Newly not-diagnosed.

[jamieP]

Hi Everyone

I'm new here, but ya'all came highly recommended by the fine people at ACOA , who suggested that this message board might be more appropriate for me.

I come from being the only child of severely alcoholic father who was very physically abusive to my mother. My mother retaliated nightly with threats of killing him with a butcher knife - that usually became my cue from the age of 5or 6 to 15 or so, to run from my bedroom and break the fight up.

My father also once sexually abused me at the age of 13 when my mother forced me to sleep with him so that she could have my bed during one their heated fights.

I'm not certain exactly what I am looking for, a better understanding of myself, some support, someone who understands some feedback on my current therapy...who knows. I feel so alone and not understood by anyone.

This past summer I was diagnosed by my GP with a serious depressive disorder. She suggested that I take a 4 month leave from work and she started me on effexor and then after several weeks moved me to celexa. After weeks and weeks of trying to find a psychiatrist, then a therapist who was accepting new clients, I finally found one and began seeing him in late summer. The celexa seemed to have brought me some peace from the anger, shame and uncontrollable emotions that had come on earlier in the summer so I returned to work while beginning my therapy.

My therapist and i have now met approx 12 times and this past week i started to feel coming on once again the shame, guilt, pain, anxiety, ANGER and panic that had forced me from work at the beginning of the summer. But now if feels hugely exaggerated. I can seem to make it stop. I actually had to leave work in tears last week and since then i continually break into tears and absolute RAGE. I've been pacing the floors, and alternating between crying and screaming.

Here is the practical problem, at work last week I was back to taking every comment as a criticism, feeling jealosy at the success of my colleagues and feeling totally incapableof performing my job and filled with shame and guilt for all of it. And, it just paralyzes me til i break down crying in frustration and panic. I know they can all see my anger and pain, I am aware o0f it....but it feels uncontrollable. To make matters worse, my job is a very public relations oriented one that requires constant contact with the public/donors etc and I panic now whenever I think about having to meet with them, and over reacting to anything they might say or do. I feel like they can see right through me and see all my shame and disgust with myself.

My therapist seems to give me very little guidance or suggestions, as though he wants me to make the decisions. He also gives me very little feedback to the things I discuss in our sessions even during the last two sessions when I feel completely apart emotionally on his floor sobbing and screaming in anger.

I dont know what to do? I am sooo afraid of losing my job, angering my colleagues, killing my entire career! Does anyone have any comments on how long this lasts?...on how to control it?

Please help me with your thoughts?

Thanks

jamieP

Hello jamieP,

I've been through a lot of what you are describing and there is a lot of hope. It's a process. If your therapist doesn't specialize in trauma he may not understand what you are experiencing. I know I never really found one who understood me. I made it through though without help and you'll make it too.

The shame attacks are very hard to cope with. I have them every so often now and it's tough. It's hard to pull yourself out of them.

The pacing and strong emotions happened to me when I had a repressed memory trying to find it's way to the surface. Sometimes it's what we can't remember that is harming us the most. I too was the peace keeper between my mother and father. I watched many fights as a young child. I would always have my plan on how I would jump in a protect my mother. It ran my life. I couldn't go out or take a bath or anything because I felt I had to sit on the couch and just be there in case I had to save my mom's life. Like I could have done anything!!

The best thing you can do right now is keep posting here and get it out. You'll find you are not as different as you feel. When something starts coming up or if you have a shame attack you can't work through come post about it. Getting it out is sometimes half the battle.

I'm so glad you're here.

Hugs,
MG

Oh and one more thing...

The emotions we feel are "feeling memories" We get the shame and anger that seems to come out of nowhere. We then usually project it onto a current circumstance when it really doesn't belong there. We have the emotion memory without the mental memory. I think that's because it's much harder to block out an emotion than it is to block out a mental memory. That's why this can be so confusing and hard to deal with.

When you start feeling all of the emotions try to separate them from your current circumstances. They really don't have much to do with what is happening in the present time. Try to search back to when you first felt these emotions and connect them to a memory.

Hugs,
MG

[SkyIsFalling42]

JamieP
Sending you hugs and a warm welcome here. I too have been struggling through many of the things that you are. And the tears, oh they seem as though they may never stop. But my friend they will slow. Please remember that you are not alone any longer..we understand here. And keep posting and reading..this place is a gold mine!!