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i wish i could have that "idgaf" attitude, but i don't. i care a lot. too much.

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therapy no. 53

Today's therapy was really liberating in the end.

I had to bring up the topic of the special application for getting the chance to study psychology at a uni nearby. I hate the thought of it, the thought of comparing my problems and my illness to the illness of other people that might apply via this special application process. I also need a letter of my therapist for this application, so that an expert also states why I need to start my studies right now and can't wait another year or more.

We opened up that topic and why I didn't want to apply with this kind of application and by that we also approached other topics like why I always downplay my problems and experiences and why I always hide how bad I actually feel, even though I sometimes don't want to hide it. Later we found out that that kind of problem-pathology-focused application via my illnesses is also hard for me because I don't want to be reduced to my problems, and it is also only a part of the truth, because my problems aren't just problems, they were and are solutions to situations that I wasn't able to solve otherwise, that were overstraining my possibilities or are still overstraining my abilities today. My problems are there for a reason, they are solutions to much bigger problems, solutions that I really needed in the past in order to survive and still need in order to live with my past now. And by applying with a focus on problems, all of that stays hidden, all of my strength and my effort. But maybe we can include that in the letter that is needed for the application. Hm. Might be a possibility. An important point my therapist brought up, that I also had in mind, was that it would be much better for my emotional stability if I started studying psychology, something that I am good at and that I really want to do and where my interests are, right now/in the upcoming winter semester. I already had that one in mind, but then I thought, again, I'm probably exaggerating and that it would be super awkward to bring that up in front of my therapist. Well, he brought it up himself. Kinda funny.

Of course I hide how I really feel because I'm scared - scared that someone might use my vulnerability that I show by being emotional and hurt me. We shortly talked about why I feel that way, first I said it doesn't make sense and it's stupid, because by hiding my struggles I'm always alone with them and can't get any help with them, even if I desperately need it. I mean I even struggle to show my emotions when I'm sitting in therapy in my safe space with my therapist that I deeply trust.

Today though I managed to let my guard down and let some, eventually even a lot or almost all emotions out. It's funny how I used to think my guard is so strong because I want to be perceived as confident etc, but I am pretty sure that's not it, it's more like a deeply rooted anxiety of being hurt when I am the most vulnerable. Because, as my therapist also correctly stated, that's what my mother always did, hurt me when I was the most vulnerable. His wording was accurate in a funny way, he said "because that's when your mother hit you, when you were the most vulnerable" with "hitting" being metaphorical and meaning manipulating and hurting me with words, but she also used to hit me in a literal way when I was emotional, I think I only remember a fraction of it all, but the two situations I do remember were really bad (psychologically) and I'm pretty sure they weren't the only ones. I really should talk about that one very striking situation where I am now almost sure that my mother did stuff like that on purpose to keep me small and obedient, I read about similar stuff in my one trauma-research book "trauma and recovery - the aftermath of violence" and it hit me hard when I read about it in such a explanatory and neutral way whilst getting images in my head about past experiences with violence of the kind that was explained in the book.

The downplaying-problems part was another thing to open though, and it wasn't easy for me to reach my inner processes at that point. I first talked a lot (maybe a bit too much at that point to shadow the fact that I don't really know what the real reason is) but didn't say a lot, I only mentioned that it was easier to downplay my problems so I can distance myself from the heaviness of carrying them around. But another point is that I'm also distancing and kind of neglecting my heavy past/story of my life that way. And I'm also downplaying how much I'm actually carrying around with me and how much I'm fighting to get better and to cope with my past. At that point I kind of realised it myself, it kind of hurt me and made me sad that I also downplay all the effort I put into my daily living and the work I'm putting into myself and my healing. I shouldn't do that to myself. And I kind of said that out loud, too, I was crying a bit and spoke out my thoughts to my therapist, and said that it's kind of stupid of me and not okay, because I really put in a lot of work into my wellbeing and my stabilization process, and that I'm too often being too hard on myself. He then said something that agreed with that thoughts of mine and said that I'm definitely trying really hard and really want to change something about my problems, and I started crying harder. I then thought about how I still manage to make some smaller and some greater achievements, how people perceive me as strong, successful etc even though they don't know anything about my story or not a lot, they definitely can't imagine the weight I'm carrying, and despite all of that I still achieve stuff that many people without these problems don't achieve or can't achieve. I put a bit of this into words and then my voice broke in the middle of a sentence and I just started crying and couldn't stop it, but I was glad I didn't. I cried really hard, I didn't cry this hard in the last few weeks and I needed it. Especially needed it in front of my therapist who kind of quietly carried me along. Just when I thought I calmed down, I started again and it was a really hard and sobbing kind of crying, I felt all the pain of the weight of the story I am carrying all at once. My therapist reminded me that the session was almost over, but he gave me plenty of time to calm down. He just sat there quietly and was there for me without doing anything. I the end he said, very calmly, that he thinks that it's beautiful how I acknowledged all of that. I just nodded my head in agreement and started to breathe very mindfully to be able to walk out of his office. At that point I remembered that I hadn't told him about the date of admission to the clinic that I got two weeks ago, and I told him about it. I also wanted to ask him if we could keep in contact again so he would know when I get out, but he brought that up on his own and said we could just do it like during my first stay there and that I could update him about the uni stuff.. and then he would give me a new date for our sessions. I was really happy about how that went, and I said sth like "yes, that worked more than well last time" and thanked him, and after that we finished the session and I deeply thanked him for today's session (it was pretty much perfect, today nothing annoyed me, not even afterwards, I was super happy with the topics we approached and the way I was able to show and share some of my emotions with him, talk to him freely and explain a lot of my thoughts and my inner processes, I even mentioned the feedback I got from Jeannine that she also didn't notice any of my emotional intensities during our holiday trip...) and he answered with "you're very welcome". I'm really happy about the connection and the therapeutic relationship we established, and the trust I built.

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I like the person I'm becoming

I really feel kind of proud and happy about this. I just came back from a very spontaneous trip to italy with a friend I've known for only 7 weeks when we booked the trip. After arriving back here I went to my fav coffee shop, had a nice chat with one of the owners as always, had some great coffee, then proceeded my way home and couldn't help myself but smile almost all the way back.

Yes, I'm still having rough symptoms, especially the ones of ptsd and bpd, but I'm currently not carrying the extra weight of one of my depressive episodes, and I've really learned A LOT during my last stay at a clinic. I've handled my problems so well during the trip, used skills, talked about at least a small part of it... and despite some really tough symptoms here and there, I was able to have a a great time in between.

I like that I was so spontaneous about this trip. That I acknowledged my anxiety around travelling, unknown places and people, the insecurity of sleeping at an airbnb that didn't have any reviews yet... but still did the stuff and tried to overcome my anxiety, and: everything turned out great, and the stuff that wasn't so great I handled really well. I would like a person like me if I met one on the street or in the gym. I actually think I can be nice to be around, even funny sometimes, calm in very chaotic situations, happy over little things like lizards recharging their batteries in the sun, vegan cornetti filled with amazing jam (and love) or the smile on faces when I'm trying my best to speak Italian to the locals.

I wrote it in a very romantically-idealized way a few months ago in my diary-kind-of-book, but it is slowly becoming the truth: I am starting to love myself, I love the person I'm slowly becoming (and the person I'm working for so so hard).

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Prunus persica

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dreaming myself away to a place like this...

... oh wait, no lol, I almost exclusively have bad dreams (hi ptsd) or really weird dreams.

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therapy no. 49

I really liked today's therapy session, but now, a few hours later, I am really tired and exhausted. Ok, I also had an appointment with my new (psychiatric) nurses that come to my home, which was 1.5 hours as well, so of course I am exhausted and tired af.

But therapy was really good, it was the third session after me being back from the hospital stay and I am so glad to have my therapist here. I am so lucky to have found this therapist almost two years ago, I don't know where I would be without him now. I mean I probably would've found some other therapist and maybe they would've been good or at least ok too, but not as good as this one.

We talked about a lot of stuff today, first we started with talking about my panic attack that I had when arriving at his office (but already had it on my way there) and about my high anxiety today and why it was this bad (had a rough night and woke up about ten times, was really scared of the appointment with the psychiatric nurses because I didn't know either of those two and they were coming to my home which isn't easy for me either (having to talk to complete strangers about my problems in day-to-day-life with ptsd, bpd etc in my own kitchen is kind of hard for me, letting them in is scary enough, I kind of have a hard time trusting people and it's extra difficult in vulnerable places like my own home)). After talking for a while he asked me how my tension was now (because when I sat down in my chair I took a hot chili candy to reduce my tension/stress) and it was a lot better already.

We then proceeded to talk about how I misinterpreted something he said in our session last week and used it to humiliate myself and to question my perception of my traumatic past (in a bad way). I told him what it was he said and what I interpreted into it. He then rephrased or rather specified what he said so it would be clearer how he meant it - and what did my stupid brain do? Instantly used it to humiliate myself again because "stupid me was fishing for validation and manipulated my therapist into telling me how bad my traumatic past was". At least it only took me a few seconds to understand what my brain was doing there, but it was still kinda overwhelming and I told my therapist what was going on. We both instantly started laughing and he said "so it really doesn't matter what I am saying, it will happen again and again" and I had to agree, even though I was kinda sad about it because I really appreciated that he carefully rephrased what he said.

To fill in the wording I was talking about with my therapist: last time when we talked about the stage of processing trauma he said something like "well yes, in other words we will look very closely at your (past) relationships again" - my brain took that as a "your trauma is just minor imbalances in your past relationships with your family etc and it's not as big as you make it" but what my therapist meant to do by using the term 'relationship' was finding a headline for everything that went on in my past without having to go into detail because we were at the end of a session - especially the relationship to my mother and my father that was characterized by a lot of extreme violence and abuse. So today my therapist emphasised that he thinks quite the opposite from what my brain wants me to believe: that from what he's heard so far, he is pretty sure that it was pretty extreme and really destructive violence, especially with my mother, but from what he can tell "my father wasn't very helpful either". I think he said a bit more than that, but I didn't listen for very long because in that moment my brain was pretty much screaming at me. As I wrote a few lines before, I told my therapist about what was going on inside of my head when he rephrased it and validated my past experiences, so we then talked about why my brain did that to me. Of course that led to talking about my mother a bit, but we already dove deep into detail on that topic multiple times before, so we kept it rather short and it was more of a summary that we did together of how and why I am reacting and thinking that way - because my mother made me think that way and also because my young brain as a kid did that in order to keep the relationship to my mother alive - that is quite typical for victims of parental abuse, because you as a child are in need of the parental "care" you and your brain try everything to keep up that relationship, so you rather think everything is your fault and you are wrong and you just have to "try a bit harder" and your mother/father are always right, they "must be right" because they are your mother/father. Your brain isn't capable of thinking any other way, it does so you can somehow survive. So all of this in my head is what is left of that mechanisms that kept me alive in the past - but nowadays they just make my life a lot harder, so that is why I am working on getting more distance to these inner beliefs and on getting them a bit more quiet.

Somehow we managed to also talk about me feeling like I can't be 100% vulnerable in therapy at the moment (for multiple reasons, one being afraid of my therapist feeling overwhelmed by me/my emotions, afraid of being "too much" but also afraid of making myself this vulnerable sometimes), and also my interest in clinical psychology and psychotherapy but simultaneously me being scared of not being able to separate my own problems etc from the problems of my maybe-future-patients, fear of getting too close to their problems etc. But as I already talked about it with my therapist in the clinic, my therapist also said that it can be a great resource if you have looked closely at your own topics and worked with them a lot already, so you have your experience with these kind of problems and can maybe use it to help others. And because it's not really important where I want to work in the future, I have to resolve my problems either way, I prefer to look at it in that positive way now. I am really looking forward to studying psychology!!! I really hope it will work to get a place at a university close by by passing the test in may.

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“Run the risk. If it works out, happiness. If not, wisdom.”

— Unknown.  (via craved)

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“I know I’m older when I stop wanting / to strangle the girl I was and try to hold her instead.”

— Rhiannon McGavin, from “Habit,” in Grocery List Poems

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therapy no. 38

we talked a lot about my fear and specific fears of mine today. We started by talking about the anxiety that was already there half an hour before the session and started to be really bad shortly before I entered the room. Actually he asked me his usual question, what I wished for of today's session, but all I could say was that I couldn't think properly because I felt like I couldn't breathe properly, so we talked about why it was like that.

We then talked about why I am scared of going inpatient again, what had happened to me the last time I was hospitalised in the psych ward (on a secured station) and why that was retraumatising. We also talked about all my fears like that I maybe couldn't go on with my therapy sessions with him when I come back from the (planned stay at the) hospital.

The most important part of the session was when we started talking about our relationship as therapist and patient, and how it evolved to be quite stable and provides safety to me (at least it is stable at the moment, as my therapist noted, that might change in case of splitting someday... but I remember being on the verge of splitting really bad on him and somehow managaed to deescalate that situation myself and remained in a rather neutral state with some criticism in mind. I also remember my ex talking kind of negatively or sceptical about my therapist which I probably didn't like because I was idealising my therapist slightly at that time, I am honestly not sure how much I am idealising him currently, but I feel like it is on an ok level which will not inevitabely lead to splitting and hating on him badly in the near future. But also wtf, realising more and more stuff that has gone wrong with my ex/in our relationship, I remember talking to my therapist about how my ex placed a ban on buying any kind of sweets because HE couldn't stop himself from binging on them, but I still wasn't allowed to buy some for myself and put them somewhere safe because sweets would be bad for me etc... wtf. A few days ago I was wondering why I was so used to slightly freeze at home and putting on more than one pullover or sth like that - we have a bit of a energy crisis here and I am not heating my flat yet bc gas is so crazy expensive rn - and I remembered that my ex also put a ban on heating the flat or any room in it and kind of scolded me when I did that in the office room. I used to romanticise how he put a blanket around me when I was sitting on the desk and freezing, but the only reason why I was freezing is because he didn't want me to put on the heater, not even a little bit. Same as with the sweets I used to rebel a little bit by sometimes secretly heating the room and slowly proceeded to increase my freedom of action by heating the room and sitting in front of the heater or I used an electric heating pad that I usually got for my cramps, but used it for heat because otherwise it would get freezing cold when you're only sitting and working on the computer. Ok but the heating pad was even allowed by him, lol. But in those situations where I turned on the heater, I kind of demonstrated how bad I was freezing and said it wasn't possibe to not heat the room etc and then it was somehow ok.)

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therapy no. 37

I haven't really found the time (or the mental space) to write about last week's therapy session, but I want to sum it up real quick so I can make the entry to this week's therapy.

I was really depressed last week, even more than before, and so desperate that I had severe suicidal thoughts again (I even went to a party but all I could do was sit in a corner, stare into the middle of the room and think to myself "I want to die"). And my exhaustion was getting extreme, so we mainly talked about that and how I am in desperate need of a break, but not a break of a few days, more like a few weeks (or even more). I asked my therapist for advice (which is unusual and not exactly his fav thing to do either), and he was very cautious with it first, but he told me he already watched how I tried and tried to keep on going over the last months, but that my past trauma is getting the better of me at the moment and that I am already handling so much (he doesn't really like to use diagnoses a lot, which he stated again, but kind of made a list of what is going on in me rn and why it would be more than ok for me to take a break: next to severe depression and my borderline problems I also got ptsd on top, which is.. a lot rn) - so he actually strongly recommends me to take a break because what I'm handling in therapy and in day-to-day-life without the stress of having to do work for uni is enough already. And this is kind of what I thought to myself for the past couple of weeks already, but I just couldn't allow myself to be this "weak" and to not try or die trying.. literally lol. Until now. I will take a break from uni from now on for this semester (or as long as it is necessary until I can actually do stuff again) and maybe that'll also be a good time for staying inpatient at the trauma-clinic I was talking about with my therapist a few months ago already, but talked about it again in last week's therapy session.

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therapy no. 36

today's therapy session was ok. I wasn't super happy with the content because it was a lot about my mother.. again. But she is a bit more present at the moment, which already triggers a lot of anxiety, but I'm fighting it successfully, mostly with going to the gym and idk, trying to cope somehow, because in the situations when I'm sitting in bed and having anxiety levels as if I was getting chased down a road by someone who's trying to kill me, I haven't found anything yet that helps me calm down, I just have to sit there and kind of wait it out or live with it, idk.

We talked about how my anxiety levels are this high since my mother is trying to contact me in different ways and I feel attacked by her because of how she's doing that. The last attempt was over a third person, my administrator for my study-funding, lol. She called her multiple times and cried about how she's feeling so bad and is scared I might be impacting her health in a bad way etc, all because I adressed her in my letter to her with her surname. My administrator told me this and talked to me in a very serious and concerned voice and was obviously completely manipulated by my mother. She told me I might want to think about that for a second and how I'm acting towards my mother. I only answered that I'm sorry she had to listen to that and that there is a pretty long prehistory to why I addressed my mother with her surname (instead of "oh my dearest and loveliest best mother on earth" or whatever she would like to hear instead). I didn't really have the guts to tell her more and in therapy we kinda analysed that a bit and on the one hand I was scared to provoke more stress, on the other hand I was pretty sure that my administrator wouldn't believe me because she was captured by the story she got told by my mother. Really effing crazy that she's actually trying to get at me again and trying to have some kind of force over me. Fuck this crazy b., I'm stronger now and she's not gonna win this round, not any round any more. A few days ago (before I got the info of her manipulating my administrator) I had a dream where she completely freaked out as she did many times when I was a child, and I had a similar dream a few months ago and talked to my therapist about it because it affected me for a whole day, in that dream I couldn't do anything against her, I was helplessly exposed to her agression and violence. But in the dream a few days ago something was very different. I somehow managed to stand up for myself, to step in for my boundaries and up against her craziness and the end of the dream was her being taken away in an ambulance and her being admitted to a psychiatric hospital (where she belongs, as my therapist correctly stated - he found it interesting that she was taken to a psychiatric hospital because she never was at one; but I was multiple times - but instead of me, she should have been admitted (way earlier of course, still before my birth actually)).

We also talked about why I was and am afraid that people like the administrator would rather believe my mother's lies instead of the truth, talked about the situations in my childhood where that was the case and where she also always told me that nobody would believe me if I told them what kind of horrors were happening at "home". Probably did that to scare me of telling somebody and to prohibit exactly that - successfully. For years after I got out actually. Well, we also talked about how it was completely different with the policeman I was talking to a few weeks ago when I asked them if it was ok if I called the police if my mother showed up in front of my door someday and threatens me and/or won't go away. I am trying to prepare myself for defense, I am going to defend myself and maybe I'm even going to take steps so I won't have to defend myself again (I'm definitely going to contact the local court so I can get a restraining order of some kind against her).

In the end of the session, I had a thought like "damn, I'm really exhausted" and like two seconds later my therapist asked me how I'm feeling now. I told him so and a few tears ran down my cheek because I smiled through most of the session. I do have a few happy moments here and there, which is really nice, like last sunday where I went out for food with a few people from my gym. But most of the time I'm really pretty down and exhausted. I realised that again last week, when I had a weird gut issue, and I tried to "ask" into my body how I'm feeling besides the weird gut symptoms... and I realised I feel just as bad as I do all the time in the last few months - which is really not great. That def made me think about what I'm demanding from myself and how I'm treating myself (as if I was lazy or a failure or sth like that - which I'm really not). I told my therapist about how I finally realised that I just can't go on like this, like I did the last semester - it won't work and actually will do me even more harm than good. It just isn't possible for me to show the same performance I could still show two years ago and I might want to adapt my plans of how I'm going to finish my studies to that. I really don't know how though, but I'm going to talk to our study counselor about that next week and until then I still have some time to think about it. It seems impossible for me to just "stop" what I'm doing right now, trying my best to somehow still get stuff done. But now I'm failing classes - not because I didn't try, but because it just isn't enogh - and if I go on like this, both my (mental) health and my grades / my acadamic performance will suffer equally from it.

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therapy no. 35

today was a quite calm session, maybe my therapist did that on purpose because I realised how extremely exhausted I am and told him so and how everything is too much at the moment, getting out of bed, drinking, eating, breathing... but I try to carry on as if nothing happened and as if I had no choice. I also feel like I don't have a choice and like I JUST HAVE TO GO ON somehow, even though I'm a complete wreck and I could easily spend at least a week straight up crying in my bed and/or self-medicating me to a weeks sleep or sth.

We ended up talking quite a bit about how a lot (ok sorry, all of them actually) of my current problems, setting boundaries for example, stem from my childhood - I had to ignore my boundaries, it was a strategy in order to survive. I also realised that I was barely or maybe actually never angry as a child, and later as a teenager I felt anger but started to turn it towards myself instead of towards the people I was actually mad at (my mother for example, or all the people that maybe saw some signs of my struggles or even some signs of the abuse happening at my "home", like the priest I was telling some stuff to when I had my first confession, stuff I felt bad for even though it was not my fault at all, I felt bad for not keeping the peace at home, for not physically defending my mother when my parents had massive fights.. etc). So I probably started to feel all the anger I also had as a child - it seems like nowadays I'm starting to feel many of the feelings I wasn't able to feel when I was a child, the anxiety, the desparation, the anger...

It's really a bit offputting to lie in bed and have anxiety levels as if someone's hunting you and you have to fear for your life. But that's my day-to-day-life at the moment and I'm trying to not go crazy and fight that anxiety by going to the gym and lifting some heavy weights (progress is everything, started deadlifting a few days ago on top of my PPL split and repped 70 kg today). The last few days (it's not wednesday anymore, already saturday) were extremely exhausting and I had a few good moments too, but my social battery really needs some recharging. Also had some kind of tummy issue for a few days which meant I couldn't eat properly, not great for my training and overall wellbeing either. Hoping to write more soon.

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therapy no. 34

Today was a very interesting yet also very exhausting and kinda disturbing session.

We started with the topic of how it stresses me out to have to contact my parents bc of application documents for my education funding, shortly talked about the fear of my mother etc but then went back to how i always think of other people/how I could make other people feel and how that was kind of a system to keep myself safe as well as it is that I ignore my boundaries and am quite when they are overstepped bc in my childhood it made things worse / would've made things worse to speak up for myself, so I rather just held through/dissociated my way through. Was it 'just' violence in form of beatings etc or was there maybe even more.. I can't write it down, I already feel bad for thinking about it. But somehow that topic reappears in my life again and again. On sunday I had a call with my brother and we kinda traumadumped both a bit and suddenly my brother told me he is pretty sure that he was somehow sexually abused as a child. I was kinda shocked because that is what I thought about again and again since last year, when I read in books about it a weird feeling creeped up on me and I was almost sure that... something happened in my early childhood. In the last few weeks the topic reappeared and I often thought about that weird old friend of my father who always called me his "princess" and who I remember to have been pretty creepy sometimes and I remember to not have felt very comfortable around him.

Well, when we talked about the trigger-situation that happened last week on the wedding of a friend of mine, where I sat on a bench and somebody sat down next to me and his leg, or actually only his knee, touched mine a bit and all I could think about from that moment on was that knee touching me. I was scared, it was too much for me and I felt like I couldn't escape the situation. Similar to what happened at the little party at Cara's a few months ago, when Timon got closer to me and I had to smell his alcohol-breath, and I got scared and triggered again. My therapist analysed it together with me and he concluded following: I felt like I couldn't escape the situation which is because as a child I had many situations where I couldn't escape and where I would've made things worse if I spoke up for myself (like when my mother had her... times and attacked me). We came back to the topic that I always analyse my surroundings and watch carefully what people do and how they could react to my behaviour etc, so that I could predict what happens etc, which is a thing I had to do as a child to at least kinda protect myself from what would happen to me, and to kinda predict what would happen next.. in order to survive. When we talked about that I got reminded of fragments of traumatic events in my childhoodarztpraxis, not very clear ones, and somehow I started to feel like my guts turned around inside of me, quite literally like that. I didn't just feel sick, I felt like I would puke out my intestines any second, just straight up on the floor next to me in my therapist's office. A few minutes before I was on the verge of a panic attack, but luckily we both got interrupted by some really loud talking in front of his office, which kinda annoyed him and effectively distracted me from my panic and helped me calm down. But the following sickness was really extreme, which I only realised after the session on my way to my office. That was a really intense reaction and it kinda scared me a bit too.

Just now I also found out that I was wrong about the thoughts of my mother, she did actually still try to contact me last year after I sent her the application documents she had to fill in, her last attempt was on christmas '21, which I totally forgot (maybe another reason why I felt so terribly bad back then?).

I actually wanted to post this on the same day I wrote it (last thursday) but didn't have the time and guess what happened the next day - exactly, my mother contacted me. She wrote a really mean and angry message (all because I adressed her formally in the letter I send her, with her last name) and it.. kinda hit me in the face. Definitely put some salt into the freshly opened wound... a lot of it actually. Well, at least I finally managed to block her number on whatsapp and her number in general, only thing that's still giving me anxiety is that she knows my new address now, but if she ever appears in front of my door and threatens me or whatever, I'm definitely calling the cops.

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therapy no. 33

Today was actually quite good, after me talking about the chaos in my head and in my life, we looked at my problem with boundaries again.

I started pretty slow and exhausted, and talked about how problematic my situation with F is at the moment (awkward moment: he asked me if I still had sex with him bc I told him so last week, and because we shortly f*cked yesterday, I had to say yes. But at least I didn't have sex with him again even tho I really didn't want to, that happened the week before and I dissociated really badly. I only did that because I was afraid he wouldn't like me anymore / wouldn't spend time with me anymore if I didn't sleep with him bc he proposed the friends with benefits thing). We got to the topic of setting boundaries pretty fast and had a very similar conversation about it as in a session before. But we analysed it a bit more how I have a different standard for boundaries when it comes to me than when looking at other people - in the meta-level I know very well that boundaries are a very personal / individual thing, but when thinking about my boundaries, they just seem wrong and I try to align my boundaries to some kind of "normal" level (which obviously doesn't exist, but to a level that I can observe in many people, trying to find some kind of "standard" bc my boundaries were always called wrong so I sometimes have no idea of where they actually are and instead have to try the boundaries of other ppl to see if it might fit to my boundaries or not).

This lead us to why I think of my boundaries like that and why I am afraid of setting boundaries and am afraid of being humiliated for my boundaries - because of how my boundaries were treated when I was a child and because that is still engraved in my nervous system. The part of being humiliated for my boundaries kinda triggered some memories of when I was still living with my mother and she brutally humiliated me for any boundaries I tried to set. We then also talked about some stuff I remembered because of the book I am still reading, a book about trauma-research, where I read about how perpetrators destroy their victims' autonomy and their whole view of the world basically and make them dependent on the perpetrators, I then realised that some of the things I thought were projection of my mother were more a pretty systemic way of destroying me. Kinda too much to explain it here shortly, maybe I'll make a post about this someday.

Definitely a good therapy session, still pretty depressed but I'm not as suicidal anymore as I was on the weekend, I am currently typing this while sitting at a desk with my gym-crush who invited me to come study with her at a study-room in a building of my uni, but I kinda regret coming here because (almost as if I knew it) there is a reason that I wasn't studying the last few weeks and instead desperately tried to get some kind of distraction from my thoughts - tried learning now and first of all I'm way too tired bc my sleep quality is f*cked at the moment (thank you nightmares), and a few minutes later the bad thoughts started and it's really hard to push them away. I'm listening to music now and I'll try again, but this is kinda self-torturing.