Posted by Solstice on November 10, 2010, at 22:01:19
In reply to Therapy and termination, posted by Annabelle Smith on November 10, 2010, at 20:43:59
Hi Annabelle -
I am sorry you are experiencing so much anxiety. I have had trouble with it myself, and I hate being taken over by it.
I can relate to feeling 'unreal.' And I know what you mean about it being hard to describe. I went in and out of that sensation over a period of about four years. I am not a psychologist, but I do read a lot about things that have affected me. It helps me. I worried about that sense of being 'unreal' too. I experienced it a lot when I was in my previous toxic therapy.
It took a long time for it to subside. My therapist thinks it was in the same neighborhood as dissociation. I worried about it, but my understanding is that it's just a more acute version of what people do all the time when they wander off in their minds - daydreaming - and things like that. My therapist believed it was a result of a quick succession of traumatic experiences that overwhelmed my ability to cope - leaving me with many of the symptoms of PTSD. I think anxiety also plays a role. My therapist talked a lot about 'integration.' Not in the true sense of DID or DD, but in the sense of my, over time, integrating my traumatic experiences in a way that would be manageable for me. It sure took a long time, but during the last year, I've only had a few times I've experienced it... and those times were when something triggered a trauma response in me (because my adrenalin system was hyper-sensitive). It has felt good to have such an extended period of my brain not kicking into overdrive for inexplicable reasons. I was not clear on what 'integration' meant.. but when I felt 'integrated' I knew that's what it was.
Terminating was probably scary. It may have activated your nervous system - and your mind was protecting itself by separating itself into 'real' and 'unreal' compartments to help you cope with the stress of it. Feeling overwhelmed is a very helpless feeling.
I'd like to see you just hang in there until you return to the therapist that felt safe for you and can explain to him what you're experiencing. I'll bet experiencing a sense of safety with an attuned therapist will do you a world of good.
Solstice
> I thought I would give an update and just need to talk.
>
> Today I had a termination session with the new therapist that I have been seeing over the past couple months. I felt unreal during the whole thing-- like it wasn't me sitting there. My mind was blank, and I couldn't speak or think. A voice came out and thoughts were put forward but they weren't fully mine. I left feeling so awful. I don't know what I needed to tell him-- I think I wanted to scream at him that things aren't ok and I need help. I am going back to the therapist I was originally working with to seek that.
>
> I have been feeling so out of control and have been having problems with binging again. After I left the session, I told myself that I would sit with the chaos and unreality of my self, but couldn't do it-- a couple candy bars later, I felt even worse. I tried to throw up, but all I could do was gag and get a lot of junk coming from my throat but no vomit. I wanted to drown out everything that had happened by burying my whole chaotic experience with him and then purge it out, like it had never happened.
>
> I think part of the pain comes from knowing that he doesn't understand me. I got the sense that this therapist gets me very well on a surface and explanatory level-- he helped me see many things in a new light about my relationship with my family and lack of a sense of self and direction that stem from that. But I don't think he understands me on a deeper level beyond words and explanations-- I needed an emotional attunement, a sense of a safe place to "be." I wanted to be understood in this way-- not just with wordy explanations but with real attunement. I want to be able to really share the emptiness and ache with someone-- I wonder that if it is shared, then maybe it will lessen, maybe it won't crush me so much. As we finally discussed labels, he told me that he could see me as having some borderline symptoms but not as being borderline-- he told me that I wasn't suicidal and that I wasn't self-harming. I wanted to tell him so badly that that is not true-- neither of those things are true. He doesn't understand. It's not that I need the label of borderline, or any label for that matter. I agree with this therapist and others who say that the DSM IV labels are restrive and do not account for the complexity of persons.
>
> What bothers me is not that I don't have a label to hold onto; what bothers me is that even someone that I go to for help can't understand, can't enter the chaos. I feel so unreal.
>
> Does anyone know what I mean when I say that I feel unreal? I can't fill out the term-- I have tried and tried, but can't define what the "it" is that is wrong. Something is awry. It is like my voice is reverberating back and forth in my head and it won't stop. It's like I live in a castle that no body else can enter into, like I am drowing in words, there is no direction, just a dizzying spiral. And the unreality is that it is all in my head-- I can't even communicate this with anyone, as today evidenced. I have failed in this therapy.
>
> I hope so desparately that my new therapist can help me. I worry what happens if he can't. Maybe I am idealizing him too much. Today in the termination session my therapist told me that I play the helpless role in therapy and am not as helpless as I put on to be, that I am actually very resourceful and competent. That is only half-true, I think. Sometimes I am. But there is this part of me that in every moment of the day is scratching under the surface for release from hell. In every interaction with another person, this self wants to break down and give up-- but it can't. Only in therapy is that possible; that's why I don't know how to 'be' in sessions; now I am free to be whatever, no role, but I feel overwhelmed by that-- it makes me feel helpless.
> Is that real or fake? I don't know. My going back and forth makes it all seem chaotic and unreal.
>
> Can anyone relate?
Solstice
poster:Solstice
thread:969714
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20101023/msgs/969733.html