Therapy, again

A mixed bag today.

some good, some bad.

It was stressful in a lot of ways. I cataloged a whole mess of problems I have. Back taxes. Unresolved grades and graduation status. No job. Student loans. Too much time on my hands and not enough intrest. Aphasia in social relations. The lidt goes on and on.

Still it feels kind of good to articulate all these things. And to trust someone with them.

None of them are crushing. None of them too pressing. Except the midding grade. Gotta get that one done.

Still it was good to get some reaction from the therapist. Not crazy. No reaction at all. Just reminded me I've done tougher things. But I've also failed at easier ones.

I feel little confidence in myself lately. I wonder if I can do these things.

I know I can. But I also know I have failed.

Another thing we talked about was volunteering. It's something that's exciting. Full of possibility. I can do anything I want. For as long as I want.

It would be nice to work in mental health. I know a lot about it from personal experience. One of the benefits of a lifetime in therapy.

I've seen a lot of different types of therapy. And I am a natural listener. It was nice to have these things validated by the therapist. They're important to me. And who knows. Maybe I'll become a therapist one day.

But not today.

Psychiatry, Therapy and Fears

Saw both the psychiatrist and the psychologist today. Both went well, largely because the psychiatrist went well.

I told him ran out of money and abilify. Straight off the bat. I usually don't work that way. I'd hem and haw and try to make him feel good about me. And try to delay bringing it up at all.

But I just brought it up straight off the bat. Just blurted it out.

Before going in, I realized he deals with these things--he's delt with me going off medication before--even with me acting inappropriately because of it. And we got through it. And it's not like I am totally off drugs. I'm trying. I took seroquel while off the abilify. And it it's just a reality that I am out of drug coverage and money.

It's just a problem. And we can work on it together. And me gave me some coupons for a month's supply.

And it went well.

And it went well with the therapist also. Largely because I talked with brother this weekend. We talked about my expenses and he agreed to support me while I'm unemployed.

But with provisos. Brother wants me to plan a career path and he'll support me while I do what it takes to make it a reality--taking classes or whatnot while I go.

Which freaked me out over the phone. We had a halting conversation about it. I was freaked and do the kind of thing I do where I'm saying what I think he wants to hear. Actually I couldn't even do that. It's like I melt away at moments. Just disappear in this shape-shifting thing grasping at a cover story. Trying desperately to say something pleasing.

But that doesn't work. I can't say something pleasing to him because he wants me to articulate a vision for myself, what I want to do. But I don't feel worth it then. I don't feel worth the kind of being who has dreams and asperations. Desperations, sure.

But there's something more to it. Something I'm missing here. When I'm bouncing ideas off the psychiatrist, I can do it. Largely because he's shown me I can try out ideas and he won't penalize me if I change my mind. Being "genuine" in his words. Leaving school was being genuine because I didn't want to be an acadenic. That was genuine. But there's a fear of being genuine with my brother.

I can't quite articulate why. I know there's some fear of being squashed--being run-over... I don't know yet a more concrete was to put it. A fear that I will articulate something I want and it will be somehow denied. And I will feal invalid because of it.

Or maybe it's something else, like my dreams and asperations won't be validated. I can see my brother saying "Why do you want to do that?" and hearing something in his voice that would be different than in my psychiatrist's voice.

I feel like I can say anything to the psychiatrist. I can change my mind later and say something else.

But with my brother, it's like it will go down on my permanent record. Changing my mind means I haven't thought about it enough. So I have to practice before hand. Have a script.

I mean, it's probably good to think it through, the why question. But that's not all that's going on, psychically. What's going on is this script writing. Prepairing to perform.

Part of me wants what it was like with the with the psychiatrist, thinking outloud with him, for that to happen with my brother. To be that comfortable with him.

But I feel like he's judging me. Like my responses... somehow indicate something about me, how thoughtful I am.

I'm not like him. He thinks everything through before he makes a move. Then he moves. Then he tells everyone later.

I come up with an idea and immediately solicit feedback. Get people's ideas.

My way isn't always a good way. Maybe I don't have enough courage in my own evaluations. Maybe I look to others for validation because my own value isn't good enough.

Already I feel queasy about my career idea I had this morning. PR writing. Am I good enough? Can I handle a fast-paced writing environment?

And what I really fear is someone like my brother saying these things. Validating not my dreams but my doubts. My feeling that the real me is a dreamer, dreaming ideas about myself that just don't live up to the reality. That I'm a pile of faults that I can't see but everyone around me can.

And having and sharing a dream will open me up to the painful experience of being exposed to that--that experience of revealing I'm just not good enough. And it's all my fault.

That, ultimately, I've fucked up so much that I'm damaged goods. I've damaged myself to the point that I'm ethically to blame.

It's more than just the feeling that I've wasted my life. It's that I need to be punnished. I need that experience of having the extent of my unseen fucked-upness, the fucked-upness that I've wrought, revealed to me. And worse still, I've let everyone down because of it. I've disappointed them. I've wasted all their hard work on and for me.

Wow I feel bad right now. Depressing thoughts, no doubt. But I fear they're true. I fear it's the reality under this stack of cards I've built called my life--a carefully orchestrated performance of competance. And I am afraid for everyone that movement beyond what I have been able to do will cause the house of cards to collapse and they'll see me as I really am.

And it's not that I'm afraid so much to be seen as a failure. If that's the reality, I don't care so much about that. It's that it will break everyone's heart to see me. That my failure will infect their soul. That it will make them suffer. And they'll suffer treating me like the invalid that I am.

I'm really scared right now. I wish to God I didn't think these things, believe them.

I wish I were as happy as when I walked out of the psychiatrist's office.

I wish I had thought these things and talked with the therapist about them. I wish he'd make them go away, tell me I'm wrong, tell me I am competent, able. That I can try things and find tallents and strengths and overcome adversity and that misfits that don't work out are not my fault, but just that, misfits.

That taking a chance and having a dream isn't going to unfold the dreaded scenario I've just told you.

I feel on edge now. Vulnerable. But also real. Genuine, if you will. Perhaps I'm close to the fundamental fantasy. The one that structures, sutures me to reality. Touching the real.

It's amaizing how deep everything goes. Something as simple as picking a new career path opens up my whole identity. But perhaps not the way it does with most people.

Just fourty some hours until therapy again. Fourty hours or so of feeling fragile.

But no one said facing demons was empowering. Or fun.

Still, I feel some growth here. Like I've articulated something. And the depth of it. Seeing it in black and white makes it not so bad.

I still feel vulnerable, raw, scared. But at least I know what I'm afraid of.

And my conscious mind can see how unlikely the scenario is. I'm not damaged goods. And it's not my fault. I have problems, skills and tallents like everyone else. I can learn new tricks. I can work.

But to say that I can have dreams and can achieve them... That's harder to say. Maybe not impossible.

And looking into the heart of the fear it inspires makes it easier... I can see how unlikely that fear is. How unreal.

So far my employers and teachers have liked my writing. So has my family. If nothing else, I have faith in that, that I am a writer.

That even when I don't feel like I have anything to say, if I did I could say it well.

I just need to find a place for me where I can say it. And maybe a place where I have things assigned to me to say. And hard deadlines.

But I do freeze up sometimes.

Maybe that needs to be analyzed.

Feel like getting drunk

Well, I didn't last night. And it's the weekend. And I don't have any plans. So might as well.

On top of it, thinking of quiting smoking tomorrow. Want to smell clean when I visit the sister on Monday; might as well get a head-start on withdrawal.

And I'm not too upset about the whole job thing. I think it's the power of denial. I just don't want to think about it.

But boy would that have been nice.

It hasn't sunk in yet

I haven't heard back from that retail job I applied for.

So I guess I didn't get it. Which sucks.

But it hasn't sunk in yet that it's over--or maybe it never felt like I was going to get it anyway. One of the benefits of low self esteem is that you aren't surprised or disappointed when things just don't work out.

Still and all, it would have been a good get. Would have dramatically improved my situation.

No money makes me miserable.

Waiting...

This sucks, not knowing if I get a third interview with the upscale retail job I've applied for.

I really need it and I'm quite nervous. It would be a real let-down if it doesn't work out.

There's so much I don't know. How many people they've interviewed, how many positions are open... It makes me crazy.

Drugs

I'm running out of drugs.

I have about three days of Abilify left, and a handful of Lamictal.

I should get by on the Lamictal until the end of the month, when the new insurance kicks in and I have some left over Seroquel, that I'm going to try taking. It's a less than ideal solution, but it's the one that makes financial sense. I just don't have the six hundred bucks to buy some Abilify.

So the great drug experiment begins.

I just hope the brother can help cover rent and insurance next month, and I get that retail job.

I am worth it

The therapist had a good point. I have two things I have to keep in mind.

One is that I have to remind myself that I am worthwhile, inherently. That I am worth having friends and having a life that is satisfying. That I am worth having a clean apartment, for instance.

The other is I am up against a powerful sense of the opposite. Perhaps in early childhood I wasn't made to feel special, and large parts of me still feel that way.

For instance, consider the apartment at the moment. It's a wreck. When I try to talk myself into cleaning it, I focus on the idea it will only take so long and so much effort.

What if I'm trying the wrong self-talk. What if I focused on being worth it. I am worth this, having a better life.

But I'm afraid. Afraid of the message coming through that would say, no you're not. That someone would say such a thing. And that they would be right.

But I've been a passanger, a victim too long within my own life.

It reminds me of that famous Rilke poem, the one that ends "you must change your life."

That's how I feel: I must change my life.

Just Bought Health Insurance

Wow, that was expensive.

Well, we have to do these things. Can't afford to go without coverage--they can deny treatment if you ever go off coverage for more than two months, and I can't ever be denied coverage--I could never pay for it otherwise.

And to go without coverage for the rest of my life is totally frightening. Totally scary.

It was expensive--six hundred dollars for the first month, but it goes down to four hundred after that for three months then back up to five hundred, which, all things considered, is not that much money for what I get. I'm sure my benefits will exceed my costs at this stage of the game.

But drugs are still going to be a problem.

I'm going to not tell the therapist that I'm going without Abilify for a moment. Then I'll have about three months of coverage and then I'll have to make another plan. But that comes later.

This health insurance game sure is a racket, but I'll be saving money when you think about therapy and the like.

Seems ridiculous, but I don't know what to do with myself.

I have, what, at least five hours before I go to sleep and I don't feel like doing anything.

This is a common occurrence with me. And it's a problem.

I just don't feel that active and I don't want to do anything I have to do. I did empty out the mailbox yesterday, which is an improvement.

And I'm doing laundry today. And I bought health insurance, which I think I've already told you about.

So I'm making some progress.

And I had a retail job interview yesterday, which I think went well, but you never know. If it did, then there will be one more interview. A third, which seems a lot for a ten dollar an hour retail job. But I'm not the one hiring. And business doesn't seem to be so great these days, I suppose they can afford to be so selective.

Interesting therapy

Just got out of the office. Good times. Sort of.

One of my problems, and I hate even admitting it here, is that I just don't value myself enough. It comes out here because I don't feel I have anything of value to say. Which isn't true.

I believe anyone's experience is valuable to share--i just don't feel myself included, without making ironic self-effacing comments.

And it comes out in my appartment. It's a wreck and I continue to live in it that way. I'm scared of it.

I pay almost twelve hundred a month and I don't feel like i'm worth that much rent, so I trash it.

I hate my apartment, and I really shouldn't.

It's like I don't feel worthwhile to handle my own problems. That's a little complicated, so let's unpack it.

I am afraid of my problems--that they'll be so intractable I won't be able to handle them on my own. I also don't feel like i'll be able to solve them, and even if I do, i'l cause myself bigger ones later, so why bother now with them.

But imagine a life where I solve problems as they come. Not problem free, but problem solving as they arrive. I'm worth that. I need that.

I want to feel worthy of that kind of life again. I want that life. I don't feel it now, but I want it. Or, I want to want it.

Looking at this post, I come to realize how negative it is. That's the voice of depression speaking, speaking through me. It's powerful, all encompasing.

Yet it is familiar. Feeling this down. Feeling this out.

Just need to get out of myself into another place. I am worth it, as are we all.