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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 9 of 9. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by Annabelle Smith on April 24, 2011, at 14:09:04
I have a problem with choices and commitment.
Right now, I feel so trapped.Trapped in the town in Tennessee where the program is to which I committed myself for 3 years. I was born in Tennessee and have lived here all my life. That is why I felt the necessity to go to Boston. There is a strange, inner unrest telling me I must go. I have to go. I must go.
I feel trapped in an intentional living community that I committed myself toI was so afraid of not having a place to live over the summer and next year so when this opened up, I rushed into it. It was close to my school, the price was OK, and I was afraid to live alone. I signed on the house yesterday with two more people and there is no way out for the year. The living community requires that I actively participate in a Methodist Church to which it is connected. I dont want to do that. I need room to explore faithI dont even know which religion to be a part of, and I certainly dont know which Christian denomination. The one meaningful Christian Church I was ever a part of was the Anglican/Episcopal Church for a whileand that only because of the ritual and tradition and use of our bodies during the service. When I dont believe, my body can do the motions, and some kind of grace arrives.
Today is Easter. But I feel so hopeless. It is supposed to be the day that we celebrate life triumphing over death, but I cant believe that is true. I dont believe that Jesus rose from the graveliterally or metaphorically. Sometimes I talk myself into it, but I really dont believe it.
I feel so trapped. Today, I am supposed to be writing and writing. I have 20 + pages to write before Thursday. But I cant.
If I need to get away so badly, I thought that perhaps I could just live here one year and then ask the school in Boston if I could defer my admission. The only problem with that is my therapy. I dont know if one year is long enough. Everything that I have read on BPD says that one year makes good progress, but often it takes more time. I feel enslaved herenot free. I wonder if staying only one more year would be the worst for me. Sometimes I feel like my therapist here is the path to my true healing. But I think that I am thinking too linearly and that this is not really the case.
I feel like I am losing myself. Like everything is over the edge of dissolutionready to break forth into fragments.
My therapist keeps telling me that no decision is permanent. Maybe I could enter the program here for one year and try to work with my therapist during this time. The thing is that I need to know that I have an open-ended amount of time with himotherwise, I freak out inside and all I can see is the deadline. If after this year, I am feeling better, maybe I could see about transferring to the other program. I would lose my funding and it would not look good to the people here, but I dont know what else to do.
I feel like I am losing myself. This is not depression. Nor is it anxiety. I dont know what it is, but whatever it is, it makes me feel like I am dying, and nobody else can see it. Its like being crazy.
Lost
Bored
Fragmented
Empty
Over the edge of total dissolution
ConfusedAnd wondering why I cant just shake out of this and choose to be well, because in the end, I dont think that anything is even wrong with me. This is all in my head. But I am trapped with it.
My therapist says that no decision is permanent, but I passed by something that I think I will never have again. I am afraid of being stuck in Tennessee forever, lost forever, trapped forever. And there is no hope.
The suicidal thoughts come and go. Today they were so strong. To take the ambien with alcohol and all of my Celexa and Aspirin. I fight these thoughts, and sometimes think that the strongest fight against them is to run. To run the f*ck away. I should go to Boston. I still have time. But I would be stuck here for one year, and theres the despair of leaving my therapist and that not being enough time. Of wasting that year and staying here with no purpose. I feel so hopeless.
Posted by Annabelle Smith on April 24, 2011, at 14:41:26
In reply to Trapped, posted by Annabelle Smith on April 24, 2011, at 14:09:04
Before anyone responds to this, let me try to respond to it myself. My therapist tells me that I need to try to start hearing myself as the therapist in my head, offering a voice of self-soothing and care.
So let me try. I feel awful right now, but that is OK. I can just accept that for some reason I do not know, I feel awful. I will just sit with these feelings and know that this might be as bad as it gets. Like all feelings, these too will come and go. They won't be here forever.
Some decisions have been made. As much as I want to retract and go back on them, I can't. The house is a done deal for a year, as is the church. It is probably best to go ahead and start the program here, knowing that no decision is permanent. If it is awful and if I make good progress with my therapist during the next year, then I will transfer, even if that means I have more loans.
Boston will still be there. I have to go with what I don't think will still be here in just this way-- and that is the current therapeutic relationship. I know it is possible to move on and start over, but that will be so hard for me. The idea of doing so makes me feel sick-- so then, I stay here a while.
It is a lie that I am trapped in TN forever. I am free to leave whenever. This program is good too, and I can leave when I finish, if not before.
Suicide is not the answer for me. There is so much life to be lived and people to live it with. I am free. If it is possible to face death, then any circumstance of life should be possible to face too. The feeling of being trapped is not the reality.
I don't know about God, but I can only think that there are many different ways of knowing God/the Ultimate and loving God/the Ultimate. I have probably sensed that in the many different religions/traditions, and that is why I can't choose. Maybe I should just go with one or two for a while, knowing that the other paths are open.
It doesn't feel OK right now, but all I can do is accept that and know that it is OK to not be OK. I don't have to act on these feelings.
I will be OK. I need to calm down and breathe.
Posted by Annabelle Smith on April 24, 2011, at 16:18:48
In reply to Let me try, posted by Annabelle Smith on April 24, 2011, at 14:41:26
I can't think straight.
Thoughts go back and forth through my head like lightning bolts.
It is OK. I am fine here.
It is not OK. I am not fine here.
I should stay.
I should go.
It will work out.
It will not work out.
I will email the school tomorrow and ask to defer.
I will not email them but will rather stay here.
I will spiral into suicide and hospitalization soon.
I will not spiral down but am on the mend.
I will live.
I will die.
I will leave.
I will stay.
It will be OK.
It will not be OK.Dear f*ck*ng God.
Posted by sigismund on April 24, 2011, at 17:25:27
In reply to Trapped, posted by Annabelle Smith on April 24, 2011, at 14:09:04
I don't know. I was brought up in the Church of England (as we called it then) and we didn't use our bodies much. And then they brought in the new liturgy and after the blessing you made peace by shaking the hand of the person near you. Which I did at Midnight Mass one Christmas but the girl I extended my hand to had been dragged along by her mother (as had I perhaps) and just looked at my hand with contempt, which I found easy to share.
I've just seen a Mavis Staples concert that clearly came out of some gospel tradition which I know nothing about and I was so impressed. She was so damn generous.
You've got this thing about being trapped by the wrong decision. And yet I wonder (perhaps wrongly) if somehow you need to be trapped? This is starting to sound like 'You're broke because you want to be'.
Posted by Annabelle Smith on April 24, 2011, at 18:11:32
In reply to Re: Trapped, posted by sigismund on April 24, 2011, at 17:25:27
You guys know my situation. Please, please, please, what should I do???
I am not even totally sure that I would be allowed to defer at this point, but I could check on it Monday.
It's just that if I go that path, then there is no turning back. I would be slapping the program to which I have already been accepted in the face. I would in effect, be taking a year out of my life-- an interruped year-- to do nothing but be in therapy and live in this community. There is a chance that I would not be ready to leave in one year-- that I would be really attached and would feel like I could do good work with my therapist and that I couldn't stop. Then what? Another year doing nothing?
To stay here is the safest option, except that it makes me feel great regret and longing. My therapist told me-- and I think he is right-- that I was only able to verbally express my excitement and desire to go to Boston after I had committed to staying here.
But I worry that staying here is keeping me in greater bondage. Maybe there are other ways of healing. Therapy is not the answer to everything. Maybe putting my energy into other things. There are sooo many resources for my studies in Boston. Boston is like the Mecca of theological studies. I could take courses at 10 different schools, and there is so much diversity around.
But I am really afraid to go. I wonder that I am really not yet ready. There is a danger in staying and a danger in going. If I did defer, that year of waiting would be extremely tormenting-- wating and waiting and wondering if I made the right decision. My mom has told me that if I don't go now, I might never go. That makes me really scared. I don't think it's true, but...
So what would you do?
Posted by sigismund on April 24, 2011, at 18:55:52
In reply to Guys, PLEASE...what should I do???, posted by Annabelle Smith on April 24, 2011, at 18:11:32
You could try reading Taoism instead of Christianity. Taoists generally say don't do it or if you do, do it skilfully.
If your T is right with this
>that I was only able to verbally express my excitement and desire to go to Boston after I had committed to staying here.
doesn't it also follow that you will only realise how good things are for you where you are once you go to Boston?And since you are going to regret whatever you do, why do anything?
Posted by sigismund on April 24, 2011, at 18:57:56
In reply to Let me try, posted by Annabelle Smith on April 24, 2011, at 14:41:26
Well there was nothing wrong with that.
I thought.
Posted by sleepygirl2 on April 24, 2011, at 20:40:30
In reply to Let me try, posted by Annabelle Smith on April 24, 2011, at 14:41:26
Sounds like you gave yourself some good advice.
Take care
Posted by pegasus on April 25, 2011, at 13:06:15
In reply to Guys, PLEASE...what should I do???, posted by Annabelle Smith on April 24, 2011, at 18:11:32
Hey, I think you know that we can't tell you what you should do. And if we did, it wouldn't be right for you to go ahead and do that, because someone here told you to. We might know your story, as you tell it here, but you are the only one that has the entire big picture.
Good work on your second post! You have the tools inside you. I get the sense that you don't believe what you said in that post, yet. But the first step, which you've executed very well, is to come up with what the arguments are, if you could believe them, from within yourself.
I liked the question above about whether there is something useful for you about feeling trapped right now. Maybe, if you're trapped, does that mean that you're not responsible? Responsibility is a tricky beast, and it's the other side of the same coin as freedom. You do seem to be struggling a lot with managing that freedom.
The blessing in the freedom/responsibility package is that you can make a good future from whichever path you choose. So, while maybe it feels like there is no right choice, there also is no wrong choice. Yes there are pros and cons, but they are all workable. Really, truly, I promise. It may feel like a catastrophe, but you don't have to think about it that way.
And, at the same time, it's OK to allow that this is a tough choice, and you will be giving up something valuable, either way. I see you going back and forth between 1) things are fine, I'm making all this up, and 2) things are horrible, and it's a catastrophe. I wonder if there is some truth in between that you can find? Like, this is really hard right now, but it's going to turn out OK in the long run. Or whatever feels more true to you.
- P
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