[Twinkletoes]

I just wondered if anyone that is currently in long-term therapy, like psychotherapy can relate to me here. I seem fixated on my therapy recently. Like, I look forward to my sessions all week, then in them I get frustrated at myself for being disconnected to my feelings, I then spend the next week reading and writing and trying to self-diagnose etc.. its like all I think about, trying to "fix myself".... why? Why the huge rush? Why does it totally preoccupy me like this?

Can anyone offer me any insight? I am aware that these things need to happen naturally, and in their own time, so why do I stress my head out unnecessarily?  On Friday my T had to email me and tell me to "give the reading a rest" as I was so stressed and exhausted from reading about it all... yet I couldn't stop... and I made myself so stressed out... ?? x

[sanmagic7]

been there, done that.  it's like an obsession to keep learning more, keep attempting to put pieces in their rightful places, i want this done!!!  and i want it done now!!!  like a fire is inside, consuming me, and if i don't get this fixed, i will be burned to a crisp from the inside out and nothing will be left of me and i'll die without knowing the answers!  the urgency is relentless.

as i've progressed, i've gotten better at slowing down.  the stress was hurting me, and my day-to-day functioning became less than ideal.  i'd even get sick at times because of the stress.  while i worked at it continuously in some way, shape, or form, i eventually realized that learning more was making me feel miserable.  it was having the opposite effect on what i was trying to achieve.  that rang a wake-up bell for me.

i reconnected with my original goals - health, sanity, and calm - and plugged my behaviors into them.  and, i saw more clearly how my behaviors were leading me away rather than toward them.  my health was being jeopardized, my head was spinning with all the new information i kept gathering, and i was going farther and farther away from the calmness that i sought.

it took some time, focus, and a lot of determination to slow myself down.  i've been an overachiever most of my life - this was just another aspect of it.  overachieving has been one of my maladaptive behaviors to prove i'm worth something and not 'lazy' (a curse word from my foo).  i don't know if any of this resonates with you, but i wanted to let you know that you are certainly not alone.  best to you with this.  it's a toughie.  but, thanks for posting.  it helped to remind myself, which i need quite often, to slow myself down in many aspects of my life.

[Twinkletoes]

Hi sanmagic7, firstly thank you ever so much for posting back to me. Your reply couldn't have come at a better time because I read it as I was outside my therapy room waiting to go in. It was very validating and lovely to know you have been there before, made me feel much less "crazy".

I am also pleased that you have been able to slow down for your own progress, well done on that, I know how hard it is.

Personally I've never been an overachiever - more the opposite. I don't often follow through with anything, like driving lessons, I have started and stopped them on and off for YEARS and never even try to do a test. But I think that is my inner critic taking over etc.

Anyway, I read out loud a very long and sad email to my Therapist last night, I managed to cry the whole way through it which is HUGE for me, the first time I've been really in touch with the feelings in my whole 2 years of therapy so I am so pleased.  She also said to me that "this stage of the therapy can feel all consuming" which really validated how I was feeling in terms of being so preoccupied with it and the constant reading/writing. You also validated this for me by saying "I want this done and I want it done now!!!" so thank you again for that.

T also said that I want to keep the feelings neat but "feelings ain't neat!" which I have said to myself a few times since last night. I need to remember that.

Thanks again! I hope you have a lovely day.

[sanmagic7]

ahhh, so true.  feelings are far from 'neat'.  in fact, when i go through a bout of being overwhelmed, or attempting to process a lot at one time, i feel like i'm 'slogging through sh*t', as i call it.  it is so messy, i'm so messy, everything seems messy and disorganized.  the very opposite of neat.  but as i've kept slogging, moving through the muck, it eventually clears up and cleans up. 

y'know, i'm so very glad for you that you were able to cry through your session.  that sounds like a tremendous breakthrough.  yay!   crying is a natural expression of sadness, and i look on it as a cleansing process.  those tears contain toxins that need to leave your body, toxins that you've been keeping inside and that have been hurting you.  i stopped crying for my own sadness when i was around 14, because of a situation with my parents, and wasn't able to cry for me again till i got into therapy at 38.  i skipped my mother's funeral because i wouldn't allow myself to cry in front of others.  i was supposed to be the strong one in our family.   i didn't cry for my loss until i got into recovery, about 4 years later.  funny how we sometimes do the exact opposite of what we need to do out of misinformation or misguidance. 

at any rate, i'm glad it worked out for you.  getting into this stuff is very messy, but i believe you will get to where you want to go as long as you keep 'slogging'.   ever onward! 

[zoekaftan]

I used to feel the same way, unfortunately recently I took a turn towards the mindset of "oh no, this is too risky now, abort, abort!"

I am now stuck with bottled up feelings in session despite having previously been closer and more open. Best of luck, hope that doesn't happen to you.

[MyselfOnline]

After several years of therapy, what strikes me is how I never could have predicted what I would discover or what the real work would be.

In looking forward to each session, I have begun to look forward to the surprises.

I don't want to warn you off anything, but I did find that my attempt to structure the discovery slowed me down. I went down some misleading routes considering diagnostic labels, when ultimately it was my own self that had to be unearthed. It's satisfying when that starts to happen.

Therapy can make us vulnerable, helpless, for a little while. It's the therapist's job to make that safe. I think the driven feeling can be part of the trauma-emotion, the busy-ness a symptom, part of fleeing from bad sensations. Part of us wants to feel them, part of us fears it. It's counter-intuitive to look for healing in the heart of all the pain. People say that is where it is found.

I wish you very much luck and success.

[sanmagic7]

hey, zoekaftan, i agree with gjdavis - it can feel very scary and risky to continue to move forward in therapy.  i hope you're able to get back on track.  perhaps you got 'stuck' at a place that seemed too big to move through.  it's ok to take this stuff in very small pieces if need be.  your t could help you with that if you talk to him/her about it. 

gj, i have to agree with you, too, on the point you made about the healing coming from the pain.  i believe that is so.  what is important to remember, to my mind, is that the pain, while it can hurt a lot, will not damage us.  and, once we get through it, we can feel relief, maybe even a sense of freedom.  it's worked that way for me.

best with this.  we're all in this together.

[MyselfOnline]

@sanmagic7 - It's astonishing the number of contrivances I have come up with over the years, so as not to feel stuff. But constructing explanations that are intellectually distant from the hurt itself is probably the main one.