Therapy, Emotional Confusion, Processing, Feeling Lost

WARNING! Foul language ahead!

I actually wrote this post a week ago, but I haven’t gotten around to uploading it since I’ve been busy with my return to work after my sick leave.

The past two weeks of group therapy has been very revealing to me and left me feeling so mixed inside. Mixed because of my new understanding of what it means to have self compassion, mixed because I learned that my feelings won’t go away even after I accept them and choose to do what’s right for me, and mixed because I always thought that me caring so much was party of my personality and not a trauma response. I feel so confused as though I don’t know who I am and I don’t know what to identify with. I’m hurting because of what I spoke about in my last post, but I’m also hurting because I don’t understand if that hurt is real, an overreaction, or just all of my confusion. All the therapists in group would tell me “your feelings are valid” in response to me not knowing if the hurt is real, but honestly, it doesn’t make me feel any better.

I thought that self compassion meant I shouldn’t be mad at myself or hard on myself if I don’t achieve a certain expectation I set, if I make a mistake, if something goes wrong in my life, if someone hurts me, to allow myself to stay in bed all day if I’m depressed, etc. I thought it meant that if I’m brought to tears by something or someone, that I shouldn’t blame myself for it and that I should be more understanding towards myself if I were to become depressed, anxious, or anything else that would cause me to respond in an unhealthy manner; to be gentle with myself. What I learned is that self-compassion means to do what is best for me even if it’s difficult and to understand that I will still feel all of the emotional pain from before making that decision because doing what’s good for me doesn’t mean it won’t hurt.

When I was texting with a friend about this, I told him, “I need someone to explain to me what to do with my feelings ?“. He said “You feel them! lol”. Frustrated about my current situation, I replied to him “Where the fuck do you out them!? To stop feeling them? I thought my feelings would go away once I felt them? Like I’m done feeling them now.” He told me, “No lol.”, and I asked him, “Why no!? And why do you have to laugh when you say that!?”. He replied “Nope they stay. Because I know you rolled your eyes lol”. Thought to self…..I feel exposed ?,  and of course my reaction was ” Fuuuuck. Like WTF. I don’t fucking like this.”

I shared this interaction with my one-on-one therapist and she reconfirmed what my friend told me, and she further explained that she believes I do everything that I do to protect myself (even when I’m trying to help other people) because I feel so unsafe in the world; I’m trying to protect myself from the pain I might feel by seeing them in pain; I want to get rid of all of the pain and not feel it. “Is she right?”, I thought to myself. I was confounded about this because then I wondered “If she’s right, am I acting selfishly? Am I really not a good person? Is this something else that I’m doing wrong now?”, and now, because I’ve been made aware of this disconnect between what’s happening inside of me and what I’m presenting externally, all I can wonder is “Do people really think I’m an asshole whenever I think I’m trying to help or show support?”. This hurts so much, I just want to isolate myself again and stop interacting with everyone. I feel like I’ll never do or say the right thing with other people.

I wish people could understand how much is going on inside my head all the time. Six months into DBT group therapy and my one-on-one is only now telling me that she thinks she understands the way I think (at least that makes one of us). I’m so black and white, I’m so literal and concrete, I struggle with the grey and my brain is also continually working in the “should” (I should be this way, I should do this or I’ll be a bad person if I don’t, etc) is what she tells me, and because of this, I’m always reacting, always on the defence and always scanning for what can hurt me so I can protect myself from the pain. This is why she doesn’t want to give me rules to follow during my treatment process, since I’m always looking for instructions and rules so I can stay in the black and white because that’s so easy for me to understand. I become obsessed with following rules because those are my guidelines and I believe if I follow them, I’ll be “safe” and “good”; the unknown terrifies me because I don’t know how to protect myself in the world, with other people, and against my own judgement of myself.

So, my self-compassion the past two weeks has been to actually continue what I’d typically do in daily life; continuing with exercise, engaging with friends and family, running errands, cleaning my home, eating, and not fall into the behaviour that I’d typically fall into, such as isolation and rumination. Of course this has now become easy for me to do (even if I’m still hurting) because of how clearly the concept was explained to me. I’ve done it again, I’ve gone ahead and made it black and white in my head and I can operate in a literal and concrete manner, exactly what I’m not supposed to be doing. I’m already annoyed and frustrated with myself.

Jen