Pathwaytofree

Hi MindfulMan! :-)

Thank you for taking the time to read my post. It was long because it was stream of conscious honest thought. And thank you for that validation!! I've gotten much better at self-validation but other people validation still helps.

Fortunately, I have had very good therapists over the recent years. (And my very first one ever was amazing, but I moved away and stopped seeing him.) But the way my personality used to be, was instead of my realizing "wow this therapist sucks and should change careers before someone kills themselves over her bad therapy", I would blame myself. I guess I still do a little bit, but my current therapist had started to help me with self-empowerment and stuff like that. Just a little bit was enough to help me tap back into it, grow and trust myself. I saw quickly how it was in me all this time since I was little. It was just blocked.

I do feel that that first therapist friend I mentioned just misunderstood and misperceived me. She was protecting herself as a person who wanted to keep that solid line between friendship and therapist. I get that and I respect that. But it still hurts nonetheless. Especially since it's been almost 15 years, let it go already and see me for who I am TODAY. Plus all three of my apologies were very sincere. But maybe the amount of pain I was in back then scared her. I can understand that. She's a kind person and probably just didn't want to get sucked into my pain back then.

The current therapist friend--yeah that was a major "ouch" when she said that "depression and anxiety are the person's fault." And she majored in positive psychology. WTF. She's not a psychologist, but still. She sees clients/patients in private practice. These people can seriously negatively effect others by saying stuff like that. She's a good person but she's got issues herself. I'm not judging, just saying. I have to remind myself just because she has a degree of some sort does not make her right in what she says.

That past therapist--yeah I regret not trusting my gut all those years ago. Damn it, why did she not get how much freaking pain I was in?!?! She was so cold. That scowl nearly killed me. She was very intelligent and seemed like a good therapist but I should've gone elsewhere. Lives are at stake when dealing with depression/anxiety. I did tell my next therapist, who was much better skilled with how to help me and understand me, that I felt although she was very intelligent, she should not be given any patients with depression and anxiety. She was heartless. He said "there are good and bad therapists, like any other profession. I am sorry my profession failed you" or something to that effect. It was helpful.

My last 2 therapists (one retired, one I sort of outgrew although he helped me immensely, and now my current one) were/are all much more skilled and competent. I should've trusted my gut. But it's hard to do that when anxious/depressed. Lesson learned.

Me too, MM. A lot of my drinking was my way of self-medicating my anxiety and depression. I never wanted to drink "to party" either. I wanted to drink to ease my anxiety, or to get a buzz to overshadow my depression. Or I wanted to drink so I could fall asleep and get a break from my anxious thoughts. It was when my tolerance started to set in, that I realized I was beginning to have a problem. It makes me think of all these musicians dying from unintentional overdoses...

It sure is. :-(

Mindfulness, yoga, and meditation are helping me. I am trying to learn to use mindfulness techniques to just be the observer without judging. I just recently started yoga, and I like it. However, I have to be careful what type of yoga to do. Anything with Kundalini yoga, chakras, or weird breathing techniques that change the energy in the body, I need to stay away from.

I hated doing traditional sitting meditation, because my monkey mind felt like it was getting worse. Also I didn't want to hear an abusive person from my past in my head or see her face. So instead, I do guided meditations where I can listen to someone else's soothing voice. Or I do music meditations, since I love music. Sometimes I fall asleep listening to a music meditation, and that's okay.

Exercise helps me, too, because it helps me to focus on my body and not on my mind. I am a different person when I exercise. It had been years since I exercised, and it was frustrating as hell because I wanted to, but I couldn't muster up the motivation to. What finally got me moving, was my therapist's recommendation to wear my exercise clothes. I thought it was silly and I didn't understand why she was recommending that, if I wasn't going to exercise. But it WORKED. :-) My first movement was a yoga class, and from then I was able to keep the momentum going.

I know in my heart that my depression and anxiety are not my fault. But it still hurts to hear, especially from a positive psychology therapist friend. But it says a lot about her, now, doesn't it? And it still hurts a lot to have reminders of that previous therapist. The therapist that was the one who was able to finally break the awful, dark, incredibly painful place I was in, was kind, compassionate, understanding, yet stern/direct where needed. I wonder if he has any idea how much he helped me. He was like the parent I needed but didn't have.

Anyway yes I agree--exercise, yoga, meditation, mindfulness and stuff like that helps anxiety tremendously! Anything to get us out of our heads. Alcohol worked temporarily and it was all a lie anyways because it did more harm that good....not preaching, just typing that to remind myself. ;-)