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I think I totally freaked my parents out at the weekend.
I went home to see them for lunch, which was a nightmare in itself as the trains were all messed up as per usual so it took five hours to complete what should have been a 2 hour journey. And then while we were all talking around the table I set off on this long self-pitying rant about how I hated everything I was doing at the moment and didn't know what I wanted out of life and felt trapped because all of the things I had worked so hard to achieve had somehow backfired and ended up being completely different from what I had envisaged at the start. I went on and on about how I just wanted to give up on it all and start over again but how that would then mean I was repeating my cycle of running away and that just means I never achieve anything I can be proud of because I never see anything through. They listened and offered advice and that was fine. But I was really annoyed with myself afterwards because I have spent the last 6 years of my life fighting them to support me and my chosen career and to believe in me. And I had finally achieved that. And now I had to go and blow it all by acting like a complete baby.
When I got home I decided I had to do something about it. I hadn't realised I was in such a rut and was feeling so low about it all. Venting a little each day to my partner and sitting struggling to find the motivation at work, was letting me know I was struggling. But I hadn't realised I was so doom and gloom about it all and feeling so trapped. Trapped is not a good place to be.
So I have started writing daily achieveable goals rather than my usual monthly long lists. And instead of writing down something like 'build website', which stays there for ages because websites take more than a few days to build, especially for a perfectionist like me; I am not putting 'spend 1 hour working on website', and so on. I've only been doing it for two days but it seems to have shifted something and things are getting done. It doesn't fix the fact that I am not enjoying what I'm doing and don't know what I want to do anymore, but at least I am moving in a direction and things are happening. I will keep mulling over the what I need to be doing in the meantime, but whilst moving.
I guess the moral of this tale is that I have realised, although deep down I have always known, that I have become my own worst enemy. I have absorbed the attitudes of others who used to hold me back and put me down and made them into my own. Now my own 'bad parent' tells me I'll never amount to anything and I should give up. That internal parent says a lot of other things too and every time I seem to be getting somewhere it is that voice that descends and paralyses me. What was a dream becomes a nightmare and I just freeze like a rabbit in headlights until someone comes along to pull me out of my trance or I sink so low I end up being thoroughly disgusted at myself and taking matters into my own hands. Sadly I cannot seem to do that before I fall into the dark pit. It would be a lot more helpful if I could.
I had it out with my therapist yesterday. It's the first time I've managed to be entirely honest. We've only been working together for 3 months and before that I was seeing the same person for 7 years. We worked really well together and I was gutted when, for personal reasons, she terminated our relationship. It left me feeling abandoned and alone and like my belief that everyone always abandons me in the end had come true all over again despite her promising she would never do that. I know it wasn't her fault as she had personal issues to deal with, but that doesn't stop me feeling rejected and lost.
Anyway, my new therapist and I just weren't connecting. She didn't seem to even like me and I got the sense that she found me boring (one session her eyes kept shutting whenever I was speaking and she only perked up when she had the floor). So I kept on avoiding seeing her and dreading our sessions. And after then I always felt really bad for several days. Kind of counter productive.
I wanted to say something to her to clean the air and work out if there was any point in our continuing working together but I am overly polite and always paranoid of upsetting or offending people. After 4 weeks of avoiding the issue and getting nowhere I decided to write down how I felt and read it out to her at the beginning of our session. I came in, sat down, and launched into my monologue, staring intently at the page and refusing to look up. I was so scared I was literally dripping with sweat, but I kept on going because I felt that I had to. She took it remarkably well and we had a good talk about the issues I had brought up. Now I am supposed to be thinking about whether I want to work with her still and give it another go or find someone else. I don't know what to do though. Is my demonising her really my avoidance of the issues in my life? Or is she really not right for me? It took me over a year of twice-weekly sessions to bond with my last therapist, and comparing 7 years of a relationship up against 3 months and probably only 8 sessions isn't really going to be helpful. But I don't feel anything towards her at all and I'm not sure she's pushing me in the right direction.
We talked about my maybe trying to see a man, because then I couldn't judge him in the same way as my last therapist. I wouldn't be comparing her to him in the same way, or I hope not. But will I actually be able to talk as openly and honestly with a man about intimite things? That's what I don't know. I also don't know if I can bear starting all over again yet again. It takes so long for me to build up a rapport with someone, starting over again with someone new is going to put me back months. There's also the cost factor and how much all of this is costing me to catch up to a point where we can begin to work on the things that matter.
Maybe I'm just being difficult? But it's important for me to like and trust my therapist and want to go there. If I don't, I won't make the effort to go often enough and then I will only be letting myself down. I need to somehow find it inside me to want to get well, rather than simply wanting not to get worse. But how do you do that? How do you find the desire to put on weight when everytime you look in the mirror you see yourself as fat and everytime you get dressed you feel ugly and everytime you have a shower or a bath you practically freak out?
Isn't life just the trickiest little thing? Oh to be a dog or a cat without all of these issues...
