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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 11 of 11. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by Annabelle Smith on December 16, 2010, at 21:15:45
I feel like I might write too much on here and become annoying to you guys. I am sorry. What I feel is lost in words.
This happens in my sessions. I went to my last session with 5 different things in my hands to share-- they could have each been a session unto themselves:
1- a stack of scholarly articles and research on bpd (I wanted to talk directly about the label and show him that I had researched and have worked very hard to figure this out)
2- scanned chapters from a book on attachment and psychoanalysis (I feel helpless that I am so attached to him and wanted to show him that I am trying to fix it by myself and I am sorry for obsessing over him)
3- my DBT workbook (I wanted to show him that I have been good and have followed his advice and that I AM doing everything I can to get better)
4- a long email conversation with a writer of book on compassion and therapy that I read after I left my sessions last May in such a desperate state of grief. The email was sent in desperation and was about the ache and grief of the loss of my therapist and other issues. I want my therapist to know about and see this.
5- these posts-- about attachment, bingeing, and fear of terminationI want to talk about so many things with him, but I got paralyzed and could very quickly mention a few but spend no time dwelling on them. I leave and feel like hell. And it happens over and over again.
We did talk about the label BPD briefly. He asked me what would happen if we used this label in terms of talking about me and my situation from now on out, and I didn't know. I finally feel validated in one way-- that what I feel is real and I'm not just making it up. That what I feel is bad and hurts a lot; that it's not just normal, that I am not just fine. Everybody else just tells me I am fine, like my mom. Maybe I don't want to be fine. Why?
At the very end, as I was leaving, I asked him if he thought I was wrong to use this label.
He said, that no, he didn't think I was wrong.
Then he said he didn't think I was right either!
He quickly apoologized for speaking in this way but explained that he just has a very different way of looking at labels.
Posted by Annabelle Smith on December 16, 2010, at 21:30:39
In reply to words and labels, posted by Annabelle Smith on December 16, 2010, at 21:15:45
p.s. I got in the room on the couch with all of my stuff and became so embarrassed and shy that I couldn't show him any of the things in my hand that I had so carefully prepared with me. Talk about feeling f--king frustrated. :'(
I just felt awful and helpless. The one person who can help me sitting right in front of me and I waste time and can't even let him help me.I should have just handed him the whole stack.
I hate myself. We talked briefly about two of the things I brought in. He read one of my posts aloud, but I wasn't fully present and feel like I missed most of our session.Now, it is 4 more weeks until the next session in person. We do have a phone session next week.
Posted by pegasus on December 17, 2010, at 11:49:45
In reply to words and labels, posted by Annabelle Smith on December 16, 2010, at 21:15:45
Hey Annabelle,
Don't worry about bothering us by posting a lot. I think we've all been somewhere like where you are right now, where the the time between sessions stretches into an impossible distance, and we just need *some* kind of outlet for everything therapy brings up.
I wanted to comment on your not wanting to be fine. I am wondering whether the issue is that you want to be seen. Which includes not glossing over the hard parts and saying you're fine. We all have traumas and tragedies, and places that hurt and don't feel fine. It's OK - it's really healthy - to want those to be acknowledged. I know you are not making it up. It's crystal clear from here that it's very real.
cyber hugs to you,
- p
Posted by emmanuel98 on December 17, 2010, at 19:24:18
In reply to Re: words and labels, posted by Annabelle Smith on December 16, 2010, at 21:30:39
Don't worry about posting too much. I think we all here feel a desire to help others struggling with therapy. I found this site by googling (literally) "I love my therapist." I felt such love for him and such despair that he didn't feel the same for me. I was desperate to find out if other people felt this way, if there was any help out there.
Another site I found, in addition to this one, was guidetopsychology.com. It's run by a psychologist who has a whole list of questions and answers about problems and concerns with therapy. It made me realize I was not alone, that my feelings and anxiety were common responses to therapy.
I wish you well.
Posted by Annabelle Smith on December 18, 2010, at 22:31:32
In reply to Re: words and labels, posted by pegasus on December 17, 2010, at 11:49:45
>> "It's crystal clear from here that it's very real."
Thank you so much, Pegasus and Emmanuel. I just want somebody to hear me and believe me, and I think as you are right to put it, Peg, see me. I do want to feel seen and that is what I feel by my current therapist.
You know it is like when you have the EXACT thing you need right in front of you, but it is too good to be true. That's how I feel about my therapist. He is the one to help me. It is really hard to find good therapists skilled in DBT-- there aren't that many. It's also hard to find someone who takes seriously the things that matter to me, like my search for God and self. Unlike my experience with every other MHP, with him I do not feel patronized, my feelings do not feel dismissed, and I feel connected. If somebody has cancer and they are receiving healing help from a doctor, then they will stick with this doctor as long as they need to get better. They have to, as their life depends upon it. That is how I feel about my therapist-- I feel like my life depends upon working with him.
We have worked together from Feb-April, were apart from May-late Oct. and have reinitated from late-Oct to now (7-8 sessions?) I know that I have until the first week of May with him. But I feel like I need longer, at least the summer, and maybe even until next Dec/Jan. I feel like I am just now getting onto the verge of really doing therapty-- it seems like what we have been doing for the past months is not therapy but pre-therapy. There is so much that I need to tell him.
I need his help.This is my cancer. No one can see it, but I know it is killing me. I want to believe that I am free to stay in my city and work with him. Really, if I need it, why not? Surely I could rent a place, and find a coffeshop to work in or be a nanny...whatever. Is is weird to want to stay longer in my town to work with my therapist? It is not forever...just for a bit longer. I feel like I am following him around or something...but this is about my health, my life, and getting my eventual indepencence, which at this moment, I cannot have. I just can't-- I am too attached and that is how it is.
I think I could relax a bit in sessions if I just knew that I had a little longer with him...if our time together was indefinite at this point. As it stands, my death date is early May and that is ALL that I see looming. If you could just put yourself in my place...maybe you Emmanuel, as you mention how you feel about your therapist. We know we need help but imagine that this one person who is right for you, who can help you, will be gone on a set date. Forever.
This sounds extreme, I know, but I swear to God I am telling you the truth-- the reality of this eternal separation from what I most need right now makes me think I have to kill myself. I try to tell myself there doesn't have to be such a date if I am not ready but I don't know. When I go online to look at jobs for the summer or next year in my town, I get overwhelmed, like on Thursday night. That night, I began searching jobs and internships, got overwhelmed, and began searching suicide methods and feeling like this is really how it will end one day.
please, please, please believe me.
I know that I am not really powerless, but that is how I feel. I feel like I can't function on my own after I graduate. I need my therapist to help me get better, but don't have time. I even feel like I have wasted the precious time I do have with him.
Dear God.
Posted by Annabelle Smith on December 18, 2010, at 22:44:50
In reply to Re: words and labels, posted by Annabelle Smith on December 18, 2010, at 22:31:32
One more thing I will add about being seen.
I have been thinking about this as I have been home and around my community and having memories stirred up-- it sounds really whiny to say but I feel like I am constantly dismissed by others. All of my feelings are dismissed. And it happens in one of two ways.
First, like this summer, people that I go to for help tell me that I am just depressed or anxious and that I need to take a pill. I had a general practitioner doctor insist this summer that Lexapro was my answer. This constantly makes me feel like I am not heard and they are pinning me into their categories. It is their way to shut me up and get rid of me. Or to fix me in a quick way that is really no fix at all. If this is BPD, as I think and my therapist has more or less agreed, then NO pills are going to "fix" it. This has pissed me off so much. And makes me feel so alone and sad.
Secondly, I feel patronized. People see all of this as teenage angst and as a younger female (two strikes against you ever being seriously when you live in a world ruled by older males) who is just going through a phase of becoming an adult. To my feelings of ache and this eternal emptiness inside and the hell of chaos and confusion and unreality, they act like it is a phase that I am just going through. Teenage angst they might say. But that is absolutely not true. I have felt different, like an outsider and wrong since I was in middle school. All of these problems have reached a culmination now. But people don't believe me. I am not even a teenager-- in fact, I am well nigh supposedly entering into the professional realm. People act like they are so wise, and from their position of all-knowing wisdom, they can tell me that if I have plenty of time. The truth is, I don't think most of them have ever felt what I feel every day. They have no idea.
I feel like two selves-- one true and hidden and dying and one that I wear as a mask for everyone. I am dying as I am being torn in two. It is a hellish chaos. I feel like the only was to get past this is to start over somehow-- to do something that changes everything, that says, NO, the way you think I am is not how I am. I don't know how I am, but what I have been is a f--king like.
Posted by Annabelle Smith on December 19, 2010, at 1:08:37
In reply to dismissed, posted by Annabelle Smith on December 18, 2010, at 22:44:50
Also,
as I am home, I think about this.
I just want to be able to appreciate the moment that I am in. When I am at this house, I think of how things used to be. I know that one day, if I live to this day, I will want things to be how they are now, but they will be gone forever.
christmas with my family
cooking with my mom
talking and laughing with my dad
the smells and feeling of being home.I will miss all of this so terribly.
I can't appreciate what I have-- even my therapist. This happens in therapy too. I am here with him now, and yet all I can do is see the problems and worry about when it is over. But it is not over-- we are still doing therapy.I want to just be able to relax while I am home and appreciate the moment. maybe just try to love my family and my life for what it is right now in all of its messiness. watch a movie with my mom. bake something and listen to christmas music like we used to. i don't know if i am merging again and need to differentiate or if this is just healthy relationship.
:'( I feel sad.
Posted by emmanuel98 on December 19, 2010, at 19:59:31
In reply to living in the now, posted by Annabelle Smith on December 19, 2010, at 1:08:37
You said your therapist does DBT. I have a DBT therapist as well and she really emphasizes staying in the moment, being mindful, being aware of negative thoughts and how they contribute to suffering.
Posted by Annabelle Smith on December 19, 2010, at 21:05:37
In reply to Re: living in the now, posted by emmanuel98 on December 19, 2010, at 19:59:31
Yes, Emmanuel. He emphasizes that too. He talks of the importance of being in the moment and we do check-ins at the beginning of many sessions.
I am having a really, really hard time needing and feeling desperate for my therapist. I feel so obsessed about him. I want to be just like him. Everything that he is associated with, I idealize. The prestigious university in NY that he attended, psychotherapy, mindfulness/Buddhism, post-modern philosophy, black-rimmed glasses. Anything that remotely reminds me of him, seems great to me. I found myself even feeling like I want to go to this NY University for a masters, or at least NYC, because that is where he went.
I am set to have a phone session with him on Thursday, but that seems so far away. I am writing a lot on here, but thank you so so so so much for letting me and for responding. This, along with an email conversation with a group called the Samaritans, is seriously what is helping me make it through these days without my therapist.
There is so much that I need to tell my therapist. I am so afraid that I will feel fake. I think that is what keeps me from discussing the most important things-- when I speak of them, it feels trivialized coming from my mouth, because I feel nothing towards them-- just kind of detached. But in the moment when they were happening, dear God.
I do not know what to do. You guys know what is going on with me. If I need more time with my therapist (past May) do you think it is OK for me to try to do anything I can to stay in my city for at least the summer and maybe the fall to work with him longer? Is that bad or obsessive? I just am convinced that he alone can help me. I want to get better. I cannot bear the thoughts having to try to find a new therapist and starting all of this hell over again. And, if this ends unresolved with my current therapist, he will be the lost object that I eternally seek. This is going to f--k me up worse than ever. I know it. I must work through this with him.
I am so lost and confused and scared.
Do you understand and think that what I feel is legitimate?
Posted by emmanuel98 on December 20, 2010, at 20:09:02
In reply to Re: living in the now, posted by Annabelle Smith on December 19, 2010, at 21:05:37
There's nothing wrong with staying put a while if you can support yourself. It might help to keep seeing him a bit longer than May. But I think finding someone else somewhere else will not be as hard and devastating as you imagine.
I don't want to minimize your feelings because I too was obsessed with my p-doc and terrified of losing him. I still am, to a lesser degree, but it's taken six years for him to fade from my mind a bit. I don't think you have six years. So it might make sense to do what is best for you finacially and academically and search for someone else who can fill that void in you.
Posted by sigismund on December 27, 2010, at 17:11:51
In reply to Re: living in the now, posted by Annabelle Smith on December 19, 2010, at 21:05:37
> I want to be just like him.
On this subject, and about merging generally, I went through a period where I would adopt other people's patterns of speech and tones of voice so I sounded just like them (which was OK with me in a general sort of way) but the problem was when people actually said something about it to me, which made me feel it was kind of shameful. Now I am able to play with it a little better. When we got Deadwood out, the whole family started trying to speak like the characters in it.
This is the end of the thread.
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