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A Song For Kids

You don't yet know the
Things you will do
In desperation and need.
Stupidity, greed, hate.

You may think tomorrow
Carries a magic just beyond
The reach of imagination.

This is largely true,
but it's a Black Magic,
Filled with terror and compromise,
Constructing foundations of debasement
Which you will only recognize
In the loneliness and rage
Of unforgettable moments.

Forget your tomorrows,
They will come soon enough,
To break your mind and leave you
Scrambling for the end of the Now,
As tomorrow's tomorrows
Have you wishing
For the magic of childhood when
The dread of crushing failure and meaninglessness,
Worthlessness and unlovability,
Were not even in the imagination,
Much less cut into your heart and face.

Dead

When stopped my heart and done my time,
They'll toss me in a pit of lime.
When dry my eyes and thick my bile,
They'll throw me on a shrinking pile.

When done my breath and stopped my thought,
They'll put me in a hole to rot.
When done my life and quenched my fire
They'll shove me on the funeral pyre.

When hard my chest and still my hand,
They'll bury me beneath the land.
When still my blood and drown my spark,
They'll dump me in the cold and dark.

So when they put coins on my eyes
And murmur epitaphs of lies,
I know they'll recall what I've done
With blade, or pill, or maybe gun.

I've calmed down somewhat.  Sorry for the negativity.

Thanks for the comments cPTSDers!  I ended up emailing my therapist my original post in this thread, and said I'd like her to read it and think about it before our next session, and I'd pay for an hour of her time.  I had a friend read it, and it took him four minutes.  I said if she was unable, we will have to reschedule until after she reads it.  Maybe that was stupid.  I can't keep this stuff straight in my head when I'm face to face and being challenged, though.  Either I don't go back, or I go back with her already fully informed about what I'm feeling.  I didn't want to just bring it in and read it or have her read it, because my sense of her is that she gets a bit defensive and reacts hastily, so I want her to be at her professional best after reflecting on it.

Even if it screws me up, the father part of me is taking charge here and trying to resolve it.  Hopefully, I am validated and valued, or if not, I stand up for myself and leave rather than just giving up and internalizing the message that I'm a worthless piece of s* like I normally would.  So much stuff takes practice to get better, I'll look at this as practice, and if it goes wrong, I'll try to understand how.  I don't know if I can continue with her regardless of what happens, trust is hard to rebuild, but I think some resolution might help anyhow.

(Maybe tomorrow this will seem impossible, but that's my plan as of now!)  I hope I can make this an exercise where the boy parts of me are able to remain relatively calm and witness the father part of me looking after them, so they learn a bit more that they can be safe.  I found the father part in me, but the boy parts are pretty overwhelming emotionally.  I think that teaching them there is a part of me who can love and protect them is important.  I think your advice there was really good, Dutch Uncle!  At the very least, I'd like to understand a bit why she didn't think it was important to read what I sent.  I went from feeling tons of self-hatred and suicidal ideation to this.  I think the father part asserted himself, sent her the email, and basically said "This is what we are doing!  What she does isn't relevant, because I'll be there."  He better show up on Friday, or Team Meursault is in big trouble!

Wife#2:
I really sorry!  I wasn't directing my despair at you in my earlier post.  You're comments are  nothing but supportive, and I thank you for them.

Sanmagic:
The sad thing is, I think she's the third best mental health professional I've ever seen.  I'm sure we all have horror stories!

Three Roses:
I hope my issue isn't filtering into your thoughts about tomorrow.  I hope you have a good first session!  This feels like a marriage.  It has been mostly good for me, but my spouse has cheated on me now, and I don't know if I can move past that.  It was still worth getting married, though!

I don't know, maybe I was crazy to send her that.  I guess I'll see.  I'm feeling like I had to do something.  The self-loathing and internalization was pretty bad the last day or so.  I'm trying to face it all head on.

Meursault

Dutch Uncle:

Thanks for what you wrote.  It means a lot to me.

Danaus:

I guess I didn't explain well initially.  I thought it was pretty clear, but it appears everyone misread that.  I'm pretty upset still, but I'm sorry if my comment to you was harsh.  I think I should just stop talking.  I'm just misunderstood, anyways.

F* I just feel like giving up on everything.

Meursault

Three Roses:
Yeah, I had asked about the emailing our first session, and she said she always lets clients email.  She said if there's a problem, we'd discuss it.  She seemed taken aback that I thought it best to ask before I ever sent anything.  I wouldn't have, otherwise (unless maybe during a crisis).  I've been having a hard time with this since mid-June.  I'm not an overly impulsive person, so I've been trying to work my way through the hurt of this without just ending it. 

Wife#2:
I regularly bring in things and read them because I have a hard time keeping it all coherent.  She sometimes puts them in the file.  What you wrote just brought something back.  I printed out a very graphic write-up about my Mom and sisters, and was going to get her to read it in session, but she took it and just put it in my file.  It was the most detailed and personal stuff with my Mom and sisters.  Now I wonder if she ever read it.

Danaus:
It wasn't that I had sent one seven page email document.  She had asked me to send one thing, which was over two pages (a description of what I thought would be helpful in therapy), and asked for another which was a page ( a list of positives in my life), so over the four+ months, there were three unsolicited emails which totalled about three and a half pages.  (Plus a comic that I drew, I suppose.)  One was half a page, and the other two were a page and half each.  (One of them was on the anniversary of my Dad's death and she had asked me to let her know what was happening with me emotionally that day, so really, I could argue that was asked for as well, but I don't really know.)

If I had sent a single paragraph every second week, it would have amounted to more text than what I actually sent unsolicited.  That just doesn't seem too onerous to me.  Really, it's not just that she didn't read them, but that she neither read them, nor told me she wasn't, while telling me it was fine to send them.  Paying for her time is not an issue to me, and I would have gladly paid had she indicated it.  What I have a problem with is being treated like I am irrelevant and worthless and can be treated without consideration.

Your comment actually kind of upsets me.  Of COURSE it would be unreasonable to send a seven page document and expect her to sit down with it for an hour on her own time.  Your comment is kind of misrepresenting what I wrote and making me look unreasonable.    I am aware I'm not her friend, as well.  I am paying her for a service, and when she indicated what the protocol for emailing was, she had a professional duty to stand by that.  If she didn't like what was transpiring, she should have done as she said she would, and talk to me, rather than letting me blindly humiliate myself sending deeply personal stuff into the void. 

Can I assume you just misread what I wrote?  Otherwise I think what you wrote could be summed up as this:  I said something deeply personal.  You twisted what I said to look like something completely irrational.  You then lectured (belittled) me for holding that misrepresentation.  Echoes of emotional abuse there.

Meursault

Okay, so here's what happened:

I started seeing a new therapist in February/March.  She explicitly said: "I always let my clients email me.  If it gets to be a problem, we talk about it."

So, between February and June I sent a total of five emails, two of which she asked me to send.  I put them all in one document, and it was seven pages, plus a comic book thing I did.

In June, I referenced the comic book, and she confessed she didn't read it, and that she hasn't read everything I sent.

I was taken aback, but just left it alone, but now notice I was starting to do things to desperately get her approval and hope there was SOMETHING about me she thought was acceptable.  I finally brought it up at the beginning of August, and she gave me a line about it's not good to make assumptions (i.e. I shouldn't have assumed she'd read them) and I was left defending how I could even benefit from emailing.

I tried again the next week, and she has been better, but the gist was that she wants to be paid to read my emails, that her time is her own.  She said she went back and checked and she "skimmed" most of them, but confessed she hadn't read them.  I think she thinks this is all addressed, but I don't feel like it has been at all.

I just don't trust her now.  I really don't understand what she was thinking at all with this.  Does she ignore everyone's emails, or just mine?  Is it just me who isn't worth listening to?  I'm super hurt by this.  Am I just over-sensitive?  How is it at all respectful to someone to just skim what they communicate, much less this really personal stuff?  And then NOT TELL them, so they continue to do it?

To me, I have such a hard time trusting, what I was sending in those emails was part of building that trust.  So I'd go into session with that as a backdrop, assuming certain communication had happened.  Ultimately, the relationship we had was a lie.  Certain parts of it never happened, because she wasn't reading that stuff.  So I was REALLY over-extended, and talking AS IF she was with me, but she really wasn't.  The entire relationship to this point has been built on false assumptions.  God, do I feel like a fool.

Then there's a big sense of betrayal.  Not only was the stuff I shared about myself not worth her attention, but I wasn't even worth TELLING she wasn't paying it any attention.  I feel like a complete fool.  This is completely humiliating.  I kept sending her REALLY personal stuff about me, while she knew the whole time she wasn't paying any attention to it.  That seems so belittling and dismissive.  I'm nothing and don't matter at all.  I'm just pathetic and laughable.

I'm feeling utterly pathetic and worthless from this.

The thing is, she has shown a lot of understanding and insight into what I've told her about growing up, and is generally quite good while in session.  She really seems to want to help.  I don't want to throw that away if there's any way to correct this.  But I'm not really getting anything that helps me get past this from her.  And am I always going to have to worry about this now.  She showed a fundamental dishonesty there, I think.  What's to stop her from being like that again, and making sure I don't find out in the future?  I really don't think she even thinks she did anything wrong, but apologized because I'm overly-sensitive and fragile.  I had been feeling so optimistic I could get help from her!

Anyhow, I'm likely going to try one last time this Friday, and probably stop seeing her.  I'm not sure if I'm just over-reacting.  Is this just part of how I'm messed up?  Even if it is, how can I get help there when she has shown I can't trust her?  I think of going back and I just feel like garbage, I'm nothing, everything about me is hated and unwanted.  I'm scared of her now more than before the first session.  I just feel panicky thinking of going back.  I think trying to resolve this is therapeutic, but only if she helps that.  I don't even know what she could do to make that happen, though!  My mind is all over the place with this.  I'm scared to go, and scared to not go.  I think there's some double bind in play here, actually...

I hope I'm not fixating too much on this.  I'm feeling completely alone and super desperate.  I guess all the little boys in me are too scared of her now, and badly hurt.  Is the right thing for the father part of me to listen to them and not go back, or to take them "for their own good" in the hope she can find some way out of this?

Meursault

This is a really good thread.  I'm seeing a lot of myself in it too.  I really like the funeral idea.  I think I need to organize about a million of them!

Something you said, Laila, made me realize something.  Your comment about anger.  I rarely get angry, and when I do it's turned into self-destruction.  I think some people mistake it for anger when I'm overwhelmed with panic sometimes, though.   Anyhow, I've always said that I go right past anger so fast it gets to the foundation pretty much immediately, whether fear or hurt or despair.  Getting mad when I was little wasn't really an option.  It just made it worse from my Mom.  She would just escalate things until I was stomped on anyways.  The occasional times I do get angry, I'm "not very good at it" either, and it's mostly just loud panic attacks.

There have been several comments I've read on this forum that I always thought I was the only one who felt that way.  Like Laila's comment about if I'm not being validated I assume I'm disliked.  Like sanmagic's "validation junkie" (I think "validation whore" fits me a it better, although I've used the term "Approval-junkie" before.)  And I've seen others say they feel like they're a monster, disgusting etc as a core belief.  There are lots of other comments that show commonality. 

Just knowing others have the same issues makes me feel less alone, and makes me feel like this is just the pain we are carrying, it is not us!  I don't know how to explain it, really. 

My last (awesome) therapist finally convinced me she considered my Mom abusive, and had said something like "You were abused on so many levels."  My current therapist has said "There were so many instances of trauma growing up I can't even count." and "If that was happening nowadays and child and family services found out, you'd be out of that house the same day and your Mom would never see you again."

If I reverse the genders, my childhood was clearly abuse, but I have a really hard time believing it in my case:  "IT was right because I'm me, and therefore deserved it.  It's a special case scenario."  It's such a fundamental way of looking at things:  "It wasn't abuse because I deserved it."

Which was kind of floating around in my head from sanmagic's comments about validation.  I feel that need here, and after I post something, I go through a process of thinking I don't belong, I'm an a*hole, nobody wants to hear my stupid, self-indulgent crap, everybody hates me or is laughing at me etc etc.  I've been needing validation from my therapist pretty badly.  It's like this stuff has hurt me terribly, but I need constant validation that I didn't deserve it and that I'm worth something, because I grew up in a system where it was the norm to be treated as sub-human garbage, and it was just and right and rational -- it was SO RIGHT that it didn't even need to be discussed or defended.  How can I NOT need that validation when my fundamental and initial understanding of the world leads me to believe I'm just garbage?  This stuff is so hard to work through, especially when there is often a belief I don't deserve to feel better.

Anyhow, sorry if this comment is inappropriate,

Meursault

I've brought it up more, and we're trying to work through it.  I'm waffling back and forth, but maybe this is part of how I get better....  She is apologetic, and I know she just got married a month ago, so she's preoccupied (no excuse, I suppose, but I get that she's human,too).  She ultimately said she didn't have an excuse, just failed to give them the proper attention. 

I'm willing to work at re-learning trust, if that's something I need to do to get better.  It's hard, though.  She is very enthusiastic, connected and insightful IN session, so I don't want to throw that all away.  My normal pattern is to just give up,  I know I'm not done talking about this yet with her, though.

I didn't realize until after that I hijacked this thread.  I'm sorry, felloutofthesky.  I'll try to be more careful in the future!  I have been feeling a lot happening with me good and bad the last couple of months, so I'm afraid I haven't been very considerate.

Meursault

It's just goodness all around then!  What you (and others) have written on this thread has been really helpful to me, too! 

I don't think "unorthodox" is a bad thing, myself.  I have had a lifetime of belittlement and invalidation, pigeon-holing and obtuse misunderstanding from the mental health community.  I had been trying for twenty plus years to get help.  It feels like the last few years have started to signal a shift in the way things are done, though (at least from my perspective).  The medical model, viewing these things as pathological is now running in parallel with a more human (and for me at least effective) perspective that the pain we feel isn't a pathology, it's a natural adaptation to trauma.  The rigidity and dehumanizing status quo of the twentieth century is being answered with a more flexible and strengths-based way of doing things. 

That's how it looks to me at least!  Maybe I'm just seeing things since I've finally had luck with a therapist...

Meursault

Welcome!

I feel the same way!  We're not as alone as we maybe feel.

I read Judith Herman's book quite a few years ago and immediately felt that SOMEONE understood this.  Lots of years of diagnoses of depression, agoraphobia, social phobia, and only offered meds or CBT.

Meursault

What about trying to make it like you're doing it as a comedic piece?  Almost like you're preparing an entertaining stand up routine.  Might help things start to flow.  That sometimes works for me.  "You know what scares the crap out of me?  Making lists!  Two: reading you my list.  Three: angry people, Four: not angry people..."  That sort of thing...  Then go back and pick out the ones that really matter for a final version.  You might see some similarities with things that help you write a general fear which has specific meaning to you.

Just a thought.  Maybe that wouldn't be a fit for you.

I find I'm having to say and re-say and modify things as time goes on, I think that's part of the healing as things rise and fall in importance depending how they affect me.  It might help to feel like you aren't giving some "written-in-stone" list.

Meursault

You're welcome!

(I'm kind of surprised anything I say could be of any help!  Nice to hear!)

Meursault

Three Roses:
That's something I keep in mind.  She has just gone into her own practice after years of working for others.  I was Receipt #19, in fact, on my first session.  Then I spin into a bunch of guilt:  "Here's this nice woman, just wanting to help people, and trying to make a go of it with her own practice, and then I come along, and she is stuck with a piece of Sh* like me!"  But looking at it, I am personally paying the rent for her space, so she must be aware of that.

Hey sanmagic!

Thanks for the comments.  I had therapy today and printed out your last post and read it to my therapist.  She had nothing but approval for what you said, and made "agreement noises" throughout.  She asked me to re-read the first paragraph, and then said "Exactly!"

She reiterated my window of tolerance is only a few seconds with good memories, since I am so activated to begin with, and it will take time.  On the whole, it was a good session.  She let me know it's important to slow things down if I feel I need it, since otherwise she is in danger of re-traumatizing me.

I think she's been thinking I'm a bit further along in this process than I really am, since I think I have a pretty good understanding academically, but just can't seem to connect it viscerally.  And I think I can mask just how agitated I normally am, I've had lots of practice.  There are lots of details I've never mentioned, either.  Like what I recounted about the hospital above.  She asked about that today, and asked something like "how old were you when you realized the nurse was probably disgusted with your Mom and not you?"  To which I replied:  "yesterday!"  We had a bit of a laugh.

I'm in the middle of a complete gutting and renovation of a house I bought, and she used this analogy: 

"What do you feel when you look at a house you've built or renovated?" 

"Pride in myself," I responded. 

"That's what I feel working with you.  We're building a house together and I take pride in how much I'm able to help," she said.

"Well, that would be pretty selfish of me to not accept your help with a house as f*ed as this one!  Damn, am I insensitive!"

Made me feel a bit better.

Anyhow, thanks for your comments!

Meursault

Three Roses;
I should try that.  I was drinking some dream-promoting tea for a while, but it didn't seem o do anything.  Maybe I should give it another go.

Durch Uncle:
It seemed kind of fishy to me, too!  Sanmagic's reply reassures me, though.

Sanmagic:
That's a relief, hearing your perspective.  I'm not even sure if she intends to do that for sure, or was just introducing the idea to see my willingness.  It kind of threw me off and I didn't ask.  She definitely wants to do pre-verbal stuff, though. 

At the risk of getting too graphic, my  mom used to proudly recount how she bit me and drew blood as a toddler, and used to laugh about how much I screamed (she legitimately thinks it was a great and creative bit of parenting.).  That's never really stood out as bad from her most of my life either.  My first memory was in a hospital when I was three or four, waking up in the middle of the night, and being terrified of my Mom's anger, because I had gotten the childproof safety pin undone to use the potty, but was unable to do it back up.  I remember a nurse coming and being kind of weird about how I was so scared of my Mom.  I remember the nurse telling my Mom in the morning, in a concerned voice, and my Mom laughing at me.  I remember the nurse looking confused and disgusted.  Disgusted at me, I assumed!  [It just occurred to me, maybe she was disgusted at my Mom.]

There are other signs/scars etc as well, but descriptions would be too explicit and potentially triggering.  More than anything, it's the TONE of my Mom's voice that was always the worst.  Spiteful, hate-filled, gleeful, self-righteous, certain, vicious.  She always took a lot of delight in scaring me so badly I'd shake or cry, she found it hilarious.  So I can see there's stuff that is probably still flailing around wildly in the ol' animal brain from before I could talk.

Considering how my Mom has bragged my whole life how she refused to name me after I was born because, as she's said:  I wasn't going to name a f*king boy!" maybe points to some hostility from her even in the womb, so maybe EMDR could help for that. 

I just don't know what it would look like.  What would I do?  I'll have to talk this out with my therapist, but it's kind of baffling.

It isn't that I'm feeling short-changed or anything by how long it's taking.  I feel like I'm moving as fast as I can without being out of control.   I worry I'm screwing up and she is frustrated and mad at me for taking so long and wants to get rid of me, though.  I spilt the beans about growing up right away with her, and she very quickly assured me she thinks it will take months before I can process a good memory.  She said she sees a lot of "Structural dissociation" happening.

I just worry she'll get rid of me because it's taking me so long.  My own issues, no doubt!  I want to be as prepared as possible to do the processing though, so I thought I'd get some perspective here!  I tell her this stuff, too, and she reassures me, but it still constantly worries me.

My early attachment was so abysmal I think it just takes a lot of time to not be terrified at my core when around other people.

Meursault

Hmm...  The "I will not run" kind of sparked something in me.  I'm going to try that for a few days!

Thanks,
Meursault