Posted by Annabelle Smith on October 25, 2010, at 6:56:06
In reply to Re: please help, posted by Solstice on October 23, 2010, at 13:25:32
So today is the day that I have to make my decision. I've had a really screwed up sleeping schedule the past few weeks, but got up this morning at 4:30 because I am so worried about this. Today I feel so anxious and chaotic. I don't know if I am making the right decision-- now, I am second-guessing everything. It all even makes me feel somewhat nauseous-- dizzy with a continual feeling of a need to vomit-- so I took NyQuil and went to bed early last night. But this morning I feel so strange-- like a totally different person than I was on Saturday. Saturday was one of the best days that I have had in months.
I had been so paralyzed in life; especially on Friday, I was so upset that I was paralyzed for the day. After I talked to my old therapist on the phone, I was able to salvage the rest of the evening by writing a poem and then working on a paper for a class-- talking to my old therapist enabled me to write the poem which, together, enabled me to free my mind enough from distress to be able to use the evening productively to actually write part of a paper for a class.
I think at this point, I was already deciding to go back and work with him. On Saturday, as I talked with you all on here and gave it time, the decision solidified. I had to go back and work with him. Something about this totally changed me. Saturday was the best and most productive day that I have had in months. I finally created my resume, applied for another job, and started two applications to grad schools. I felt light and determined and able. I wonder why this happened? It might be because of the safety that I feel in the therapeutic bond with my old therapist-- within that relationship again I now feel safe enough to try new things and take more risks with my life. Or, it might have just been that I had exercised agency and chosen and in so doing, felt competent and proud of myself, enabling me to venture out in excitement.
At any rate, that faded yesterday and is gone now. Now, I am so worried. I already am beginning to grieve the loss of my new therapist-- although we weren't as attuned, he still helped me and I shared precious things with him so much so that it feels like he also has a part of my "self" now that I need back. Either way I go, I lose part of my "self" and I grieve. Then I started worrying that what if I go back to my old therapist and it is not what I had imagined. When I first started working with my new therapist, despite the grief over losing my old therapist, one initial thought was that maybe now is a chance to start over again and look at things from a different perspective. Because I didn't feel so emotionally attuned and attached to him, I was able to tell him things that were for me more embarrassing, like about eating disorders and such. Also, we talked about Borderline Personality Disorder as a label, something that my old therapist didn't really agree with giving to me.
But as I think about it, my new therapist "gets" me on one level very well-- he understands things great on a cognitive level and gives me many interpretations. We "talk" more than I used to with my old therapist. However, I feel like my old therapist "gets" me on a deeper level of being-- he is attuned emotionally and I think therefore also cognitively, though we often didn't talk as much as we sometimes took the time to "be." But then I think he doesn't know the real "me," just the self that I selectively presented to him in sessions last year. I want a chance to start over with a new self. But how deeply I fear I will fall into old patterns or be misunderstood-- and then where to go?!
One more thing: Over the past few weeks, I would find myself obsessively having 200+ conversations with my new therapist a week in my head-- usually conversations in my room that I would say out loud. I would tell him all of these things and articulate in a way with which I was very pleased. I would go to session and not be able to speak at all. And again and again each week. I used to do this with my old therapist last year. Friday and Saturday were transition days-- I didn't have these kind of conversations with anybody-- maybe that is why I felt more real and was more productive? However, on Saturday night and on Sunday, the same incessant conversations began, but this time, with my new therapist. The old therapist that I had so obsessively talked with all of last week was off the radar now and it was the same situation with a different person.
Sorry that I wrote so much but I feel so confused.
poster:Annabelle Smith
thread:966528
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20101023/msgs/966908.html