Across and Inside my Universe

I Herd You

I went to what I thought was a support group that my psychiatrist runs, for adults with AD(H)D.   It turned out to be group therapy.

She had an agenda, that she guided and directed the group through and towards.  She lectured from time to time; she drew conclusions and presented them as "the" way to feel & think about things.

In some ways, she was as indelicate as a bull in a china shop; however, there was also a sharp mind behind the questions, conclusions, directing.  She knew what she wanted us to think, and she took us there, by leading, pretending to guide, snapping at our heels like a sheepdog if we weren't quite drinking the Koolaid she was dispensing, by running us into the pen she had decided was where we needed to be.

There wasn't much support, and what support she gave to others in the group eventually morphed into her adapting what they'd said, into her agenda for where she wanted things to go.

Now, before this group session I'd had an appointment with her, which went fine, since we'd made some things clear last time.  Such as the notion that I am my own person, in my own life, and I am the best one to decide what works for me, and not her.

That obviously applies to anything, but when you go to a group thing like this you try to leave yourself open to learning something, gaining some support, or insight, or something . . . by the time you realize there's a sheepdog at your heels, you've gone a ways down a path that may not be for your good.  You do your best to keep from bursting into tears through the rest of the appointment, to keep from going where it is that the sheepdog is pushing you, but you are already falling down that mountain.

So there's a knife in my heart, and you'd think it'd be relatively easy to pull it out by discounting the source; obviously she's not a sensitive nor observant nor supportive nor respectful therapist.  Why would one give much weight to what she wants, what she says?

It's not that simple, however.  I wish it was.  See, the things I thought and felt, the places I went to, the conclusions I found, well, there's a train of thought and feeling that I had during this process.  Both she and the group were stimuli in that process, but I can still follow the path in my mind and heart that led me to a really bad place.

I am having difficulty discounting that, erasing it, setting it aside, or whatever.  I can't un-think how I got there.

I feel it's a therapist's professional responsibility to not command the direction of things, to not make conclusions AND present them as what IS, to not herd you towards a prticular destination.

A good therapist, even if they had a particular destination in mind for you, even a general one, that they felt was healthier for you, they would discuss things, perhaps point out paths you might not have considered, discuss how you feel about them, objectively weigh the pros and cons, but they'd never take the reins and grab you and pull or shove you down a path of their choosing.  That's part of what I mean by herding.

I feel like a therapist should respect the vulnerability of the patient(s) and use care and concern, among other things, when working with them.

To not just willy nilly, but purposefully, push patients down a path that they don't know where it's going, and by the time they have some idea they are so distressed that just about anything at that point will settle in and try to take root . . .that is bad therapy, at the least.

Of course, I'm an adult and not just turning myself over to go wherever she wants, but I didn't realize until after this happened, how vulnerable going to something like this makes you, even if you are nervous, scared, and wary.  I had made a decision some time ago to try to learn what I could from whatever the source, sometimes having to set aside my feelings about the source and just consider the infomation.  This, too, made me vulnerable, besides all my other psychological/emotional issues.

I ended up in a very bad place.  Much of that is me, but the therapy itself and the manner of it, is also a big factor.

I'm starting to think, now, that what she said in our amicable appointment a month ago, that whatever she says, it's my choice what I decide is useful for me, is partially an excuse for her brash, forceful "therapeutic" manner.  That she can excuse quite a  few things by saying or thinking that the patient can chuck it all out, if he/she wants. 

If this is so, then she's at the least rather irresponsible.  The people who go to see a psychiatrist are often vulnerable in a variety of ways, and many are not equipped to fend off or sort through her forceful assertions, her "therapy" if you will.

So I think that her expecting her patients to be confident enough and self-aware enough to discount what she says if it's not best for them is disingenuous at the least, irresponsible and harmful at worst.

My Mother Lives In Her Own Reality

My mother posted on Facebook, "My grandchildren are bright, brilliant, and they take after their grandmother."

GAG.

This is the same woman who hit me on a regular basis as a teenager.

This is the same woman who thinks she did a good job counteracting bullying when we were kids.  The subject of bullying came up recently when we were down there, and she said, "When (my sister) was in junior high, there was one time (my sister) was being bullied and I nipped that in the bud!"

She said this like she took care of it ALL.  HEL-lo!  Um, Mom, we younger three kids of the 6 kids were bullied mercilessly for over a decade, EACH!  You think you did GOOD?  You don't even KNOW what was going on!

And, I think she's forgetting the time I and my younger brother were sort of kidnapped; I very fuzzily remember that I think that was one thing she found out about, and my parents talked to one of the teens involved (just one?  why not both?).

She doesn't know I was beat up, several times, and THAT's why my glasses were broken; it wasn't because I slipped and fell in the snow . . . she doesn't know I was whipped with a jumprope with all those sliding plastic thingies on it, and that the pain from that was like a hundred stinging bees . . . and so much other crap.

CLUELESS.  Although she shouldn't be about the hitting thing, but then again at the time she saw nothing wrong with it; why would she now?  Then again, each of us kids holds a part in the fact that she's clueless; our relationship may not have been good enough then for us to want her to know?  But when older, we could have told her . . . I dunno that the relationship has EVER been good enough to tell her, though . . .

UGH ugh UGH.  Keeping my mouth shut when she exhibits her pride in her mothering skills, or anything else I've mentioned, is both hard and easy.  Hard because . . . I'd so love to verbally slap her in the face with reality.  (Hmm, the violent metaphor there, is probably not too hard to figure out why.)  Easy, because . . . she has no idea we look down on her for stuff, that these things happened (or that they were wrong), and we do, and she looks the fool to those of us who know . . .

It's sad, really, that she is so . . . out of touch.  Sad and pathetic . . . although I remember the raging mother coming after me physically and cornering me before whaling on me . . . and then I stop feeling sorry for her.

I dunno.  Empathy is good, but . . . when she throws this stuff in MY face, empathy is the furthest thing from my mind . . .

This whole situation reminds me of something one of the Mythbusters says, "I reject your reality and substitute my own!"  The difference here being that she either doesn't know she's doing it, or any glimmers of what reality is are too painful for her to face, so she lives in a constructed shell of glossed over (maybe painted over) memories.

"Take the Money and Run"

This newish TV show is interesting . . . I'm finding tonight's episode much more interesting than that parts of the premier episode, but maybe it's because the two gay mens' reactions to lockup (cement block walls, no windows etc.) is so different. I'm not enjoying watching distress, but they DId know what they were signing up for. What I find interesting is what's going on with them, psychologically.

During the first hour they had to hide the briefcase full of $100k, the stuff they did to decoy the cops' later investigations, some of it was quite clever, one thing I thought, oh there's no way that's going to fool the cops, but it is! And stuff.

The one gay partner thought his partner, the opera singer, wouldn't handle lockup very well, being claustrophobic and all. Part of me wonders if they put that on their application for the show, to make him seem more vulnerable to the cops . . . because this opera singer guy is making ME think sometimes that he's not doing so good, and then later, when he reveals to the camera for the show that won't get shown to the cops, that he's playing them, well, he's an awfully good actor! Then again, opera singers act . . . have the cops forgotten this? One is on to him a little the other isn't, but during one bold-faced lie to the male interrogator the cop responds with, "That's the most honest answer I've heard in 20 hours! If it's a lie, it's a damn good one!"

That's the first point I thought, either the cop is an idiot, the guy is a superb actor, OR the cop thinks it's a lie but doesn't want the "perp" to know he knows it . . . Plus, nothing like a little flattery to make the guy think he's getting away with it, hoping he'll get overconfident. . .

I still have the last 5-10 mins of the show to go, so I don't know who's going to win the $100k, cops or the gay couple, but I suspect it's the latter. Just not enough time for the cops to suss out what happened, with the dodges and decoys the two men put in place.

The show also has the men describe what's going on with them psychologically/emotionally as it shows them pacing their cells, and it's very interesting. I imagine for some people, there comes a point where they want out so bad they give up the money's location in order to get out a day or half a day sooner.

I don't know if it's psychologically such a good idea to put yourself through the traumatizing experience of arrest, detention, interrogation, but then they don't have to sign up for the show, either. And of course, it's not an arrest that will be on your record because it's not a real arrest. It just feels all TOO real once they're in there, though, much more so than they could have imagined.

It's also interesting to see the psychological/manipulation techniques the cops use as they interrogate the "perps". The female interrogator actually got to feeling really guilty after her first interview with the opera singer.