Posted by Annabelle Smith on November 17, 2010, at 20:39:42
In reply to Re: an eternity » Annabelle Smith, posted by emmanuel98 on November 17, 2010, at 19:53:28
Thanks, you guys.
Emmanuel, I started therapy because I felt awful and felt like things were falling apart. I had just come back from a semester studying abroad in Scotland and had almost been able to creat a new, nascent sense of self in that other world away from my life here. While abroad, I made a friend like I have never had before and being with here, made me feel like I used to feel 12 years ago with my brother-- alive and real. Leaving all of this was crushing. Coming back to my university, I had no friends and my courses were difficult-- both academically and emotionally. I began to feel more and more isolated, suicidal and depressed. But underlying all of this, I know, is a bad way of relating to others and to myself. I have no close friends and have never dated anyone. It is this feeling of always faking it and being unreal. I wanted to help with this too.
Actually, much of the sessions last spring were a blur. I forget exactly how it felt. I just knew that I really needed help then, and I felt as though I was trying to rectify problems that I have been dealing with on my own for 10+ years. I have told my therapist that I feel as if therapy is the "meta-situation" of my life; thus, all of the intensities and frustrations that normally center in other areas of my life, manifest themselves in therapy. I used to be nervous when I would meet with a authority figures for lunch or a chat. This is true with on individual in particular at my university. When I started meeting with my therapist, it was as if all of this authorial anxiety centered upon him and moved away from its intense focus on others. I met with this said minister a number of times last spring and was able to have meaningful and connected conversations with him-- but my anxiety centered on that therapeutic relationship.
Because so much is focused and dependent upon this relationship, it makes it very difficult and scary to know how to manage.
poster:Annabelle Smith
thread:970565
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20101115/msgs/970645.html