Posted by fallsfall on June 1, 2003, at 21:54:26
I am overly dependent on my therapist. Dependency became the focus of therapy about 3 months ago when I did a bad thing. She was justifiably angry and decided that it was time to tackle the dependency issue. We have determined that I figure out what my self worth is, but any negative input from her (or any input that I perceive as negative) overrules my idea of that part of my self worth. So she has a negative influence, but not a positive influence. I've been doing some reading on self worth and I know that she shouldn't be getting an inordinate amount of say, but I don't know how to do it yet. This is what I've been working on.
I have been diagnosed with Major Depression (severe) and Borderline Personality Disorder. Part of BPD is a fear of abandonment ("Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment" or something like that). This certainly applies to me.
So this brings me to the real dilemma: is it time to change therapists? I have such mixed feelings about this.
The last 3 months have been incredibly painful. The last 18 months I have been sensing discontent from her (mainly boredom). For the most part, I've been able to work despite those vibes from her, but I'm sure that it has impacted our progress. If I left her, then my dependency would be broken - one might hope that I wouldn't repeat this with the next therapist (particularly if they know about the problem I have now).
But she is so central to my life - she controls my self worth. I have seen her for almost 8 1/2 years. That is a large chunk of my life. This fear of abandonment is more accurately called terror. I feel as if I will literally cease to exist without her.
8 1/2 years ago I entered therapy (in part because I was overly dependent on my best friend). 6 months later I was hospitalized and stopped working (I am a software engineer). It took 4 years for me to get back to work (I did some volunteering before that to ease into things). I worked successfully (but not completely free of depression) for 2 years. Then there were 3 significant stressors that hit at the same time and I crashed again. I stopped working again. I was hospitalized for a second time 6 months later. For most of the last year and a half I have been unable to do anything. For a significant period of time I wasn't eating or showering enough. I haven't cleaned my house in 18 months. I am doing laundry and grocery shopping once a month instead of once a week. All of the friends that I have have mental illnesses (except one person who I have just started dating - they took the initiative to get the relationship going). 3 months ago I started some promising drugs, but I haven't had a chance to see what they can do because of this turmoil.
I guess the most convincing argument is that when I think of staying with her I feel hopeless, and when I think of leaving I have hope.
I don't know how I would tell her, or how I would live through it. Therapy is on Tuesday.
Thanks for helping me think this through.
poster:fallsfall
thread:230679
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20030529/msgs/230679.html