trying.

Sunday, December 07, 2008

i sent sandra a long email with what amounts to a list of demands...

it’s not that really. it’s more a list of what i would need if i were going to stay in therapy. i’ve been seriously contemplating just quitting and walking away from it all and letting the chips fall where they may.

last week, we had a horrible session where we basically yelled at each other. it wasn’t a raised voices screaming at each other kind of thing, but i was angry and i told her so, and she was frustrated and she told me so. i wound up saying way too much, exposing way too much of myself, and i regret telling her what i told her.

she, on the other hand, seems to think that it was some kind of break through and that we are now on our way to getting somewhere.

i don’t know about that. part of me really wants to quit. the other part of me is willing to try.

i told her that i need the following things:

i need to be taken on my own terms.

i need medication to not be the "go to" place for the only possibility of me "getting better". and i need to not be made to feel like i am fighting you or being stubborn because i don't want to take it. it is a reasonable thing to not want to have to take medicine. you have never taken it, you don't know what it does to you and when it stops working again, and it will stop working again, then i have to be on the medication merry go round trying to figure out what will work and what combination of poisons i have to take to make myself feel better. if i am going to feel better, i want it to be real and not artificially created by some pill.

i need total honesty.

i need you to not use therapeutic techniques on me. i can't tolerate being asked, "how does that make you feel" or having my words parroted back at me. i cannot stand it when i hear things like, "that sounds really awful" or "that must have been really painful for you"... it absolutely makes my skin crawl. i have had enough therapy to know when it is being used on me, not to mentioned that i have a masters degree in psychology. i learned all of those techniques in my first year of the MSW program that i didn't complete. it makes me feel like you (the royal you, not you specifically) are just going through the motions and it is off putting. and i know that there are ways of empathizing without making it sound all creepy and horrible.

i need a game plan. there have been about a hundred times when you have come up with something that sounded good, and i get a twinge of hope, and then nothing happens or it is never talked about again. i need a game plan. something that we stick to. it's ok if we try something and it doesn't work and we have to change paths, but i need a path to be on, not just some ambiguous amorphous thing.

i need to have something that i can see progress. i have no hope at all. it is dark and devastating and, well, hopeless. it fuels my desire to die. i need to be able to see that we are getting somewhere.

i need a lot of encouragement (but it has to be real). not just a cheerleader. cause i know that there are going to be lots of times when i feel like i can't do this and i want to quit, or just take the easy way out and kill myself. that is still there, very strong, and it is a constant thought and gnaws at me all of the time.

i don’t know if any of this is going to work, and i feel like i am taking a huge risk in even trying. i know that if i try, and this doesn’t work, that the only other option is killing myself. i have no hope. i am filled with nothing but shame, and i could not bear yet another failure.

i am terrified. and i keep going back and forth between letting myself try and giving up altogether. i got back to work in six days and absolutely nothing has changed.

i honestly don’t know if i can survive this.