I saw my therapist yesterday and it turned out to be a very difficult session. I’m not used to having a therapist who pokes and prods and takes an interest in my mental health- my previous therapists were crap and rarely cared about my progress (this will be the topic of a later post, detailing the potential damage psychotherapists can cause). So when Dr. J started digging into the root of my depression, I was not ready for the outcome…
The first part of the session was spent talking about various aspects of the mental health world- in a previous session I had told Dr. J that I was writing a blog about my struggles with mental health, so he was updating me on various topics and studies. This lasted for a few minutes, until the conversation began turning towards my life. We started talking about how my week went and the fact that I’m still isolating. However, that was not my main concern, so I shifted the conversation towards the subject of mixed episodes. Dr. J asked me a few questions about my episodes and we began discussing how my emotional state has changed over the last few years (a lot of it due to my drug use. This will be the topic of a future post). It was around this point that I began to fall apart. The more Dr. J dug into my mental state, the more I started to loose control of my mind. I don’t know what the breaking point was, but something he his said sent me spinning.
The walls started closing in and I felt myself shrinking into my chair. A wave of darkness washed over me and the only thing that I could think of was, get me the hell out of here! I could see Dr. J sitting across from me, trying to engage me in discussion, but my mind had other plans. I could barely move, I could barely think and the walls continued to close in. The depression was growing and I couldn’t fight it; instead I spent all of my energy trying to stop myself from crying (I do cry, however, it embarrasses me to cry in front of other people, shit it embarrasses me to just be in the presence of other people). What the fuck was I going to do? How the hell did this depression start? Why am I acting like this? Why am I being tortured by my mind? I hate myself! I hate myself! I hate myself! The mental screaming only made my situation worse, as the darkness began to tighten its grip. I still could barely understand Dr. J and although I wanted to speak up, my mind was occupied. As I stated in my title, the depression had hit me like a ton of bricks.
Eventually the depression began to weaken, and I was able to regain control of my mind (I know this was a quick leap from deep depression to stability, but I didn’t want to ramble on and on about my depressive state. That could have taken up hundreds and hundreds of words). I could finally hear Dr. J clearly and we began discussing what I had felt. He determined that a lot of my episodes are situational, as exemplified by the episode I had just experienced. The session ended a few minutes later and I was happy to leave (well happy that I had survived the session). By the time I made it home, I was exhausted. Although I wasn’t completely depressed I was lethargic, un-motivated and stressed.
End-post questions:
Have you ever experienced an episode during a therapy session? If so, would you be willing to share.
How do you keep your therapy sessions on topic? Sometimes I struggle with going on random tangents that take away from my session time. Does anyone else struggle with this?
Are your episodes situational? Do events, memories or actions cause an episode to start?
I hope you are all having a great weekend.
Dave.
I saw my therapist yesterday and it turned out to be a very difficult session. I’m not used to having a therapist who pokes and prods and takes an interest in my mental health- my previous therapists were crap and rarely cared about my progress (this will be the topic of a later post, detailing the potential damage psychotherapists can cause). So when Dr. J started digging into the root of my depression, I was not ready for the outcome…
The first part of the session was spent talking about various aspects of the mental health world- in a previous session I had told Dr. J that I was writing a blog about my struggles with mental health, so he was updating me on various topics and studies. This lasted for a few minutes, until the conversation began turning towards my life. We started talking about how my week went and the fact that I’m still isolating. However, that was not my main concern, so I shifted the conversation towards the subject of mixed episodes. Dr. J asked me a few questions about my episodes and we began discussing how my emotional state has changed over the last few years (a lot of it due to my drug use. This will be the topic of a future post). It was around this point that I began to fall apart. The more Dr. J dug into my mental state, the more I started to loose control of my mind. I don’t know what the breaking point was, but something he his said sent me spinning.
The walls started closing in and I felt myself shrinking into my chair. A wave of darkness washed over me and the only thing that I could think of was, get me the hell out of here! I could see Dr. J sitting across from me, trying to engage me in discussion, but my mind had other plans. I could barely move, I could barely think and the walls continued to close in. The depression was growing and I couldn’t fight it; instead I spent all of my energy trying to stop myself from crying (I do cry, however, it embarrasses me to cry in front of other people, shit it embarrasses me to just be in the presence of other people). What the fuck was I going to do? How the hell did this depression start? Why am I acting like this? Why am I being tortured by my mind? I hate myself! I hate myself! I hate myself! The mental screaming only made my situation worse, as the darkness began to tighten its grip. I still could barely understand Dr. J and although I wanted to speak up, my mind was occupied. As I stated in my title, the depression had hit me like a ton of bricks.
Eventually the depression began to weaken, and I was able to regain control of my mind (I know this was a quick leap from deep depression to stability, but I didn’t want to ramble on and on about my depressive state. That could have taken up hundreds and hundreds of words). I could finally hear Dr. J clearly and we began discussing what I had felt. He determined that a lot of my episodes are situational, as exemplified by the episode I had just experienced. The session ended a few minutes later and I was happy to leave (well happy that I had survived the session). By the time I made it home, I was exhausted. Although I wasn’t completely depressed I was lethargic, un-motivated and stressed.
End-post questions:
Have you ever experienced an episode during a therapy session? If so, would you be willing to share.
How do you keep your therapy sessions on topic? Sometimes I struggle with going on random tangents that take away from my session time. Does anyone else struggle with this?
Are your episodes situational? Do events, memories or actions cause an episode to start?
I hope you are all having a great weekend.
Dave.