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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 14 of 14. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by Dinah on May 30, 2006, at 22:09:10
You know in your heart of hearts that it's time.
You have grown to know that your therapist is not the therapist/mommy you've created for yourself. Just as you grew to know your mother was not the mother you would want your own child to have. It's time to let go of that fantasy and accept what is. It's time to stop creating what you wish to have, and accepting it as reality.
It's time to realize that your priorities have shifted, and that you want to be the mother your son deserves and the wife your husband deserves. And that it's time to let go of the past. Yes, you haven't been the wundkerkind at your job that you used to be. But your job has long since ceased to be what it once was to you. As someone very wise told you today... Oh drat, I can't say it as well.
It's time to let go of the past, and move to the future. With the two things in your life that have proved themselves to be everything you had hoped they would be - your husband and your son.I know it hurts, and I know there is soooo much safety in what was. But it *will* be ok. I'll be there for you. And I'll support you in any way I can. And there will be others to help you when you falter.
You know it's time. You've been knowing it's time for a while now.
Let go of this step, just long enough to reach for the next rung of the ladder. It will be there for you. And what you lose will be repaid many times by what's waiting for you.
Posted by Dinah on May 30, 2006, at 22:11:08
In reply to Dinah, posted by Dinah on May 30, 2006, at 22:09:10
Of course, I won't.
I'll cling to this rung of the ladder even if I knew for sure and certain that the next rung held riches beyond measure. Never mind being unsure.
Posted by orchid on May 30, 2006, at 22:22:26
In reply to Re: Dinah, posted by Dinah on May 30, 2006, at 22:11:08
Posted by Dinah on May 30, 2006, at 22:36:28
In reply to LOL :-) A great idea though !!! (nm) » Dinah, posted by orchid on May 30, 2006, at 22:22:26
Posted by annierose on May 31, 2006, at 6:38:04
In reply to Re: Dinah, posted by Dinah on May 30, 2006, at 22:11:08
That was beautiful Dinah. So what stops you from moving forward? What is that fear about?
In the book "A Shining Afflication", she writes that the thing (and I'm sure she used a better word there), anyway, the thing that we are most afraid of, what stops us from moving forward, has already happened to us. But our memory replays the trauma over and over.
Can you bring that post you wrote to yourself into your T? I think it bears a discussion.
Posted by fallsfall on May 31, 2006, at 8:39:30
In reply to Dinah, posted by Dinah on May 30, 2006, at 22:09:10
Change is terrifying.
I was severely depressed for 10 years. More than 1/5 of my life. It was the life I knew. It was painful, but it was familiar. It was predictable. I knew how to behave, how to think.
Getting better is hard. Very hard. Every day I get up and have to decide to have a better life. Some days I'm more successful than others. It is work every day to fight the tendency to fall back to my depressed ways.
But it is SO worth it.
I couldn't do it without my therapist. Therapy doesn't end when the depression ends. I still need to figure out how to have a life. How to participate in the world. Weekly I slip back into a more depressed state. My therapist helps me see my slips and helps me to understand them. He helps me to envision other ways of being in the world. He helps me to see reality more clearly.
I wish I could get back those 10 years. But they are gone. My next 10 years aren't gone, however. And I will live, not merely exist. It is hard.
But it is SO worth it.
Posted by pseudoname on May 31, 2006, at 9:05:49
In reply to Dinah, posted by Dinah on May 30, 2006, at 22:09:10
[**May contain a TRIGGER word**]
I don't have a lot of experience with it, but I know that leaving my old T after 4½ years was nearly impossible, even when I was 100% fed up with him and clearly getting worse not better. I think it would've been much easier for me to murder him than stop seeing him.
The only way I actually did it was that I went home to another state for a weekend, ended up breaking my ankle while there, and had to stay for a while. That was what it took to enable me to actually stop going to see him.
Perhaps you could take up skateboarding? (I kid, I kid.)
Posted by Dinah on May 31, 2006, at 9:12:34
In reply to Re: Dinah, posted by fallsfall on May 31, 2006, at 8:39:30
I always call myself pathologically stable, which sounds so much nicer than pathologically afraid of change. It amounts to the same thing.
I really think it's because I don't feel very stable myself, and I prop up my internal stability with stability in my environment.
Plus the enormous anxiety problems.
But when I do change, it always appears on the surface to be quick. One day I wake up, and something seems right. It makes me appear to be impulsive, although I'm anything but.
I resisted marriage for years, although my life at home with my parents was... rather more exciting than my preference. And one day I woke up and suggested to my now husband that it was time to get married, and I never looked back.
Well, except for the second half of my wedding that I spent repeating over and over to myself "I'm married. I'm MARRIED. I'M MARRIED. I'M married. Married."
Posted by Dinah on May 31, 2006, at 9:14:49
In reply to leaving my T » Dinah, posted by pseudoname on May 31, 2006, at 9:05:49
I agree. The idea of leaving him is inconceivable.
Posted by Dinah on May 31, 2006, at 9:18:27
In reply to Re: Dinah, posted by annierose on May 31, 2006, at 6:38:04
There's nothing that I wrote that I haven't said to him at one time or another. We've discussed the fact that he isn't what I created him to be. And that I really know that it's time to pick up and move on, although I get frantic when we take any steps to do it.
I don't know how much of his reaction is what he really believes, and how much of it is discretion in knowing that any move on his part to support my leaving him will be seen as abandonment by me, however unreasonable that may be.
Posted by Dinah on June 2, 2006, at 9:40:22
In reply to Dinah, posted by Dinah on May 30, 2006, at 22:09:10
I couldn't be ready in time, and a deadline came up that we didn't know about, and my husband said that we were staying here. And I'm still not ready enough to argue too much with him about it. I said a few things, but not enough to get him to try to undo it, if it's even undoable.
So because I'm such a stupid nitwit who is so stupidly attached to my stupid therapist, I'm stuck here and I'll never get away from work and it's all my fault that we're not doing what's best because I couldn't get ready enough to be enthusiastic about moving and my husband did what he thought I wanted. Even though I told him to just go ahead and say we were moving, he didn't believe me.
And now he's open to trying to reverse the decision (we didn't have the chance to talk yesterday) I froze and couldn't tell him to go ahead. Because I'm not quite ready yet. But I would be ready soon, I know it.
But it's too late.
Posted by MidnightBlue on June 2, 2006, at 12:00:19
In reply to It's too late, posted by Dinah on June 2, 2006, at 9:40:22
Dinah,
My dear you have me SO confused! Your life is like a twisting mountain road. Aughhhhhh confused mind, confused mind. I guess I'm getting OLD.
MidnightBlue
> I couldn't be ready in time, and a deadline came up that we didn't know about, and my husband said that we were staying here. And I'm still not ready enough to argue too much with him about it. I said a few things, but not enough to get him to try to undo it, if it's even undoable.
>
> So because I'm such a stupid nitwit who is so stupidly attached to my stupid therapist, I'm stuck here and I'll never get away from work and it's all my fault that we're not doing what's best because I couldn't get ready enough to be enthusiastic about moving and my husband did what he thought I wanted. Even though I told him to just go ahead and say we were moving, he didn't believe me.
>
> And now he's open to trying to reverse the decision (we didn't have the chance to talk yesterday) I froze and couldn't tell him to go ahead. Because I'm not quite ready yet. But I would be ready soon, I know it.
>
> But it's too late.
Posted by Dinah on June 2, 2006, at 12:33:42
In reply to Re: It's too late » Dinah, posted by MidnightBlue on June 2, 2006, at 12:00:19
I was just thinking that I should email you.
It is confusing. But it pretty much seems like we're staying unless we're willing to take a pretty big financial hit and suffer a bit of embarassment.
And I'm blaming myself because I was working on being ok about leaving but hadn't got there yet.
Then I told my husband, when this deadline came up, not to worry about whether I'm ready yet, but he couldn't do that because he didn't believe I'd be ok eventually due to my behavior in the past few weeks.
So he answered in such a way that means we have to stay.
And since I'm still not emotionally ready to leave, no matter how hard I try, my efforts to convince him to undo it while we still had time weren't too convincing.
And now it's too late, unless we want to lose a lot of money.
So I guess it's too late and we're staying.
And that will make making the other changes I wish to make in my life way more difficult.
I was really really sad about it yesterday, but am coming to terms with it today.
But my life is confusing to me too right now, so I don't blame you if you couldn't follow that either. :)
It's funny because usually my life is very uncomplicated.
Posted by MidnightBlue on June 2, 2006, at 23:11:49
In reply to Re: It's too late » MidnightBlue, posted by Dinah on June 2, 2006, at 12:33:42
Dinah,
Thanks for explaining. I think I almost got that! I had a rough day today. I guess I'm not glued together quite as well as I thought I was!
MidnightBlue
This is the end of the thread.
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