Psychology Session - 01/07/13

We spent quite a bit of time talking about how I feel about my brother. He asked me if there was anything I wanted to make sure we talked about and I said it was probably stupid but I told him what had happened and how I felt about him not contacting me on my birthday. I explained to him how although I was upset about it all I actually didn't really want him to contact me as then it would validate my feelings of being mad/pissed off with him.

He linked it to what I had told him a few weeks back how I always felt that he was seen as the golden boy and I was compared to him quite a bit. My brother is about to break up with his partner, I was telling the psychologist how it has always been a when it happens not if it happens. They don't have a great relationship and I think they have differing views on how to raise the children. He never gets up with them in the morning so it means she is always knackered as she is getting up each morning at 05.30am, where he is up until the early hours smoking weed and drinking every night. I told the psychologist this and he said he wondered if my brother was depressed as that was not something a normal person would do. I said he had always been like that so I didn't think that he was. But, I kind of got the impression the psychologist was trying to justify it in someway. Who knows. Maybe he knows something I don't? Anyway, he wondered if that now my brother was going through a break up that he was now not seen so much as the golden child and if in some ways I was relishing in it. I don't think he used those exact words, but I think it was his drift. I said I had not really thought about it and I doubted that that was the case anyway.

He pointed out that I looked really uncomfortable. I said I had had last Tuesday to feel sorry for myself and then since then I have tried not to think about it because when I do I feel shit. Yeah, so I have been avoiding it, like everything I find tough.

We spent about 45 minutes talking about it, I can't really remember what we said about it really.

We then moved on to uni stuff again. He said to me that he wasn't sure about my commitment to going back and he got the impression that I wanted him to make the decision for me. I don't think I do. Maybe there is some of it there in that if someone else makes the decision for me I can externalise it all. In that if it doesn't work out for me in that I go back and I can't cope then I can feel that someone else has that responsibility. Also if they decide that I can't go back then it is someone else's responsibility, not mine. He said he wasn't sure if it was what I wanted to do and that I seem blase about it. I explained to him that it is what I want to do but I am really scared and worried about it, that I won't be able to cope and I am going to mess it up and fail. So in not fully committing myself I can kind of avoid that. He said it was a very glass half empty approach. Which I suppose it kind of is. But it is my way of dealing with it to avoid getting hurt or avoiding the pain and anguish I will feel if things go wrong. I suppose it's the schema of failure going in to overdrive again.

He has asked me to write a pros and cons list, short and long term for going back to uni to do my course. So I need to do that. I think it's what I want to do. I am almost sure of it. But then am I thinking/feeling that because I feel if I don't do it it will just be another thing to add to my list of things that I have failed at (failure schema again!!!!).

I didn't really get an awful lot out of the session. He said that as well. He was the one who pointed it out. And I was quite honest with him and said how I was feeling worse at the end of it than I was when I came in. Then yesterday I was feeling shit all day. I didn't want another feeling sorry for myself day so I went for quite a long drive into the countryside. I was going to go for a walk but then it started to throw it down with rain and I was quite cold so I just went up to the lake and sat and had my lunch there before driving home. Then I really hammered it in the gym in the evening to get some frustrations out.

So how have things been in this last week? Well, Tuesday I did spend all day feeling very sorry for myself and not leaving the flat. I self harmed as well by swallowing. I couldn't tell him that though. So he was going on about how I am getting to master this not self harming all I did was sit there and feel awful that I wasn't. But it had been a while before that though since I last did it. He asked how I felt about not self harming. He said I should feel happy and proud of myself. I just said that I had gone periods of time before without self harming, sometimes months, but it is always something I come back to so I don't really feel anything when I don't do it. I don't feel I could tell him about the self harm, a couple of reasons really, the first being that he is the one who is going to be telling uni whether or not he feels I am ready to be going back. I don't think he would be saying I am ready if he knew I was what they class as seriously self harming. Another reason is because I don't know if they would be informing my parents if I tell them I have self harmed seriously. I can't take those risks. I can't! I know if I am not being honest it is not going to help me as much, but it is not something I feel I can risk at the moment. I see my CPN in just over a week so I will be asking her what the exact circumstances are of informing other people are, as at the moment for me it is a grey area.

I know they need to know if it is something I am doing still. So me lying about it isn't really helping anyone. But, if I am honest, it could actually have a negative impact on me.

A part from Tuesday where I felt quite shit I have made a real big effort to not let that bring me back under. I am aware of what the psychologist was saying the week before how something small could have an impact on me in the way in which I approach it. I don't know if steaming through, avoiding things is the best way to deal with it, but it is kind of working for me at the moment. I said while I am feeling good I do want to avoid things as I don't want bringing down. So we talked more about avoiding things and he said how sometimes it can be healthy but not all the time. In my case probably not healthy.

But, a part from Tuesday. I think this week has been ok. I have been quite busy and I have done a lot of exercise. I had a shit day yesterday. And today has been a nothing day as I have come down with a cold so I have allowed myself to have a PJ and TV day, but tomorrow, illness or not I am not letting my body give up on me and I am going to the gym and doing a class. Keep busy and avoid anything that makes me feel bad. Probably not the healthiest way to go about things, but at the moment it is working for me.