the wrong side of the bed

Wednesday, May 18, 2005

sister christian

my sister was in town. we didn't do much, mostly hung out with my friends, but i had a good time with her. i kind of had a bit of a breakdown yesterday, but managed to calm down after a fortuitously prescheduled therapy session. now that she is gone, i feel like i might not be able to hold myself together. as soon as i get my grades turned in, it is the end of this semester and i have to start thinking about all of the things that scare the shit out of me.

i'm going to the bathroom and then getting a soda. it won't help.
1:31 PM

6 Comments:

Is therapy helpful? Having a conversation with a professionally disinterested individual doesn't sound like much relief to me. . .
Blogger jonathan, at 2:15 PM  
yeah, it is helpful. i mean, i've been going for years and i'm a shining star of mental health!
Blogger dorotha, at 2:21 PM  
Your friends will listen to you for free. Or is there all sortsa weird shit that you just dump on the therapist so your buddies don't have to hear it?
Blogger jonathan, at 2:40 PM  
what if it is about my friends? what am i supposed to do then, smart guy?

anyway, you shouldn't dump everything on your friends. it can get hard on them. i've been in situations before with friends who were really fucked up and needed more help than i could give, but they absolutely refused to go to therapy. i'm not totally screwed up, but it might begin to wear a person down to hear my self-absorbed moanings all of the time.
Blogger dorotha, at 2:44 PM  
I think the professionally disinterested person is important precisely because they are not a friend. They have no obligation to the patient (besides a professional one) and the patient has no obligation to them (besides payment). They are more objective than a friend could be, and although they do get somewhat emotionally tied up in cases, at the end of the day they go home to their own lives.

That said, I reached a point in therapy where I knew what the therapist was up to (partly because I'd had courses in therapy) and it stopped being useful to me. Which...if I ever have a crisis again...then what?
Anonymous Anonymous, at 7:12 PM  
anonymous is pretty right on. i have never had very good therapy, so often it isn't very helpful, but i do like that my therapist right now seems so well meaning. i have been seeing him since my first year in grad school, so he knows me pretty well. occassionally, but only occassionally, we make some progress. i guess the best thing about the therapy i have had since i have been in madison is that i haven't regressed to the state i was in ten years ago.

still, i wish i could beat this anxiety problem.
Blogger dorotha, at 9:06 AM  

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