Monthly Livestream Happening Now!!
Added 2021-03-19 19:52:55 +0000 UTCCome hangout as I answer your monthly questions! We have 35 total questions to get through so we will be here for at least 3 hours!! xoxo
Comments
Q1: 10.47 How you can tell if you have a blunted affect from medication or from depression? How do you deal with this? Q2: 18.37 My question for this month relates to my current therapist. I chose him because he specialises in psycho-sexual therapy, and something he said recently offended me. I mentioned that I was annoyed when a woman who I'd been speaking to on Bumble blocked been messaging a lot on the app, so I me after one phone call. We spoke for 45 minutes. She said that she'd like to speak again, but then blocked me without explanation. My therapist asked for more details on the conversation. When I said that she was very talkative whereas I was reserved, he said that this might imply that I have something to hide from her. He asked me a series of questions on the lines of whether more men than women commit genocide, rape, child abuse, adultery, etc. We all know that the answers to these questions are "yes" but this made me feel terrible about myself. I find dating very hard as it is, and I am not confident at all. If I need to prove to everyone that I am not a violent man, that makes me feel even less confident. My therapist suggested that being quiet might make potential partners assume the worst. Is this a realistic and helpful piece of advice? Q3: 27.21 In your experience treating eating disorders over the years, is it true 100% recovery is possible for an individual with an AN-R diagnosis (or any ED diagnosis)? Or is “remission” a more accurate term? Can you really recover (no thoughts that are intrusive, any and all food is fine, no thoughts of how it has to be done, no dysmorphia, like everyone gone) from an ED or do they just go into remission? Q4: 35.15 My question is can a person have narcissistic traits but not be a narcissist? Can somebody have traits similar to a mental health diagnosis but not have it? Q5: 42.30 I guess what I'm trying to ask is how do I let my therapist know that I'm struggling with a lot of things and not end up getting committed? Q6: 49.00 I know we shouldn’t compare our lives to others and I know I’m doing the best I can given everything going on, but I can’t help but feel a sense of jealousy watching my friends accomplish all these things. I guess my question is, how do you stop all the negative feelings that come up when seeing your friends doing all these fantastic things while you’re just struggling to survive as it is, while still also being supportive to them? Q7: 55.50 I’m having the hardest time cultivating a vision for the future. It seems like weekly my inspirations change. I figure out what I want and get excited, then find one minor flaw in that plan in my head and start over. Yay anxiety! Then it turns into a vicious shame cycle. I start to think about how my mom having me was not planned and how it basically ruined her college career. I’m the same age as she was then and I want to be able to separate myself from her but then thoughts about my future change so frequently I can’t seem to find stability. What sort of advice do you have for someone like me trying to find their way in life? How can I find authenticity in myself and use it to thrive? Q8: 1.03.47 I have a history of anorexia for which I was treated in a partial hospitalization program for several months about six years ago. My weight and eating habits were okay for a while, but due to an accident I was unable to exercise for almost a year. I gained weight during that time and have continued to gain weight over the last several years to the point that I am now overweight and need to lose quite a bit to get back to being a healthy weight. Essentially, I've swung to the other extreme. I haven't been able to get started on exercising or eating better because I am terrified of falling back into old patterns. I don't know how to move forward. How do I get over this fear and allow myself to lose weight in a healthy way? It just doesn't feel possible. I'm also trans and recently started on testosterone. My body is changing in ways I'm excited about, but I feel like it's also contributing to poor body image and wanting to restrict again. Q9: 1.13.25 I described to you that in a session with my therapist I became really confused about if what she thought I was trying to say, was what I was trying to say. Meaning, I became overwhelmed and suddenly it was as if I lost the ability to separate what I was thinking, and doing and what SHE thought I was doing. like, am I me, or am I what she sees and believes, I'm just wondering if what happened is a part of dissociation? In the session with my therapist I was in my head one moment, and the next moment I mixed together her and my own reality and didn't know that my intention was not what she thought it was. I can talk to people but I don’t know how to communicate in a normal way when I’m like this, just felt completely disoriented and my body language felt odd.. stiff, staring, confused. Is this dissociation? Q10: 1.21.45 Why do some parents hurt/not love only certain children? How can you abuse and not show any affection to one child but be a good parent to the rest of your children? Is it self restraint or am I the problem?. Q11: 1.28.29 Is there something like long term anorexia? Where thoughts of food and losing weight are in someone's mind over a long time but they stay at a constant low weight without losing any more weight? Like controlled anorexia? Q12: 1.34.12 How do you find the motivation to get your eating disorder under control when you literally do not care about the consequences... when the pros outweigh the cons and you can’t see a point of fighting it because you literally can’t see your future being worth it. Q13: 1.37.18 I'm supposed to be taking my driving test on Monday and I am totally freaking out about it. Could you give me any advice on how to mentally prepare myself? Q14: 1.41.40 Whenever I see or hear how friends or family members or even people unknown to me get treated unfairly, I am overwhelmed by a big wave of sadness, but not sad sadness more like a helplessness or powerlessness (if that's even a real word?!), followed by frustration because there's NOTHING I can do to end this and I don't understand how people can be so rude, ignorant, etc. towards each other. Also, I lack people skills, so while my friends are there to support me, I cannot return the favor which drives the frustration further. I'm not sure if it qualifies as being an "empath", especially since I am not an emotional type of person except in such situations. Why can I feel this sadness for others but not myself? And how do I get through these situations without taking all the negativity with me? (I tried emotion charts but I don't know, I get "angry/happy/sad" but the rest just seems like words without a meaning behind them to me) Q15: 1.46.33 Whenever people ask how they can support me, I have no idea what to say and I go into a shame spiral because I feel like I’m being dramatic. To avoid this, I don’t often let people other than my therapist know when I’m struggling. I even downplay it or don’t tell the whole story with her. When I start to talk about what’s bothering me, I have a hard time finding the words because it isn’t just one thing or a recent event and since I can’t put my finger on it, I feel like I shouldn’t be struggling. Or, in the case of therapy, I totally freeze and can’t think of anything that happened during the week or anything I had thought of or written down and I get so frustrated with myself. I think there’s part of me that’s afraid if I tell her I’m still anxious and can’t focus, she’ll get mad. My logical brain knows that’s not true though. How do I begin to ask friends for help and support and wtf do I even say when they ask how they can support me? That damn shame spiral is not fun.
Katie K
2021-03-20 12:17:23 +0000 UTCI’m missing it because it says payment canceled and I paid it 😭
Christina Rose
2021-03-19 20:55:34 +0000 UTCLooking forward to it! The workshop sounds like it’s just what I need.
Patti Gruwell
2021-03-19 20:05:23 +0000 UTC
