing you and I'd like to continue' and he was fine with that too. So thats the party line, now. And it has really helped me.
Moved to the US for an academic year. Visiting a university over here. It is okay. The move was hard, I guess. They say it takes about a year to really make close friends and about nine months to feel like you fit in. I guess I was expecting it to be more like my move from NZ to Australia. I didn't expect the culture shock that I faced. I'm just starting to feel kind of at home here and see what my social place here could be and then I'll be off. My time here hasn't been so happy. The department hasn't been as friendly as I'd expected. Things have been pretty rough. My father got sick (lung cancer) and was given three months to live. I got back for two weeks but it was a hard two weeks. He died two months later. Last week. That was rough. Managed to get to work with a training p-doc through the hospital a few months after I arrived. She is okay. It is a weird dynamic, though, because she can't be any older than me. Maybe a couple years younger. Really hits me that I'm getting on. Not a kid or even a young adult any more. She is okay, though, basically accepting (or working hard to be that way). Helped to stabilize me again. I don't feel so ashamed / disgusting / despicable because of my history. I'm feeling more integrated with my mess of thoughts and feelings and desires. I'm feeling more integrated with parts of me. With work friends who I can talk to about intimate things and with intimate non-work friends who I can talk to about work.
Go back around the first of June. Then have close to one year to write up my dissertation then I'm done. Have been thinking a lot about 'where to from here'. I don't think a life of reading and writing and reading and writing is for me. I find it hard to construct external deadlines and their absence results in my not being as productive as I could be (and my happiness has a lot to do with my productivity). Thought about it a lot. I've decided to go to medical school once my dissertation is done. Think I stand a pretty good shot at getting into one and loans and allowances etc make it feasible. Have been thinking about that a lot. Whether the kind of external pressure will result in my coming to the party and being and feeling more productive or whether that kind of external pressure will result in destabilizing me. I've decided there is basically only one way to find out. See what happens... There is something too about my needing to learn to look after myself. To give up smoking. To get exercise. To respect my body. I've realized how helping others really is what makes my life worth living (go Linehan) and modelling for others, well, that is the only kind of motivation that would work for me to make those changes to my life.
I told my t back in Australia and he was basically accepting. Thought that if I really thought that that was what I wanted to do then that was what I should do. My t here was basically accepting, too. Every time someone is basically accepting I think I want to cry. Even if this turns out to be a 'test' of acceptance and I change my mind or something it has meant the world to me. I really don't think I'm going to change my mind, though. Have been reading anatomy / biochemistry and things seem manageable and interesting... Go Linehan there is something to science after all. It isn't certainty: It isn't logic or math. But there is something nice and neat and reassuring about it all. Even though I'm really interested in philosophical issues arising from systems and levels of organization and function and dysfunction there is still something nice and neat about it all. I'm thinking neurosurgery or neurology or possibly psychiatry. I think I'm transcending some worrying issues about my motivation for doing all this in finding other options than psychiatry being appealing to me. Actually not finding psychiatry so terribly appealing at all. See what takes my fancy at any rate. And see what seems realistic I guess.
So thats me. Up and down as always. More stable now, I guess. Some good friendships in Australia that I really miss. Especially now, with my father, I really just want to be around friends. But starting to develop friends here too and realizing I'll be sorry to leave. In that horrible in between space where you transition from coke to diet coke and neither of them taste quite right. I miss my therapist back home. I lot. But I'll be sorry to say goodbye to this one too. And when I go back things won't be the same. I guess that is me.
poster:alexandra_k
thread:892154
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20090421/msgs/892154.html