Therapy and Empty Threats

Ugh! Where do I start with this post? I want to write about therapy. What is it meant to achieve? What is its aim? How is it supposed to work? Does it really "cure" people? I've got so many questions about it. I'm feeling confused. I'm feeling stuck.

It seems so silly to feel this way about therapy. I've studied a whole degree which was centred around basic counselling skills and social welfare principals. I'm trained in crisis counselling. I've worked in the human services field. I've worked with counselling psychologists. I've worked with mental health nurses. One of my closest friends has an honours degree in psychology and given the right circumstances could easily become a doctor in the discipline.

I realise that my knowledge and skills are a far cry from those which are held by qualified psychologists. I realise my knowledge of psychiatry is non-existent. However, I don't think I should be as clueless as I am about this whole area given my background. It's confusing. It's frustrating.

It's been a little over a year since I first met my pdoc. I was in hospital for the first couple of months of knowing him. I started weekly therapy appointments with him at the beginning of this year. I spent another few weeks in hospital earlier this year. Yet, given all this time, what has been achieved?

Granted, the depression is gone, or at least well under control with the medication. I would suspect that the time that has elapsed has had at least some positive impact on the depression as well. I don't think I will ever be completely free of it though. For some reason it just seems to be part of my make up. I guess that is what they call dysthymia.

I don't get this "unrealness" though. What happened to bring this on? What is it? Where did I go? Why do I feel so ... odd? Where did my substance go? Did I ever actually have any substance at all? Why am I fake? Why do I wish that I could just fade away and be done with it all? Damn, I think sometimes I just want my pdoc to slap a label on me so I could at least look up a book about it or something; just to normalise my experiences. The word dissociation still doesn't make any sense.

I guess what is bugging me at the moment is my inability to engage properly in any type of therapy. Is it my fault? Is it my pdoc's fault? Can blame be laid in such a situation? My pdoc has indicated that I don't take myself and perhaps this therapy business seriously. I think he is wrong in this respect. I believe I do. Gawd, if I didn't take myself seriously I probably wouldn't be in this mess.

Rather, I think the problem lies in my inability to open up about any topic remotely connected to me. For whatever reason, I find talking about myself and my experiences intensely difficult. Could this "not taking things seriously" be some sort of defence mechanism that I use? Do I not count? That is the reason why I write this journal; to try to connect with myself. At the moment, it is only through writing that I can make any attempt to express myself, my thoughts and how I am feeling within.

Herein lies the threat. I am becoming extremely tired of existing in such a manner. If this therapy stuff doesn't work, what is the point of continuing (and I don't mean with therapy when I say this). There will be no hope left at all. I can't continue to just exist forever. Surely that is not what life is about. When I finally allow myself to face the truth that this is all there is and that there is no hope of a future worth living, then I hope that I will have the fortitude to do something about it. I hope I will be able to bring everything to an end.