Posted by daisym on July 4, 2005, at 15:50:10
Why is today painful and hard? It is a holiday and I should have more to distract me. Instead I'm sort of moving through the day, locked in my own head as I clean the bathrooms and make brownies. (NO, not at the same time!). I just keep thinking that in two years I haven't learned the major thing I went into therapy to learn. I wanted to learn how to relax and take better care of myself and to really reach out and receive support from other people. I'm still so far from knowing how to do that.I find myself in what is probably the most stressful time of my life and I've completely reverted back to old habits -- working a million hours a week, telling everyone I'm fine, loading up on coffee, and staying up all night. I used to prowl around at night because it was "safe" -- no one wants anything from you at 2am. I'm having conversations in my head with my therapist about the past week and they go from really nasty sarcastic comments, "Well, I hope YOU had fun while I suffered" to more angry thoughts about how stupid it is to let someone become so important that it hurts more than it helps. And then I come back around to reality based thinking which is that he couldn't help with any of this even if he was here. I think I'm struggling between wanting him to be proud of me for how well I "got through" the time he was away, which means not telling him about this hurt, and wanting him to soothe the hurting child inside.
After two years, shouldn't I know how to soothe myself better? I've lost hope that I can ever have these comforts in my real life. I have them here, online, and with my IM/email friends and I have them paid for in therapy. I guess I lack the courage to reveal how much I need another person to just hold me and let me cry. It is just too da*n dangerous! And besides, I'm not supposed to want to cry over things, crying doesn't solve problems and only makes people lose faith in you. My husband can't handle it for sure, he looks at me like I've turned into some kind of alien creature. What happened to his strong, competent wife who takes care of him? It is a fair question.
So I can't see how to go back to working on anything in therapy. I already know that my therapist is taking another week off in early September. Not that I'll have a choice, but going through another two weeks like the last two weeks seems impossible. He asked me before he left to stay just a tiny bit open, to remember that we have a strong connection and to please not isolate completely. Yesterday I put his picture completely away and I deleted his voice mail telling me he is coming back. I'm trying to close myself off to the pain and focus on the work at hand. I'm guess I'm not isolating completely since I'm posting. I thought I'd be doing better here at the end of this stretch, not this much worse. I hate this. And I hate myself that I'm so underwater with it, drowning quietly, the fight completely gone out of me. I am just so pathetic.
poster:daisym
thread:523383
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20050628/msgs/523383.html