Posted by fallsfall on October 4, 2004, at 10:49:52
In reply to Going Nuts » fallsfall, posted by daisym on October 3, 2004, at 16:59:05
Dr. Bob will yell at us if we talk about money changing hands... You have my email address, don't you?? Just kidding, Dr. Bob.
Meetings on Sunday at 5PM ARE nuts.
Do not cancel any of your sessions. Can you do another "experiment"? Where you promise yourself that you will go without question to every session for a month? Don't give yourself the option of cancelling - that way you won't have to have *that* discussion in your head. (P.S. Didn't he just add back in weekend phone checkins with you? Why would you think that cancelling sessions would be appropriate when he is trying to *increase* contact?)
You should tell him about the "looping". There are techniques to help with that. "Putting it in a box" or "Putting it on the shelf" can help. You can either make your decision (give yourself 5 minutes to think about it) and then "put it away", or "put it away" without a decision but with a promise that you can think about it again at some specific future time. My Relax to Sleep tape directs me to put stuff into a box, but tells me that I can take it out in the morning if I want to. So you aren't putting it away forever - just for a specific time so you can focus on other things (like sleep, or your 5PM Sunday meeting).
Sometimes writing down stream of consciousness works for me on this. Writing it down makes me organize it better in my head, so it is clearer to me what decision I am making. There also is often the sense that if I write it down that I can stick the thoughts onto the paper, so I don't need to keep them in my head where they keep rattling around.
Or write a post or email about your dilemma - by the time I have explained the situation I often start to feel foolish about it being such a dilemma (and letting people know that is is such a dilemma for me). And the best choice is often pretty obvious by the time the post is done.
I guess the trick it to "compartmentalize" (my therapist's new favorite word). Give the thoughts *some* time, but not *unlimited* time. And allow other parts of your life to have "their" time, too.
Like when you are having a really busy work day with lots of crises, but you have to go to a parent-teacher conference for your kid. You leave work and shut down the work issues, and open up the kid issues. While you are driving to the school you try to "wrap things up" on your work things so that you have a place to come back to (sometimes we even do this by writing down the current ideas/issues). Then you start to remember what you wanted to talk to the teacher about so that by the time you are at the school, you are focused on your child.
Thanks, Daisy, I've been having trouble with this recently - writing it out for you has helped to make it clearer for me!!
Falls.
poster:fallsfall
thread:394881
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20041002/msgs/398780.html