Therapy 2021: Session 4

Date of session: 26/01/2021

Please be aware that some of the content may be triggering. Please take care 💚

Before this session I had homework to do. I left it until the last minute due to feeling ill and tired most of the time. I also knew it would be hard as it involved identifying emotions at some level. This is an area I find hard and frustrating. I also had to build a new safe place to use to do this. This I resented. I did it the night before.

At the start of the session, as always, I was asked how I’d been over the last week. I said about the pain and tiredness. She asked how I’d been doing with the self harm and I replied I still hadn’t self harmed since before Christmas. She was pleased with this. I am less so at this time. She also asked how my dissociation had been which I always find hard to answer as I’m not always aware when I’m dissociating. I explained a couple of things and she said it sounded more like acting mindlessly rather than dissociating. I’ll agree to disagree here but hey ho.

We then moved on to look at the new safe place I had created and went through all its sections and the different senses that related to it. I won’t discuss my safe place at this time as I’m not sure it is a wise thing right now. She was happy with the place I’d created and the use of senses. She then asked about emotions and feelings in the body. This is where I had difficulty and this made me feel uncomfortable and annoyed (anger and annoyance I can identify, though not always accurately in others). She now wants me to keep going through the safe place when I’m not stressed to see how it reduces feelings and calms me. Then move on to practicing it when I think of a mildly irritating scenario. At the moment I’m in a constant state of anxiety so we will see how we go.

After this she wanted to discuss next steps. She had, had her supervision meeting and discussed about doing further trauma work with me now I wasn’t self harming (a prerequisite I had been given). It was now decided it was still to unsafe to do the trauma work online due to my high score on the DES (Dissociative Experience Scale) as she wasn’t in the same room as me. I understand this to an extent but it feels like I have to somehow get better so I’m the right level of ill. I can’t be too ill, but I can’t be too well.

The above led me to having to make a decision. We could do another couple of sessions winding down and then leave it until face to face was an option or I can join a trauma information group in March for eight weeks and next weeks session would be my last individual session. I explained I would have to consider the timing of the session and how it would impact on my family as its a two hour course. I had some less than pleasant comments in response that left me incredibly upset, including “the group will go ahead with or without you” and “you’re lucky to be offered this so soon”. I don’t dispute how lucky I am, I just needed to consult others as I’m not the only person it will effect. She knows of the difficulties at home. I was told to just be assertive.

After the session I was in tears. I felt some of the comments were unfair. I had not turned it down flat, just explained that I wasn’t sure I could do it due to the issues in my family. But then I was an awful person. I feel now something that may be paranoia but also may not be, which is that this has all been to leave me without support and the world knowing how awful I am. I’m still not feeling great in regard to this. I have considered emailing the psychologist but I’m also scared too. It has triggered a lot of feelings of fear of abandonment.

I have managed to arrange that I will be able to attend the group of the offer is still open. We will see what happens next week.

Therapy 2020: Session 14

Date of session: 02/12/2020

Please be aware that some of the content may be triggering. Please take care 💚

Getting round to writing about this session has taken a while. The session left me in a highly emotional state and it took time to get that under control before I could even begin to process the session. There will be holes in this as some personal things were discussed that I’m not ready to share.

The start of the session was taken up with starting to think about what will happen after my time is up as I’m only meant to have another two sessions. There was a discussion of trauma based therapy and EMDR but this won’t happen unless I stop self harming completely. This has left me with some choices to make and things to consider. In the session I felt myself becoming very defensive around this conversation. It’s something I need to work through before next week.

We did the usual scale of how I am and I just couldn’t think how I was. It’s been a tricky week but it’s not been the worst. But I don’t feel great. It’s all very confusing to me. I really don’t feel I have a handle on this at all.

We then went back to the formulation we’ve been working on to look at my core beliefs and whether things have changed. And when looking at them and working through it, they have to an extent. Instead of using evil to describe myself it’s gone to bad but I also added in that I’m a burden. My core beliefs when related to other people have also changed though this was harder to look at. It really showed black and white thinking in my world which is hard for me to acknowledge most of the time.

This therapy has definitely made me see that a BPD diagnosis does fit but it has also made me start to question whether something else is not quite right too. This again is something I need to look into.

We seemed to make progress in this session and where I had written out some things after the session last week, I shared some of this. That was never my intention but I found it helped me explain things so she understood it better. She seemed to find this useful too.

I’m finding my issues with language surrounding events is still there and it makes me extremely uncomfortable to hear certain words. I know I shouldn’t be scared of words but I am. This is part of the reason I became highly emotional at the end. The session did seem to end suddenly though and I don’t feel that helped. But it could also be that I started to dissociate.

Overall it was one of the better sessions in that I feel progress was made, even though I’ve felt awful ever since. A technology glitch may also of helped in that the video link wouldn’t work so it was all on the phone and I couldn’t see her. Let’s see where next week takes us.

Therapy 2020: Session 1

Date of session: 02/09/2020

Please be aware that some of the content may be triggering.

Today was my first therapy session (of my fourth course). I want to kind of record my thoughts afterwards. This will be a general process without specifics. It’s for my benefit more than anything but if it helps someone then all the better. If it doesn’t work for me I will stop.

The therapy I’m doing is trauma focused. It is being done via video link due to the covid pandemic. This was something that was really bothering me but I have seen some advantages already to try and hold on to. These are mainly linked to the aftermath in that I don’t have to get home or be in public after a session and I can have immediate cat cuddles. There were some issues though.

The first issue linked to the video was getting it to work. I managed in the end but it felt more complex than zoom which I’m used to. The other is that the session is a set time so it will just cut out at the end, which it did during the risk assessment. I thought she would phone to finish the risk assessment but that didn’t happen and its left me wondering if that’s a sign to hurt myself/end my life.

Talking was hard. I find certain words impossible to say and others hard to hear. This was tested straight away. I also felt like I was repeating some of my assessment again. I should of realised that would be the case but I stupidly didn’t think of that. I think the logistics of starting the therapy took more of my anxiety than the content. This has now reversed.

EMDR has been mentioned but may not be easy via video. It’s also something I’ve not particularly wanted it to do as I find keeping my eyes on one thing difficult. My eyes are constantly flicking everywhere. Also being at home there are distractions. All this has come to me after the session so will probably need discussing with the psychologist.

The psychologist seems really nice. I know she will push me but she is understanding this is going to be hard and will take time to build a relationship.

In the aftermath the voice has been horrendous. Its been telling me that things that she has said are untrue. That she is being nice but what I believe about myself and things being my fault is still true. I’m struggling in all honesty.