Posted by mair on February 18, 2005, at 17:09:24
In reply to Re: Sense of Self Redux » mair, posted by Daisym on February 17, 2005, at 21:28:41
I decided today that what I've been putting myself through is just my own private version of hell. I lapse into thinking obsessively about what I view as massive failures, mostly centered around work. I get really stuck thinking about these things and they seem so huge that I can't talk to my T about them. So I go in and blunder through an awkward session where I talk around the things I can't talk about in detail. Then I leave her office feeling a little humiliated both by the enormity of the failures and by my difficulty discussing them with her. She pointed out to me that given the strength of my hyper-critical super ego, the stuff I'm holding back is probably pretty minor. And all these little things I haven't done would probably engender a "so what" reaction from someone else, but they just are looming so large to me now - large enough to create a huge amount of pain - large enough to make me feel thoroughly worthless and slightly suicidal, but not in a way that mobilizes me to actually get them done.
My T tried to point out to me that I need to hold onto the fact that I don't always feel as negative about myself as I do now. My response to that is that I have 2 sets of data - the negative stuff and the more positive stuff. When I'm feeling better about myself, it's because I've just sort of swept the negative stuff under the carpet, sort of like sticking your head in the sand and pretending the bad stuff isn't there. But the negative stuff is still there whether I always acknowledge it or not. When I'm feeling as I do now, it's not that I'm denying the positive stuff, it's just of so much less import than the rawer negative data.
And when you think about it, as long as I can't verbalize it, there no reason for it not to keep spinning, at least until I find a way to stick my head back into the sand.
Mair
poster:mair
thread:459478
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20050218/msgs/460079.html