Happy Home

therapy ↘↖

So, I haven’t blogged in a bit about anything meaningful because I’ve been busy doing shit, as well as angsting. I work 6 am-2pm every day but Thursday, when I work 6am-9am and have a volunteer shift at the co-op from 11am-3pm. I talked to my parents a few nights ago. For 40 minutes.

Did I hold this conversation in my apartment, indoors? No. I walked to the building on campus where I had my nervous breakdown in November, where I had sex with Ian, where I had my huge argument with Ian, where I cried with 3 of my friends, where I spent awhile smoking outside with Devyn in November, where I called Jared and sat on the front stairs talking to him for an unsatisfying bit. I sat outside. It was raining. By the end of the phone call, I was trying DAMN hard not to cry—I view that as a sign of weakness now—but leaking anyway. Dripping wet. Shaking with anger and with the effort of holding tears in.

And during our fun lil’ convo, mom and i had the following exchange:

Mom: “Well, blah blah, you do need to recognize that you have a disorder.”

Self: “Uh, I was diagnosed with major depression in the hospital. That just means I’m sad.”

Mom: “No, Sherri [Rawsthorn, she’s in Lawrenceville GA and if it was possible to ‘pimp’ a shrink I would] only didn’t diagnose you with BPD because you weren’t 18 yet.” [quit therapy about a week before turning 18. dumb idea.]

Reactions to this were:

1) Why the hell didn’t they see fit to inform me of this?

2) I can now join the club with Susanna Kaysen. No, seriously, this wasn’t even a sarcastic thought.

3) I don’t like saying, “I have a disorder.” I refuse to be one of those whiny bitches (coughcoughelizabethwurtzel) who blames everything on her ‘illness.’ Bullshit. BPD isn’t an illness. Or a disease. It’s just a huge damn problem.

That thing that calls itself my mother suggested reading up on it, so I did/am. I thought I knew a good bit about psychology, but hell. Textbook bipolar.

Feeling unusually “high,” sleeping very little yet feeling energetic, racing thoughts, difficulty concentrating, HUGE yes on the acting impulsively/engaging in reckless behavior, unpredictable mood swings, BIG problems with fear of abandonment, uncontrollable crying.

So, we have a problem and a few questions. Which I will continue in my next post as I don’t want to be obnoxious and post something really long.

18 September 2009 • batshit crazy deer instability borderline personality disorder therapy parents

Intensive Outpatient Therapy

opinionatedvulgarity:

disorderlymind:

Now that I am out of the hospital I am in an intensive outpatient therapy program. I go Monday through Friday from 9am to 3pm. We do group therapy the whole time. The progress is so significant compared to inpatient that it’s night and day. Then again the patients are night and day. We are all in a different place, we are all beyond the suicidal thoughts and into the “How do I get back to work? What do I tell people about where I have been?” sort of thing. Also we deal with more long term issues, childhood traumas, there were some tears the other days when I unwittingly sculpted a pregnant woman from clay to represent some words I drew from a hat.

We have struggled with fertility since the day we got married. It took five years to get pregnant with my youngest, and last, child. It cost a fortune. We tried for another after that but had to bail out when we had a risk of five fertilized eggs one cycle and then none the next. The next step would have been IVF. Not only could we not afford it….well, we just could not afford it. We had to declare bankruptcy, we had poured too much into the attempts for the baby we never found. So I had some emotion to deal with there.

We watch videos on topics like stress, depression, and anger. Then we have group discussion. Because we have a small group and a lot of time everyone gets to really get into some deep emotions. By the end of the day I am exhausted.

It’s still a lot like the hospital in that we follow a strict schedule. First thing we check in with how we feel and what is our goal for the day. Then we do some group discusion about the night before. We have group sessions. For lunch we go to the hospital cafeteria, the process is the same as when you are inpatient: wait in line, eat crappy food, look warily at the patients at other tables. Then back to the group for more activities and group discussions.

Basically by the end of the day it’s all pretty tiring.

you are so lucky. i wish you good luck in your program.. i am so jealous

I’ll assume you’re refering to being jealous that the OP’s in treatment. Because UGH, group therapy does jack for me. I am a naturally mistrusting person. I will sit in the back of the room and glare covertly, suspiciously, at other patients. I point blank walked out of group therapy once when I was at the hospital (yes, inpatient) because some crazy woman offended me by getting a little too Jesus-y.

That’s another thing. Group therapy, at least the exposure to it that I had, made me look at myself and go “…the fuck? I am NOT as crazy as these loonies. I don’t belong here.” Bottom line, I’m not going to get any benefit from it and once I can afford therapy, I’ll be going solo.

12 September 2009 • therapy group treatment