Still not The Punisher.
Had a therapist’s appointment today, so you know what this blog entry will be all about, don’t you?
The session started out normally enough. I told him about these weird shadows I have been seeing out of the corner of my eye. It has happened about a half dozen times recently… I will see a shadow, like a small wedge of darkness so total it doesn’t even look fully three dimensional, in the periphery of my vision. It startles me when it appears but when I move my eyes to look at it, it disappears.
I told my therapist about this because I thought it might be a weird brain symptom brought on my my recent decrease in Paxil dosage from 80 mg to 60 mg. But he reassured me, somewhat offhandedly I thought, that this was not a Paxil thing, and told me to go see an ophthalmologist if it continued to be a problem.
I hope it goes away on its own, honestly, because it is hella freaky and I not need hella freaky symptoms nibbling away at my already rather frayed nerves.
I have not been feeling wonderful lately. I think I have another batch of heavy catharsis to go through or something, because I feel anxious and depressed, and like there is something in me that is trying to come out. I also feel very frustrated with myself that I have not been doing any of the things I could be doing in order to impart some kind of momentum to my life. I feel tense and irritable and I keep getting the urge to smash things, throw things, do something to vent all this simmering rage.
Seems to be part of my cycle. Things build up and build up inside, and then eventually find release and for a while, I feel better.
If only they did not have to nearly drive me crazy first.
Lately, I have thinking of it like a volcano. The pressure builds underground until it forces the lava up through the volcano’s chimney and into the air to cool and become more volcano. The pressure is thus relived for a while, and the volcano itself, and the surrounding land, subsides.
Anyhow, after the eye thing, my therapist and I got to talk about my frustrations about not doing anything with my life, and he chose a kind of confrontational tack by saying “yeah, but what are you going to do? You could come here for five years and talk and not change anything. You are good at talking. ”
That kind of thing.
This upset me because to me, it sounded like he was saying that this one thing I am clinging to as my hope for better mental health, namely going to therapy, was a big waste of time and totally pointless and that maybe (this is definitely my demons talking, not him) that he didn’t even want me as a patient.
So I got pretty mad, and made it clear to him that this is not what I wanted to hear. I told him how this therapy was my only hope and if there was no point to it, there was no point to anything, really. How I felt like I had just managed to get to the point of therapy and I did not need him rushing me past it.
This seem to take him aback. I think he knew he had fucked up, basically. My anger can be pretty overwhelming in it vehemence, and I am proud that I was able to bring it up and express it and defend myself without completely losing my shit and ending up a crying confusing wreck.
So, bravo on that score. But it bugs me that it had to happen. I guess I just have to accept that even psychiatrists make mistakes and thus, may accidentally hurt me or piss me off. It was definitely the wrong thing to say to me and he covered his ass pretty quick. I guess that is all I can hope for.
And hopefully by the time my next appointment comes around, I will have forgotten all this and forgiven him and be able to go back to relaxing into the proper therapeutic mode of openness and honesty.
But today, we hit a big black rock that came out of nowhere, and it will take time for me to get over that.
It sucks to be this sensitive sometimes. If only I was self-righteous enough not to care how difficult I am.