These are session notes from an older session on June 6th. It is incomplete, but I still wanted to document the therapy process.
Here are my notes:
i forgot about tape recording the session, which i was excited about. i will try to remember next time. maybe there is a reason i keep forgetting?
blog – my therapist decided she would not read my blog, and we would discuss only things i brought up myself in therapy sessions.
this is frustrating because it seems to me like we go back and forth at her whim. i feel it should be ‘our’ decision and a back and forth discussion.
i sense that there are some ethical questions about it that she is asking herself, or some other ‘block’
discussed the show “In Treatment” – the show’s therapist tells a couple to have an abortion. i feel a therapist wouldn’t say this, even to make a point. making this type of specific suggestion could leave therapist’s at risk, making it ‘their’ fault if something goes wrong – so i don’t think good therapists do this
abortion – the last topic lead to us discussing the topic of abortion. which i had discussed with the guy involved the day before. he said he could not be involved, and that it was my fault because i was the women and it is my body. he later relented to 51% my fault is what he meant
we did talk about the first bullet point group, PTSD
she said her supervisor and her had talked about me. they were wondering how much time i spend on researching and stuff like I had brought her today (PTSD timeline).
i asked if she wanted me to count time writing for the blog, and she replied just research at first. i said about 30 minutes a day on average, because i go some weeks with none, and some days where i spend a few hours
but i spend a lot of time writing, maybe 1-3 hours a day, 5 days a week sometimes, which i did not tell her. because she asked me how much time i spend out of my head? this made me dissociate i think, because i started blathering. i felt trapped
Reaction to last session:
felt like i have made a lot of progress internally, but have not done anything to change my actual life (what life?)
like i have no friends
i am afraid to get out of my head – where it is safe
i am afraid of what I would do or have to handle if i try and explore
I mentioned in my last Session Splash – May 26, 2009 Part 1* that I often bring notes of what I want to talk about to therapy. I also expressed having a hard time asking and saying what I really want to, as I am at a very vulnerable stage in my therapy. To help with this I am creating the following script, which I brought with me to my last session on June 6, 2009. I will post this session splash within the week so you know how it went.
This script was inspired by “mmaaggnnaa”, or Marie, who writes the blog “Coming Out of the Trees”. She wrote a series of posts about a script she read to her therapist, which starts here if you would like to read it. Here is mine:
This is going to be very hard for me to today. I am going to be more vulnerable than I am comfortable with. I may shake, I may cry, and I might have multiple panic attacks, which I would like you to ignore unless there is an emergency.
When thinking about this session I have had the following repeated thought or mantra from one of my voices: “I am not allowed to be weak. I am the mountain, that if moved will spew out Satan’s dominion and maybe even Satan himself.” I am trying to say there is a lot of fear associated with this content, I guess.
Here are my questions. You might not have answers to all of them, and I may even have the answers to some of them. I am also comfortable if you want to answer some next session so that you have time to think about the answers. Okay?
I feel like we have gone back and forth about the blog. At first you said you wanted to think about whether or not you would read it, but we never brought that up again. Next you told me that you had read parts and how we should use the blog in therapy only for assistance, that I would need to talk about what I wrote in session. I understood this and was not mad you had read the blog without us discussing it again, because I do want you to read it.
Next time when we discussed the blog you decided that you would not read the blog or bring up topics written there unless I brought them up in session myself. This back and forth is the first real time I have been frustrated with our sessions. However, I think it would help if right now we decide together how we will handle the blog going forward.
Questions:
Are you going to read the blog?
What parts of the blog can I expect you will have read?
What parts are off limits to read, if any? What parts make me uncomfortable for you to read?
Should we discuss issues on the blog that I did not bring up first?
Are you comfortable with me posting the session splashes?
I wanted to let you know that I am aware I do not often look you in the eye when we are talking. I usually do like to look people in the eye when I talk to them, and consider it rude not to. I am not trying to be rude, but only do this because of how vulnerable I feel here. I hope you have not felt offended. I have been wanting to let you know that for a long time.
Okay, here are my questions about therapy:
Questions:
Am I going too slow, or maybe too fast? Does the pace seem right for me?
How could I do better? What am I doing well?
Am I holding myself back in some way? Do I have habits that are making therapy slower? (such as over intellectualizing concepts)
What do you feel we should focus on in sessions right now?
I think you hold back too much on your assessment/comments and offer your opinion/critique more often. How do you feel about this?
Do you sometimes wonder if my case is too serious for you to handle?
Do you still think you can help me? I feel like I might be too messed up…
I trust you, but maybe other parts of me do not. This will be harder to discuss than specific abuse memories because I have spent a lot of time covering it up. This diagnosis was probably also the reason I have not wanted to work on a timeline in the past. I must have sub-consciously known that my missing time would become very apparent. I tried so hard to cover it up, I forgot that I had worked so hard to forget about it…
Answering some questions may help to ease me. Here are my questions:
Questions:
I had a lot of issues since our last session associated with this topic. Here is a post I wrote on my blog about this. Do these symptoms concern you? What do you think about my DID suspicions written here?
Do you have other patients with this diagnosis?
Do you have hope that people with DID can be healed?
Do you believe in false memories?
Do you believe my memories are real?
How can dissociation be different than repression if dissociation leads to repressed memories?
Discuss best friend’s reaction and if I should discuss it with him at all going forward.
Afraid of anger – shaky, white vision, uncontrollable urge to get MY point across and have it agreed with. Feels like it is not ‘mine’?
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