Somehow in the past I have managed to travel where as at the moment I can't even manage leaving my home. When I think about travelling again I think of going back to Paris and I have all of these great memories and even the one bad memory of a strange man grabbing onto my arm wouldn't even put me off of going back there. That hardly seems scary compared to the thoughts that are put into my head from my own illness, I work myself up in a worse state then I had been in from the incident itself!
My brain is just too complex for me to think about. It is a stranger place than an ocean floor with all of the undiscovered creatures lurking around in the sands and rock. If my ocd was one of these alien like creatures then surely I wouldn't even be afraid of it or in a state of panic and tears but I cannot see my ocd. I can feel it in my head, moving around. I can 'hear' it every time it tells me to do something that I don't want to do but I do want to do and I can 'feel' it every time I have to run my hands across the stove to check that its off even though it was never used prior to the checking.
Today, I did something awful but I don't regret it. I failed to attend my treatment. I might regret it but at the moment I feel so angry inside at my new therapist. 'Treatment' has not been going well at all. 'Treatment' seems to be telling me what to say and telling me how I 'should' feel and telling me that when I enter her office I have to keep all negativity outside of the door. The world, let alone my mind is not a place of lolly pops and gumdrops and yummy vegan gummy bears. Without being able to say the negative things I am unable to fully express how I have been and currently still feeling. How can I answer truthfully to any questions asked?
I almost feel like a barbie, just without the figure and the perfect hair. I am there being controlled during a make believe game of cbt. Being discouraged of speaking to other sufferers and writing about my life with ocd. If it wasn't for the other sufferers that I speak to I would only have my husband and a few family members to speak to. It sounds pathetic and it feels pathetic and somehow in the last few months I started to feel something that I have never felt before and feeling lonely feels even more pathetic than lacking in the friendship department.
Either I am just extremely unlucky with the therapists that I have been given or I am just not ready to deal with what is on my plate. I think that at the moment I will say both and then have a think about it and speak to the doc on Friday, after my husband speaks to her first about my behaviour. He feels that I have a problem with my moods. They change without reason and they change constantly. I never noticed it before and I never noticed it the other two times it was brought up. I am too old for this. Life is passing me by and I am such a failure.
Dear Maggie,
ReplyDeleteFirst off, you are NOT a failure.
You are so not.
Just from reading your blog I KNOW that you are brave and self aware and compassionate and creative and witty and a great writer!
And you are dealing with a biological disease that kicks butt (OCD) and yet you are trying to deal with it even though it can and does kick your butt. You are NOT a failure.
Second of all, it sounds like the therapists you are getting are trying to rush you thru the conveyor belt of treatment without really caring about and getting to know YOU as an individual.
You may *not* be ready to deal with it all right now-- I feel like that half the time myself. It can be overwhelming-- very much so. I have only been seeking treatment for about a year and it is so hard.
In fact, for the first few months of my therapy, we only worked on my non-religious scrupulosity OCD. I couldn't even think about dealing with all my checking and other OCD at first.
And I'm still not fully dealing with checking. For me, checking has been the hardest aspect of OCD to deal with. I also still run my hands above the burners on the stove before bed even if the stove has not been used. It is so darn hard to resist those urges to check, isn't it? If I am going to be gone from home for a day-- I just have to do all my checks and then I run late but I still can't seem to get out of the house without doing all my checks.
On another note-- I love your pictures! Is that one of the rose window in Notre Dame?
Hang in there.
Hugs,
Elizabeth-
Thank you Elizabeth, you really are so lovely :)
ReplyDeleteI always end up feeling like a failure after this treatment. I can have a few good days of a week but coming up to and after treatment I am in a worse state then before. I just don't get how it is meant to help, maybe I am just not getting the right kind of help.
The photo is of the rose window in Notre Dame,
I also have photos of inside, a bit dark but I could post them too if you would like to see them? I wasn't sure if it would be going too far to post them and some that I had took from inside of the Louvre?
Yes, I would love to see those pictures!
ReplyDeleteI usually feel bad the day or two after therapy but it always helps me. I think I feel bad because so many of my paradigms are shifting and changing and I feel like I don't know anything anymore (at least that is where I'm at lately).