Soo, yesterday I went and had my fourth therapy session. About half way through the session, with me saying how work was, how I had written down ten things I didn't like about myself, causing me to feeling unworthy of other people's love blah blah blah, the shrink found my glass jaw.
I had been giving another guided tour of the best and most popular destinations in the patented Pauly Depression Tour Thru The Nineties, when the doc came out and said that I did a whole lot of listing and overviews and such, but not so much of the in depth stuff. That stumped me for a bit, and I realised I had been coming across all John Cusack out of High Fidelity, Number Five With A Bullet and all that. Nerdy making lists, in other words.
After I had absorbed that, he asked whether there was deeper stuff to talk about, because to him it just seemed that I skimmed over things all too easily. I had said to him that with the list I wrote up for the session, the ways in which I feel unworthy of love, I had just knocked that together the night beforehand. If I had allowed myself time, no distractions, and a lot of pens, I could have gone far further into depth on those ones and really cut myself to shreds.
Shrink said that with most people, the past is the past, it is left there and has little or no bearing on their present states. He wondered if that was the case with me, or whether I had some facing up to the past to do. I told him that yeah, I could go deeper, but it would mean my answers would be slower - he said that was fine, and he wasn't pushing me, it was just another alternative to what we already discuss, and I didn't have to if I didn't want to. But hell, if I don't sort myself out when I am the most clearheaded I have been about my problems in decades, well, what better time could there be?
I had a think about things, and what is holding me back, and I think the major one affecting me still is my self loathing. I wouldn't go so far as to call it self hatred, have come a lot away from that particular precipice, but self loathing, yeah, that's a reasonable term, considering the circumstances. Also, I know my strengths and limitations within myself, but with the whole relationships question, taking on board the needs, requirements and the rest of a whole different other person, that still freaks me out sometimes. Maybe more than sometimes.
For this week's session 'homework' I was asked to write about my school ball, last year of high school and all that. In between two major major depressive episodes, suicidal even. I did another witty comeback with him, saying I could write about the ball itself, but did he want me to write about what happened before and afterwards as well, because that wouldn't be so easy. He said yes, he would like to see it all down on paper - I said I think I write things better than I speak them.
Then I said, oh, well I blogged about it a couple of years ago, so I can print that off and bring it in. Therapist then got my glass jaw again, saying no, I won't let you get away so easy - and your little dog too, in his most threatening wicked witch impersonation. Okay, so I exaggerate - but what he did say is that sure I can print it off, what I wrote a couple years ago, but he wants me to experience the bitterness, the tang of self defeat, desperation even, by reading it all out in session, and when I hit a particularly emotional bump, to underline it in pen.
For the first time since I started going to therapy this year, I walked away and got on the train to work with a sense of fear, of dread in my stomach. Usually I go away happy that I have unloaded issues and all that, but just the thought of going back to 1993 in my mind, scares the hell out of me. I remember, that when I blogged it, I was trying to be as honest and as forthright as possible, so it will be an interesting journey in session in two weeks time.
The shrink brought out a saying this week, got to feel a bit worse to feel a whole lot better. Something like that anyways. I guess I am partially fearful of meeting 1993 Paul and perhaps liking him again, for whatever fucked up reason this time around.
I had been giving another guided tour of the best and most popular destinations in the patented Pauly Depression Tour Thru The Nineties, when the doc came out and said that I did a whole lot of listing and overviews and such, but not so much of the in depth stuff. That stumped me for a bit, and I realised I had been coming across all John Cusack out of High Fidelity, Number Five With A Bullet and all that. Nerdy making lists, in other words.
After I had absorbed that, he asked whether there was deeper stuff to talk about, because to him it just seemed that I skimmed over things all too easily. I had said to him that with the list I wrote up for the session, the ways in which I feel unworthy of love, I had just knocked that together the night beforehand. If I had allowed myself time, no distractions, and a lot of pens, I could have gone far further into depth on those ones and really cut myself to shreds.
Shrink said that with most people, the past is the past, it is left there and has little or no bearing on their present states. He wondered if that was the case with me, or whether I had some facing up to the past to do. I told him that yeah, I could go deeper, but it would mean my answers would be slower - he said that was fine, and he wasn't pushing me, it was just another alternative to what we already discuss, and I didn't have to if I didn't want to. But hell, if I don't sort myself out when I am the most clearheaded I have been about my problems in decades, well, what better time could there be?
I had a think about things, and what is holding me back, and I think the major one affecting me still is my self loathing. I wouldn't go so far as to call it self hatred, have come a lot away from that particular precipice, but self loathing, yeah, that's a reasonable term, considering the circumstances. Also, I know my strengths and limitations within myself, but with the whole relationships question, taking on board the needs, requirements and the rest of a whole different other person, that still freaks me out sometimes. Maybe more than sometimes.
For this week's session 'homework' I was asked to write about my school ball, last year of high school and all that. In between two major major depressive episodes, suicidal even. I did another witty comeback with him, saying I could write about the ball itself, but did he want me to write about what happened before and afterwards as well, because that wouldn't be so easy. He said yes, he would like to see it all down on paper - I said I think I write things better than I speak them.
Then I said, oh, well I blogged about it a couple of years ago, so I can print that off and bring it in. Therapist then got my glass jaw again, saying no, I won't let you get away so easy - and your little dog too, in his most threatening wicked witch impersonation. Okay, so I exaggerate - but what he did say is that sure I can print it off, what I wrote a couple years ago, but he wants me to experience the bitterness, the tang of self defeat, desperation even, by reading it all out in session, and when I hit a particularly emotional bump, to underline it in pen.
For the first time since I started going to therapy this year, I walked away and got on the train to work with a sense of fear, of dread in my stomach. Usually I go away happy that I have unloaded issues and all that, but just the thought of going back to 1993 in my mind, scares the hell out of me. I remember, that when I blogged it, I was trying to be as honest and as forthright as possible, so it will be an interesting journey in session in two weeks time.
The shrink brought out a saying this week, got to feel a bit worse to feel a whole lot better. Something like that anyways. I guess I am partially fearful of meeting 1993 Paul and perhaps liking him again, for whatever fucked up reason this time around.
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