Posted by vwoolf on September 1, 2004, at 5:56:39
In reply to Re: Where I've been, Where I am, Where I'd like to be, posted by gardenergirl on August 29, 2004, at 7:32:33
It’s taken me some time to get this post together - some resistance somewhere I think.
Where I’ve been
Well, I first saw a psychiatrist when I was sixteen (a long time ago, I’m now 52) after my school had suggested I should see someone. I was not coping socially, scholastically or at home. From the outside, I was angry, rebellious and depressed. Inside I was lonely, angry, guilty, scared and my thoughts were buzzing wildly. I had been sexually abused by my alcoholic father until he died when I was eleven and now my much older step-brother was abusing me sexually, although I wouldn’t have called it abuse at the time. I was sleeping badly, and spent most of my nights fantasizing about living in Paris and being part of the 1968 student protest movement. I felt anarchic, existential, the ultimate rebel. I dreamed of throwing Molotov’s at the police.The Pdoc saw me once. I think I refused to talk to him (I was terrified and angry) and he probably thought I was slightly catatonic, but certainly depressed. I was very suicidal, I remember. He recommended shock treatment, without trying to break through my resistances at all. ECT was very heavy-handed back then and I was bombed with many sessions. I think it was the most terrible thing anyone could have done to me. It messed up my memory, so that I didn’t really know why I was so angry anymore, without taking away the anger. I felt as if I was being punished, but couldn’t understand what I was being punished for. I still have nightmares of my body being jolted with these massive convulsions.
I went back to school for one day, broke down crying and was sent home. This time I was put into a psychiatric observation ward for a month. All they discovered was that I was very angry. Surprise! After another couple of months in an outpatient facility, I abandoned the exercise. Nobody had been able to find out why I was angry. Total failure.
When I was twenty I tried again, this time it was my initiative. I saw an elderly, retired Pdoc for a few months. I wasn’t sure what I wanted, I just knew there were things I wanted to understand, and that I wasn’t happy. I was living near home again and the pathological relationship with my step-brother had started up again. I asked to be admitted to a psychiatric hospital because I was having panic attacks and feeling suicidal, and the month I spent there gave me some respite. When I came out I went back to the Pdoc. He attempted to fondle my breasts one day after giving me a kind, paternal type hug, so beware of those hugs. Another total failure.
And that brings me up to a year ago when I went into therapy for the third time. Why?
- it suddenly occurred to me that I had been sexually abused as a child. I had never managed to analyze my memories about my father before, it was as if they were bubble-wrapped. I had always had very clear pictures in my head of things that had happened, but I couldn’t name them or make them part of me.
- I was having huge problems at work which I couldn’t understand. I had been successful professionally, but had suddenly started quarrelling with people, and generally self-sabotaging. I changed three jobs in four years and was feeling out of control. I was by this time the main breadwinner of the family, and I was terrified I would not be able to keep this up.
- My teenage son fell into a deep depression and started failing at school. I felt enormously guilty about this. I took him to a psychologist and developed a transference for the therapist myself. I thought I was crazy.
- My marriage was not working well. I withdrew from my husband, and felt a lot of resentment towards him. He is almost totally dependent on me financially and socially, and I feel very angry that I have to take all the responsibility for everything, including our son’s upbringing.
- My mother’s third husband died. She was away on holiday, even though she knew he was dying, leaving me to handle everything. She didn’t bother to break her trip. When I telephoned her to tell her about his death, she said that it was now too late, so she wouldn’t come back. It triggered a lot of things about my own father’s death, when she had asked me to sleep in their bed the night he died because she had a busy schedule for the next day and needed her sleep. I have always idolized my mother, and it suddenly became very clear to me that she was totally selfish and had always neglected my needs.
- I turned fifty, and began suddenly to feel my mortality. I began to want to make sense of my life.
- Like GG I was refusing to open bills
- I was putting on weight.
- I wasn’t sleeping well
- I was socially withdrawn
- I felt there was a huge divergence between what I said and what I meant
- I felt suicidal
- I was sure I was psychotic
Etc, etc etcWhere I am now
- I have spent the last year in therapy with a woman psychologist. I didn’t like her at all when I started but put this down to some sort of negative transference and have slowly got used to her. We even have moments of warmth between us from time to time. I have huge issues of trust, and put up a lot of resistance. It has taken me until a few weeks ago to begin to access some of the pain, although I have now sort of grown a scab again and just feel angry. Rage I have felt a lot of, and have spent several sessions standing and threatening to throw vases at her.
- I have begun to see that maybe I am not crazy after all - my childhood was crazy, not me. I am not quite sure about that though, and having spent time in psychiatric wards makes it difficult for me to believe I am completely sane.
- I have begun to tell my mother what is wrong, although I haven’t got as far as the SA yet, nor have I blamed her at all for anything. I think that maybe one day I will have to confront her, but I feel so furious that I am scared of how I will manage to contain my anger when I do.
- I am seeing my T three times a week, but it is actually doesn’t feel enough, and we talk telephonically between sessions. For extra support I have also been writing a lot to the Samaritans who have been great.
- I started SI a few months ago.
- I developed a huge idealized transference onto my male Pdoc, which I am trying to control but without much success. I spend a lot of time driving around near his rooms.
- I am taking MAOI’s after a long series of attempts with different AD’s. I don’t feel as if they are doing anything for me, and would love to spare myself the expense, but have been told I must continue for another year at least.
- I am not feeling quite so alone.Where I am going
At the moment I am in a vacuum, still unable to make plans for my future, but I think it is very important to me to be able to give some sense to my life. To be free of all these feelings that have conditioned my existence for so long, and make choices that are right for me. I think I have lived other people’s desires and wishes for the past fifty years and I am no longer prepared to do so, but what I want I don’t know yet. I feel very sad and angry that I have wasted so much of my life and opportunities. I hope that by looking back I will be able to understand enough to be able to move forward.Whew, what a marathon. Sorry this has been so long, but I’ve been around a while, I guess.
poster:vwoolf
thread:381889
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20040828/msgs/385146.html