Thought this might help more than just me

Having a very difficult time this week. So thankful for a therapist who finally gets it and knows how to talk to me. I thought I would share in case his words and perspective might help someone else too.

Me:

Every morning is worse and worse.

I can’t do this any more. Yesterday with my mom and dad was awful. I remember my best work mentor telling me years ago that people don’t commit suicide because they want to die, they commit suicide because they don’t want to live. I knew then what a true statement that was. I’ve been there before, but never like I am now.

I don’t want to be here, I don’t want to be home. I don’t want to BE.

I watched my dad lay a huge guilt trip on my mom in front of everyone yesterday at dinner. She is like a terrified little girl. From my estimate, she is operating at about an intellectual equivalence of a 3-yr-old. She said that she wanted to die, and my dad got angry at her and told her how selfish that was and did the same thing that I told you he used to do to us as kids. He told her that she wasn’t thinking about anyone else but herself. He asked her how that would make everyone else feel and did she think that’s what he wanted or what the rest of us, pointing to all of us in the room, would want, and asking how she thought that would make everyone else feel. She dropped her head, humiliated, hopeless, and utterly helpless, and started to cry again. I was so angry at him and hurt for her. Like a little child, she just wanted soothing and comforting.

That one example may explain why my thoughts about other’s motives are the way they are.

I know you are at the prison and I won’t hear from you today. I don’t know what to do. I want to disappear. I seriously can’t do this and I can’t do anything about it. I am just like my mother, only it would be okay for her to die, and it’s not for me.

Therapist:

Wow. That sounded like such a painful experience watching your dad treat your mom that way. Especially around something that hits so close to home for you.
And when you say you don’t know what to do, I see that struggle in you. You want to go away, but there are things/people that keep you here. You want to be here for them, but then it feels like that means you have to continue to embrace this overwhelming pain. Really, the key to being able to get through this in a way where you won’t feel like it’s either living and suffering or dying and having whatever consequences take place after that, is going to be the realization that those things really fall on a spectrum. Right now the Mind goes to the extreme of both sides of the spectrum’s, but really, they are spectrums. There are other options that fall in between that will likely work out better for you, but that’s what we’ll be working on. I know, that most likely you don’t believe me when I say that, but I hope that you can try to lean on that hope that there are other options that will work out better for you. That’s a big part of our initial work is exploring some of those things. But I know that doesn’t help the pain right now. Thank you for reaching out as being up there has been a pretty difficult experience for you. Your persevering through the crap 🙂 and it really is hard.
And today is a normal Private Practice day for me. I only have the prison on Mondays and Tuesdays.