Tomorrow I start with a new therapist. I know it's necessary if I want to move forward. It's just...I've been through so many therapists over the years and never gotten a significant return on investment. Maybe I wasn't trying enough. Maybe they were not the right ones for me. Maybe I'm looking for someone with the Book of Answers who will tell me what the heck is really wrong with me and exactly how to fix it. Maybe I'm afraid to open up to any of them because more than anything I'm afraid of being hospitalized.
I finally got a copy of Feeling Good by David D. Burns, M.D. Several of my prior therapists have suggested it to me, and I've even borrowed it from the library, but never read more than a few pages before giving up. The voices that say it's impossible for me to get better took over and I forgot about the book for several years.
I've worked my way through the first two chapters. So far, it seems to be reasonable. It gives some background into the premises of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), nothing that I haven't heard before, but I'm understanding it a bit better reading it than hearing it from someone I don't fully trust. Not that I have any reason to believe this doctor, but the book has been around for ages and is still in use, so there may be something to it.
A list of Cognative distortions reads like a checklist of my life. I do all of these things. I know that I do. And I know that they are distortions. What I don't know is how to stop. It irritates me so much when a therapist says something like, "keep track of your negative thoughts as they happen and think if they fall into one of those categories." It's honestly not like these thoughts are at the front of my mind. It's part of the stream of consciousness that runs in the background all the time. I'm not aware that my thoughts are negative until someone else points them out.
We'll see what happens tomorrow. Maybe. I want to get better.
No comments:
Post a Comment