A (Semi) Sense of Success

I DID IT!!!! OH MY GOODNESS, I DID IT!!!!

I typed up the letter to OT, and… actually dropped the letter off at the post office today.

Obviously, I’m now freaking about the post-sending the letter implications… Will OT hate me? What if she is angry after she reads the letter? WHAT IF I MADE A HORRIBLE DECISION BY SENDING THIS LETTER?

OF COURSE, I also wish I could tell school therapist about the good news (in person)– and I’m probably going to send the link of this post to her. 🙂

I swear, this lowers my anxiety A LOT. Earlier this weekend, I was at the point where I was having thoughts: I’m at the limit of my coping mechanisms. I can’t do this anymore. I’m tired of fighting, and I just want to give up. HELP SCHOOL THERAPIST, PLEASE.

It’s not completely better by any means, but it’s a HUGE step forward, and I’m happy about that.

At least I can focus (hopefully) on school stuff for now….

“OT is Here”

School therapist called me this afternoon….which was an unexpected surprise (maybe semi-expected, considering my two-line reply to her message about calling OT today)

First thing school therapist mentioned was that she had spoken to OT. My heart started racing, and I believe I even commented under my breath, Oh no.

School therapist continued saying that she had asked OT about whether there were any available appointment slots for me, and OT said that she would be flexible for my schedule. School therapist told me I just wanted to know what you thought about this, and to see if you had any questions for me. [OT] also shared another piece of information with me.

At this point, my heart was beating out of my chest, and frankly, I didn’t know how to respond to this news. Was I supposed to be relieved? Scared? Angry? Something else? I remember laying on my bed feeling tongue tied, not knowing how to respond to school therapist. I…um…. what was the other piece of information?

[OT] suggested that if it helps you, to send a letter to her through the mail.

As if that news was supposed to reassure me…? I’m pretty sure in that moment, I was in pure shock. In my last message to school therapist on Friday, I had linked a previous blog entry which summarized how I was feeling, so school therapist knew pretty well about the fact that I felt like OT didn’t care about me.

Each statement school therapist made was just shock on top of more shock… the next thing school therapist said to me started stirring up all the emotions– I got the sense from you previously that you didn’t think OT cared about you, but I sense that she does. How does that make you feel?

Hearing that from school therapist was hard to take in. I don’t feel that OT cares about me… part of me keeps wondering, if she cared about me, why didn’t she follow up? Why did she never message me or call me again?

The rest of the conversation was trying to digest the shock as much as I could. The young parts of me felt simultaneously cared for/acknowledged and understood by school therapist, and challenged and abandoned by her. School therapist acknowledged that it’s a very difficult situation to be in, and validated my fear and emotions that are coming up with news of her leaving. Even in this acknowledgement of the difficulty, she keeps on challenging me to re-establish contact with OT, which is hard…

It felt weird hearing/experiencing two different things at the end of the conversation. School therapist left me with: I know it’s difficult, and a lot of old emotions are coming up, some of which have to do with me. But I want you to know that OT is here. OT is here for you.

I’m reluctant to accept that, because what I want to hear from her is: I am here, I am here for you.

—-
Through today’s conversation, I’m reminded a scene from the 1998 movie, Stepmom (with Susan Sarandon & Julia Roberts) where the two of them are sitting at a restaurant, and Julia Roberts [Isabel] and Susan Sarandon [Jackie] finally put their differences aside. Isabel admires Jackie’s maternal instincts, and Jackie is in admiration of Isabel’s “hipness” and ability to connect with Anna (the daughter). Finally, both women, through tears, admit their greatest fear. Isabel admits that she fears that on her wedding day, Anna will wish for her mother’s presence, and Jackie fears that Anna won’t. Jackie tells Isabel that Jackie will have their childrens’ past, and Isabel can have their future.
—-
After I got off the phone with school therapist, all this emotion that I’d been holding in finally came out. It was me acknowledging to myself that it is difficult, it is hard. It’s not fair. I do want school therapist to be there. I don’t want school therapist to leave. I am feeling ambivalent toward OT, and I worry about what will happen if/when I contact OT. I finally felt all of that today. But maybe it can be like it is in Stepmom… school therapist can have my past, and OT can have my future.

Not feeling completely convinced by all of it yet, but maybe….eventually….

I Fear Re-initiating Contact with OT

School therapist finally emailed me back earlier tonight.

And in the email, she mentioned that she would contact OT for me tomorrow.

That scares me…. a TON.

Previously, I had mentioned that part of the fear came from the fact that I didn’t know what school therapist & OT were going to be talking about during that conversation, which is still something that worries me, but what worries me even more now is everything that will (or maybe won’t!) come up in all of this.

I feel incapable of repairing what has happened with OT at the moment… I’m so worried about how that conversation will (potentially) go–or not go.

There’s part of me that wants to open up to her, and the part of me that wants to open up wants OT’s help, but doesn’t know how to ask for that help about how to open up. In that sense, I wish OT would cue in more to my needs. Most people assume that because I’m so intelligent, I use this intelligence to manipulate or control the situation to turn out the way that I want it to turn out. But to be honest, I can think of 10,000 other things to be stubborn or manipulative about. I don’t know why I’d want to control the situation by not sharing things in session.

Part of me has also given up on the relationship and dynamic in session being different or changing. I worry that I’ll be disappointed again if I hope that things will be different or change in some magical way and they don’t. What if OT gives up on me?

I want to be able to trust that things will be OK with OT, and right now, I don’t. I really don’t.

Oh… it’s going to be a very long night.

And to school therapist’s reply (about contacting OT tomorrow), I replied with the following:

that scares me….for a multitude of reasons >_<

sorry I’m making this so complicated…

Emails to my Therapist

Emails to my therapist
Are a necessary evil
In today’s technology-ridden society

Emails to my therapist
Are a vehicle for anxiety
As I am waiting for a response

Why won’t they respond?
Don’t they care?
Don’t they see?

My heart is racing
My breathing rate is increasing
My thoughts are spinning

My sent emails
fall on unseen eyes
fall on deaf ears

Why won’t they respond?
Don’t they care?
Don’t they see?

The tension and anxiety rising
As I wait for a response
My hope slowly dwindling away

Emails to my therapist
Are a necessary evil
In today’s technology-ridden society

 

Acting out Old Patterns

These past few weeks, I’ve been a mish-mash of emotions. And since my last appointment with my school therapist, I have done NOTHING as far as initiating conversation or attempting to repair the relationship with OT [outside therapist]. Well, I DID attempt to craft a letter to OT…so there’s that.

And (obviously) the longer time passes, the harder it gets, and the more I start to wonder: why bother?

At this point, I’m basically repeating the same pattern I know how to repeat when in this mode. Get angry/feel hurt, avoid, and cut off this person from my life. Which, my “rational self” knows is the most idiotic decision anyone can make. But this whole therapy situation has just brought out a whole dimension of confusion and emotion I wasn’t aware previously existed. Not only is it bringing up my worst fear at the moment of not feeling cared for by OT, but it’s also bringing up a TON of old feelings that I kinda-sorta pushed off to the side last year, because I asked school therapist to help with this situation.

To make matters worse, it’s like my subconscious is trying to torture me with inserting school therapist into my dreams. Recently, almost every dream I’ve had, school therapist has been in…it’s like I’m practicing trying to work through/process this situation regarding outside therapist, and BECAUSE I can’t verbalize anything to anyone right now (hence the non-communication with both school therapist and outside therapist), my dreams seem to be the ideal place to do the processing and practicing. Blah. If only I could process(?) in real life… maybe I can get more sleep at night.

These dreams take me back to a time when I was in high school, and my parents kept pushing me to drop a class that I really didn’t want to drop, and I sort of “ignored” the situation for months… and for the months (from approximately November to February) I would have nightly dreams and this particular teacher of the class that I was being made to drop would appear in the dream each night.

Earlier this afternoon also just (likely) confirmed my worst fears. A few of my fellow graduate students and I met with the counselor who is going to replace the former “graduate counselor” in the counseling department today. We covered a variety of topics of how to expand and publicize services to serve graduate student needs, and in the midst of conversation, we touched on counselors who were coming in and leaving. Basically without naming any names, the conversation basically confirmed my worst fears.
Graduate counselor mentioned to us: Well, we have one counselor whose last day is going to be March 31st. Part of my heart just sank. March 31st. The exact same date school therapist gave me when I met with her a couple weeks back. [Of course, I’m also crossing my fingers and hoping that it’s not her.] But, I wanted to throw a brick out the window. Scream. Basically, my brain is re-living what it felt like when Yoda told me during the first session after winter break about her leaving the counseling center for good. Thank goodness I was lucky enough to stalk my way back into her private practice AND she kept me as one of her few remaining clients at the university when she was still working in a limited capacity for the rest of the term…. BUT–when Yoda first told me the news, I’m pretty sure it was the first time I FLIPPED SHIT on my therapist. On anyone, really.

Part of me wonders what would’ve happened if I hadn’t re-initiated contact with school therapist a few weeks back. Whether I had just remained pissed off at outside therapist and left it at that. Would we be where I am today? Would I still be re-experiencing all these old, confusing emotions that are all coming back up? Would I still be feeling as angry as I am about school therapist leaving at the end of March if I had not talked to her a few weeks ago? I know it’s no fault of hers, but I feel like I’m being abandoned by school therapist.Yet another therapist. AGAIN. Why does this thing keep happening? Why–why–when I finally get familiar/comfortable/trusting enough of someone–why is it that they have to leave? Why? I wonder…Would these old wounds, patterns of relating (or not) and how I’m perceiving everything be bothering me so much if I had not asked school therapist for her help with this situation?
I know what the wisest decision would be. But I don’t know if I can do it. There are way too many confusing emotions involved at the moment. I know OT isn’t Yoda and isn’t school therapist. But I can’t help but want to have either one of them back. I worked so hard during the summer to finally work through whatever stuff was lingering with Yoda, but I never knew that re-initiating contact with school therapist would bring all of this up… yet again. I would’ve rather been buried alive than bring to the table all of those confusing emotions about/toward school therapist last year. But some time away from school therapist has given me the desire, the need, the want to try to verbalize everything, even if I still want to be burned alive come time to talk. But I’m sure my subconscious is pretty confused at the moment…
Either way, I know that before the quarter ends, I have to do something, considering the fact that school therapist is (likely) only going to stay until March 31st (unless, of course I’m dreaming about that entire portion of the conversation and making wild guesses!). But again, my natural inclination/tendency on hearing the news is to construct a wall around me.

Crossing my fingers and hoping that what I remember hearing and what I’m guessing isn’t true…will totally ruin my day/month/year if my worst fear is confirmed.

“How’s Research Coming Along?”

This quarter has been stressful– to say the least. Aside from this entire therapy fiasco that’s been going on outside of school, school itself has been a huge stressor this term. Actually, I remember hearing from my classmates/departmentmates before beginning my graduate program that getting through graduate school is like jumping through multiple hoops, only to be greeted by more hoops later down the road. In fact, one of the graduate advisers in the department echoed the statement last quarter when I met to discuss my progress in the program.

One of the questions that I’m positive is the bane of every graduate student’s existence is the question: “How’s research coming along?” Which just so happens to be the most commonly asked question that I’ve been asked this quarter. In my graduate program, during the spring of the 2nd year in the program, MA & PhD students are supposed to be working on a ‘prelim paper’.

Ideally the timeline is: the 4th quarter of study (1st term, 2nd year) students are to assemble a “prelim committee”–3 instructors from within the department to evaluate the prelim paper. Between the 4th & the 6th quarters (basically 2nd year) ideally, students are to choose a major adviser, and by the end of the 6th quarter of study, submit a prelim paper (similar to an MA thesis, in most graduate programs, I suppose). I’m now in the 7th week (!!!) of winter quarter (the 5th quarter of study) and I’m officially behind the “pace” of the program and (obviously) stressing out over all of this.

My research interest/direction has really changed directions since I began my graduate program last year, so finding/settling on a topic has taken a bit longer than expected. Never mind the fact that because of this change in direction of research, who I’m looking to ask to be an adviser is also (rapidly) changing. I’ve heard from many people “at least your research interests are changing early in the program, rather than during your 4th year”  True that. However, it’s still stressful, either way.

On top of the “normal” stress that comes with being a graduate student, I also have an anxiety disorder. When my anxiety runs high, approaching authority figures (AKA professors) is nearly impossible, and involves a TON of avoidance behaviors. And even when anxiety isn’t as high, my general tactic is to avoid situations that might cause avoidance (anxiety disorder tactic–Level 1–avoidance!) Then, my brain goes off the deep end, and I spend way too much time analyzing and overanalyzing, obsessing, and basically getting paralyzed by decision-making and (potential) conversations with aforementioned professors that will most likely never happen, especially when I’m in a high-anxiety state. If you have anxiety, you know what I’m talking about…

Many of my colleagues within the department have given me well-intentioned advice, and tried to be as supportive and sympathetic as possible. Our 2nd year cohort is obviously all going through the same stress of paper writing, committees and all these deadlines. But very few people truly understand. I can’t count how many times I’ve heard “Oh, I know what you mean, I’m shy too.”

At which point, I want to stop well-meaning departmentmate/classmate’s conversation and delineate the difference between shyness and anxiety. Shyness I can handle. Anxiety, I am constantly wishing away from my life. I would describe myself as shy in group/peer settings. If I was to attend a birthday party/gathering with a group of people, and I only knew 1 or 2 people there, if I decided to go (and prior to going) I would be nervous, but given a bit of time to get used to the crowd, I get more comfortable as time goes on. I’m not one to jump in on conversations immediately, but at the end of the evening, I feel pretty comfortable and pretty successful with everything.
However, when dealing with authority figures, or situations in which I think I’m going to be judged negatively or rejected in some form or another, I experience anxiety. I will avoid a certain situation until I simply cannot avoid any longer (or have the threat of being in trouble) and finally go into the situation. In this state, given the choice between being pushed off a cliff or face said anxiety-provoking situation, I’d choose the cliff in a heartbeat. And then after given situation, even though logically, I may know that whatever situation has gone smoothly, if I’m told: “see, it wasn’t too bad!” Emotionally, I experience it as a failure.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve come a long way from a few years back, when I was scared to even approach professors in office hours. I’m now more comfortable with the idea of emailing/contacting professors and asking general questions. But when stakes [potential rejection] are on the line, and I’m dealing with a situation I’m sure MANY (normal) graduate students would consider stressful (having to ask a professor about whether they’re interested in taking you on as a mentee(?) & hoping that they agree & like your research plan) anxiety rears its ugly head, and I realize that my well-meaning departmentmates, who are confused with my reluctance and avoidance in setting up meetings with professors, don’t understand what I experience.

At the moment, when I’m faced with the all-too-familiar question of “How’s research coming along?” or some variant of it (“How’s your prelim paper coming along?”) I nod and smile and answer as politely as possible that “it’s going…” And leave it at that. Which–in a sense, it is!

The purpose of me writing this post isn’t to rant about how sad or difficult my life is. But merely to give those who don’t know what being in grad school AND dealing with a mental disorder is like a glimpse into life, and what it’s like having to deal with getting through these “hoops” in grad school. Sometimes, I sit back and I think, I’m one tough cookie, and even though it’s hard right now, I’m going to keep fighting. One day I’ll get through this hoop. Or so I hope. 🙂

Leaning over the Fence

On Monday evening after I got home, I drafted the letter I was planning to send to OT [outside therapist], saved it on my computer and went to bed. Yesterday (Tuesday), I woke up, and kept vacillating on whether I was going to really mail it off to OT. Can I just not do this? Do I really have to contact OT again? Can’t I just… drop off the face of the planet and never return? A moment later, I would be thinking that I was going to mail the letter off right then and there.

Today, I’m in the mindset that it all seems so quick and overwhelming? pressuring? to do within one week, which was the timeline that school therapist gave to me to contact OT in SOME method (phone, email, letter, morse code, messenger owl, etc.).

That, and the fact that NOT being in therapy makes life, in general, all the more difficult. And I wish I had more support at the moment…and then there’s the March 31st freaking out thing. So much stuff to worry about!

Near the end of session on Monday, school therapist proposed to contact OT. She told me: With your permission, I’d like to contact [OT] and tell her that you’ll be contacting her. I might as well have fainted at that point, because I kept on thinking…. oh, no. NO. please don’t. 

Which is ironic, because around this time last year, when school therapist contacted OT for the first time, I was practically begging school therapist to do the calling for me. But afterwards, I kept regretting the decision, since I’ll never know whatever school therapist & OT talked about during the initial conversation.

I’m pretty sure I nearly flipped out when that option was presented to me because of X years of my mom being called to come to school to have parent-teacher conferences, while I wished the entire time that I was waiting for her to come out of the classroom that I was invisible. My mom would walk out of the classroom sharing a laugh with the teacher in question, and would be extra stern on the car ride home, not letting me know a single thing that my teacher and her talked about. It made going back to school and having to face my teacher again the next day the most terrifying thing in the world. It was like my teacher AND my mom shared common observations about me that I wasn’t even aware of. In general, having two people talk about me without me knowing about the content of the conversation freaks me out. It just seems like a bad idea.

I remember once during my senior year of high school (during the beginning of the year), my social studies teacher from 11th grade walked into my 12 grade social studies teacher’s classroom, and as 11th grade teacher was looking around the room, the two teachers started in on a conversation. At some point in their conversation, my name popped up, and it was like I grew an extra set of tentacles on my head, trying to figure out what they were saying about me, while simultaneously wishing I could disappear into thin air.

Agh. I hate it. I hate it just as much as I hate hearing my peers laughing behind my back. When my students sit in the back of the classroom chatting and laughing when I’m teaching. And obviously at the prospect of school therapist & OT having conversations about me.

And YET, in spite of all these horrible experiences– part of me wants school therapist to contact OT to tell her that I’ll be contacting her. Just as a way to open the dialogue. It’s going to be awkward and painful either way, but at least I know this situation will (hopefully) be resolved. At the rate that I’m going with this mailing thing, who knows when I’ll mail it out. I’ll probably have it delivered via turtle or in a bottle…just to ensure that it will NEVER get to OT. BUT if school therapist contacts OT, I want to be able to know WHAT they are talking about. But I’m sure that’ll never happen, because they have their right to privacy in conversation, too. And, I’m assuming they’d probably also have some sort of therapist-y dialogue going on as well during part of the conversation.

But it wouldn’t hurt to ask school therapist, right?

Wise Mind

I met with school therapist today. It was the first time I’d seen her in almost a year. Regardless, it was under quite unexpected circumstances that I stepped into her office again.

First thing she said when we sat down “Before we begin, I have to let you know that I’m only going to be here until March 31, and then I’m going to [leave].”

My heart stopped. I hate hearing those words. Leave? What do you mean leave?! Like… forever from the university? Temporary for a term? I didn’t push the issue, but that first phrase school therapist still circles around in my mind. I wish I could’ve thought to ask her today…

School therapist helped me during session today to kind of tease apart and help me with the ambivalence toward OT [outside therapist] I’ve been feeling. As I had previously guessed before I left for winter break, the primitive/emotional (young?) side of me HATES my therapist. And has probably hated my therapist since the beginning for not being empathetic enough, not caring enough, not being attuned enough, etc. The other side– the more adult/rational side, WANTS to share information, wants to do the work. But is so sensitive to rejection and hurt, and has a very strong defense mechanism. But this adult/rational side sees the benefit in doing the work.

While I’ve gotten mixed responses in terms of switching to a different therapist from other people, there’s a small (even if minuscule part of me) that’s connected to OT, and learning to trust OT and working through these issues will help me tremendously in my outside relationships as well (And No, I’m not quoting school therapist verbatim) 🙂

While the issue with setting up an appointment and this termination thing is not completely solved, for the first time in a while, I’m in my rational, wise thinking mind and ready to move toward the next step. How I will feel tomorrow morning when I wake up will be a different story… but at least this is progress.

During session today, school therapist suggested a rather unique and creative idea to try to initiate repair/conversation with OT. Rather than hoping that my stomach drops into a pit, or wanting to throw my phone out the window by making a phone call or spending sleepless hours in bed waiting for an email reply from OT, I’m doing things the OG way! I’m legitly going the pre-technology route–YES, I’m sending a note off in the MAIL SNAIL MAIL style. This should be interesting. On a random note, I wonder, for people who were in therapy BEFORE the cell phone/internet era, how between session contact happened. Did people run to the nearest payphone to call the therapist? Or…? (For those of you who feel old, I apologize. I can at least say I was born in the ’80s… granted, the last year of the 80s, but that counts for something, right? :))

Now– if only I could be in ‘wise mind’/’rational mind’ mode when considering this adviser/prelim paper stuff, life would be great…

Anticipating an Appointment

I went to my school counseling center on Monday after not having slept much the past few weeks, and turning this termination thing around and around in my head. Analyzing it from different angles… to the point where I’d wake up from sleep, analyze and think, and go back to sleep.

And I find myself no closer to figuring out what exactly happened… but not yet ready to actually call therapist to figure out WHAT happened between us.

Sometime in the past week or 2, I *tried* going to one of the therapists on campus for a triage–to see if I could sort it out this way, but I think it made me even more frustrated, when I got a vague “Well, it’s your decision.” as a response to getting terminated, considering a referral to a outside therapist, etc. Well…YES… I know it’s my decision. But what other parts of this decision should I be considering?

After avoiding school therapist and wanting to discuss the situation with school therapist for a while, I went to the counseling center on Monday to see if I could get an appointment. Appointments are currently impacted in our school counseling center (yay) due to the fact that our campus is in the process of hiring new counselors (double yay). When I went to inquire at the front desk, the people at the front desk said something along the lines of “school therapist isn’t taking any new students. I don’t think she is available to meet with students this term.” So you can imagine the shock when I was told this news. I still decided to try my luck, and ask them to send a message on my behalf to school therapist asking for an appointment. This was Monday morning (around 11 am).

It’s been a while since I’ve had such anxiety/overwhelming crazy-filled emotions over waiting for a response to a message of ANY kind. But all of Monday was just waiting in desperation for AN answer of some sort. Which didn’t happen. I miraculously made it through my evening class on Monday, with reality setting in that perhaps school therapist really wasn’t available to meet… or that she didn’t care.

Tuesday morning. I still tried to hold out hope for some type of a response. Over the years of emailing therapists/teachers, etc. I’ve learned to recognize patterns in email responses, and generally outside of those certain blocks of time, I don’t expect responses. In the back of my mind, I was still hoping that school therapist would respond agreeing to an appointment that morning, or at least saying she got the message… something. Again, I somehow made it through Tuesday…and at this point realizing that my avoidance/indifference toward [outside therapist] and this desperation over some type of response from school therapist is really two sides of the same coin. It’s either ALL emotion or none at all.

I went to bed last night, feeling pretty hopeless about the fact that school therapist would ever respond…or that she really even cared about the situation. But finally, before I left campus last night, I decided to try Plan B. Write a message to school therapist, detailing the circumstance I’m in, and hope that she’d respond.

I finally got a response from school therapist earlier this afternoon agreeing to an appointment. So now the difficult part starts–trying to coordinate availability. And staying sane while doing that! Halfway through the battle, right?

It really is familiar, but strange. I hate feeling all that I do while waiting for ONE EMAIL/response. But on the other hand, it’s like I almost CRAVE the waves of emotions as I wait for a response. While I’m with [outside therapist] I can (arguably) say that I’m much more “stable” (as in, there are relatively little ups and downs) but I naturally feel and experience less. Which could be good and bad, I guess.