Posted by noa on March 22, 2003, at 10:54:37
In reply to Re: self-injury/suicide only options??, posted by Dinah on March 22, 2003, at 9:28:02
One thought I have about that is that letting one's functioning go is a slippery slope! Keeping us going in our routines, roles, relationships, daily lives can provide stability. I guess it depends, though. I would think that sometimes, people kind of need a crisis to shake things up, but then the goals would be to get functioning again. But that would only help if the crisis really shook things up enough to lead to helpful changes. Lots of smaller crises usually doesn't have that effect.
I think looking for people's strengths and trying to bolster them probably helps most people. For myself, my depression/anxiety feeds on itself, and the longer I go letting my better functioning slip away, the harder it is to get it back, and the more hopeless I feel. Reminds me of when I was 8 years old and had one of those awful flus that they used to name for places--I think this one was labeled the "Hong Kong Flu". I was out from school for 3 weeks before I was better enough to go back. Well, come that Monday morning when I was returning, I remember crying while getting ready. I was panicked, I think, about being able to go back to my role as a student in my class, with my peer group, etc. I was simply out of practice, really, if you think about it. It was like school phobia all of a sudden. I had had a bit of separation anxiety in certain situations when I was much younger than that, but never had school phobia, but after this long absence, I was terrified. I had a vague sense of not being able to fit in again, of people not knowing me, and I think, of me not knowing myself in those roles--student, peer, etc. What ended up happening was I went for 2 days and then had a "relapse" in my illness for the rest of the week. I am positive, and I may even have had such an awareness then, that I wasn't sick with any lingering flu symptoms, but with anxiety. Those 2 days were all I could handle in readjusting to my functional life.
I guess the question of being allowed to "let go" with ones' feelings also depends on how hard it is to pull back together after letting go. For many people letting go is very risky. I think there is recent research on anger showing that letting it all out is not, as the freudian "steam heat" model used to suggest, the best way to manage anger. Not that holding it all in and seething is healthy either! But I think the idea is that letting go and getting really angry can be too agitating for mind and body.
OTOH, if one's ability to pull oneself back together, to soothe oneself, is good, then I would think letting go is less of a problem.
Given what you've described as your experiences of extreme agitation soemtimes, with risk of self injury, do you think your therapist is trying to "contain" and has concerns about letting you let go?
poster:noa
thread:211231
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20030322/msgs/211421.html