Posted by Nadezda on November 23, 2008, at 17:04:57
The thing is I keep expecting him to go back to the way he was during the first four or five years I saw him-- and even after that-- which was very caring and kind, and responsive. It's as if I have this image of him that's almost impervious to his current attitude and actions.
I don't know how to reconcile the two ways he's been with me. I remember when everything changed-- about two years ago, after I'd been struggling with this sense that I couldn't be available for my bf (we've been together for a long time) during the illness and death of his brother, who had had many long-term difficulties and who was for a long time really almost out of his mind with depression and anxieties (unacknowledged) and addiction to various pain-killers.
I remember very clearly that I had gone to my bf's hometown (where my mother also lives) and had, I think, made a difference in both my bf's and his brother's final ability to say goodby in a meaningful way, and also to support my bf in trying to support his brother and mother at this time. It was in many ways a terrible emotional experience, and also very draining, despite my feeling basically good about my actions and commitment. I also had many concerns about the many nights and days when I wavered and felt that I couldn't stand another minute of the whole thing and wanted to get away. And I also felt that I couldn't do this sort of thing very often and that it had really felt like too much.
These feelings had been tangled up in the experience, and had threaded through it and had made me falter and feel angry and often even angry at myself for not being more steadfast. and they made me wonder if I could this follow up and could live up to expectations that I might have created.
I had also had some very discouraging encounters with my mother, which were intensified by my not having seen her for a long time, and having the wish for a good reconciliation, especially since I was on anti-depressants for the first time that we were together, and also had seemed to make progress emotionally.
So in many ways this accomplishment was qualified and made less satisfying by things that had happened and that I had felt. So while I felt generally good myself, I felt many many doubts and was also emotionally drained and in some ways frightened by things that had happened.
My therapist seemed very angry that I wasn't simply proud of myself and didn't come back in some mood of wanting to enjoy the moment. But I really didn't feel much enjoyment-- which is not to say that what I had done had no meaning or was worthless, but that it was momentarily overshadowed by the upsetting aftereffects of the whole thing.
Everything has seemed to spiral downward in a very drastic way-- and each turn of the spiral has led to worse and worse confrontations about my lack of progress and my undermining everything I do, and thwarting any progress that I might make. All this apparently, on his account, to prove that my life is ruined, so everyone will have to take care of me, and my parents will be at fault for whatever they did-- which he now has begun to dispute that they did-- and I will have no expectations placed on me to do anything, act responsibly.
On one hand, this seems completely misplaced and rings hollow to me. I do have a tendency to have mood swings from one level to another of depression and anxiety, and at the lesser levels to make progress that I then can't follow through on when the bad feelings intensify. But it doesn't feel to me like some kind of motivated and insisted upon bad mood-- as if I could make progress unremittingly and only out of spite undermine it with bad moods that I could easily avoid, and which, therefore, are pretextual.
But my T repeats this theme over and over, along with various pejorative descriptions of me, and my motivations, and my self-indulgence of any whim or feeling.
anyway I have to stop writing, but what I've written is awfully long anyway-- much much too long-- for which I apologize to anyone who's gotten this far. I had some things I don't understand that I wanted to say, but I'll have to add them later. I'm already behind schedule. It's just very confusing to me, and I wonder if I'm exaggerating his anger and criticism of me-- and if the things he's saying sound and are as bad as they seem to me. I'm often very sensitive to anything that sounds critical or rejecting and extremely hurt by things that apparently aren't meant to be hurtful. But his tone and the specific words he uses just seem so inherently critical that I can't understand what else to make of them. I wonder, also, if anyone has had a T say things like this about them-- and what they did, if it happened.
Nadezda
poster:Nadezda
thread:864899
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20081120/msgs/864899.html