Posted by Annabelle Smith on May 3, 2011, at 13:39:04
In reply to Re: How do you speak your own voice?, posted by Willful on May 1, 2011, at 10:41:03
Willful, Witti, Dinah, and Sleepygirl,
Thank you all for your posts and responses.
I think you are right-- you guys have been there and know.
Sometimes I feel like the gesture is really the only way that I have left to bust out of my fake prison. But maybe there are other ways. Maybe I should start, as you all suggest, by just really talking to my therapist. I know that he believes me.
Witti, you wrote:
>> Is it about proving the seriousness of your illness to yourself? Mental illness is taboo and it's hard (or simply not an option) to disclose it to those who (should) care about us. I can understand the desire to be validated and understood.<<
I think it might be about "proving the seriousness of my illness to myself." I can't make sense of my experiences over the past 13 years of my life, and especially over the past year. It has been a constant indescribable pain, hell, emptiness, and despair. Maybe I don't want to let go of it, because to do so, is to feel like I am burying something that I don't know how to make sense of. Maybe I want to tell myself that this is real. I certainly want to tell myself that it has been real-- I need to know that what I have felt is real.
A gesture would let others and myself know that this is for real. I need to let myself know this. But it is really in my head. I don't have to act on these feelings. It must be why it is called mental illness-- it is in my head. I don't know if I am crazy or not. If there is something wrong with me or not. If I am ok or not. It goes back and forth.
There is a terrifying feeling in approaching life. I feel completely and utterly lost. Like I have lost myself. Lost my way.
But I think you are right about the gesture-- it would have negative consequences. I couldn't stand to lost my therapist, although I don't think he would leave me in the middle of all of this. He is actually trained in working with suicidality and borderline personality disorder, and unlike most therapists, welcomes such clients to his practice. But I shouldn't do this to him, to my family, and maybe most of all, to myself.
I think I deserve better than this. I am just trying to figure out what to do to get through.
Maybe my therapist and I can work together to find ways to help me build a true way of existing, a true self, and a meaningful life.
Willful, thanks for the suggestion about taking in my posts to my therapist. I have actually done this many times. We started out by him reading them silently to himself. Then we progressed to where he read them out loud. Last time I brought one in, he was hestitant to take it, as he wanted me to try to read it out loud to both of us. But I couldn't do it then, so he read it out loud for us. I do feel like I'm drowning in words. I wish I could just bring in all of my posts and chaos and just drop them at his feet and say: here, please know the truth and please help me.
But a session is only 45 minutes and there is not time for all of it. That is one reason that I freeze in a session-- I become overwhelmed with how much I have to say, and can't pick one for the many.
poster:Annabelle Smith
thread:984180
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20110324/msgs/984446.html