I want to take a break from therapy

that's really scary. I think you should go to the hospital if you are feeling suicidal.

Yeah hope. Its really NOT that I dont care. Or that people who challenge you dont care about you. If people didnt care about you, your life, and seeing you feeling and doing better, people just wouldnt post.

It seems like you have a bunch of people on here who care about you. Its just that- caring doesnt always mean agreeing. Sometimes actually, it takes a lot of care for someone to DISAGREE with you because that requires more vulnerability from the person disagreeing. It requires them to take the risk of someone getting angry because of the disagreement and it puts the relationship at risk.

But it seems you have a lot of people on here who are willing to be that person for you. Be the person gently challenging you and not just blindly agreeing to make you feel better momentarily- knowing that they are just contributing to you feeling worse later on because you are continuing your same destructive painful patterns.

People care about you. They want to see you doing well, they just dont want to see you shoot yourself in the foot by canceling your appointments- your irl help- and so thats why they- we- are being a little more direct with you. Because no one wants to see you suffer

When you feel like cancelling your appointments, think about this: if you keep cancelling and rescheduling 5 or 6 weeks worth of appointments, some psychologists, psychiatrists offices will not keep you as a patient. I have seen this happen before. Although, it is the staff's job to cancel your appointments and reschedule them, it is a lot of work to have to do this all the time. It can make it difficult to schedule with other patients in the practice. And I am sure that they have many patients to see.

I am not saying this to be harsh. I am saying that you could use this to stop yourself from cancelling appointments out of frustration and anger.

You could say this to yourself: "I want to cancel all my appointments because I am angry with him. But, if I do, I take the chance that he may terminate me as a patient."

I definitely made a mistake about the appointments.

I’m also worried because I’ve been complaining and arguing a lot for the last couple of weeks.

And now I have spent all weekend worrying that I have ruined things with him.

I am so filled with anxiety and sad. I want to apologize to him but it’s the weekend and all I can do is worry about it.

Something else that I don’t understand is that I’ve made so many improvements, that I was finally going to get the opportunity to finish my goal that I used to believe was over for me.

But, all of a sudden, I had a meltdown and I regret it.

I think that I freaked out because I was worried that my Panic Disorder was going to ruin my goals so I just started panicking and freaking out about everything.

I hope that I still have my therapist and my appointment next week. If I see him next week,
I can explain.

Did you get to keep it? Hugs

I did, thankfully. I called them this morning to find out and the office manager said that she didn’t cancel any of my appointments.

I’m so relieved. Last night, I was up late and reading depression poems on the internet and saved some of them in my notes. I was thinking of showing that to my therapist so he may be able to get an idea of how my mind was over the weekend.

I want to be a better patient so that I won’t annoy the people in the office.

I guess I also feel awkward about that friend request that I sent and then canceled. I hope that awkwardness will pass soon.

I want to be prepared for this week’s session.

Does anyone have any recommendations on how I can prepare?

Write a poem of your own with your own words and from your own pain.

You don't have to be a good patient, Hope. You are the person who you are and that is enough to take to therapy.

Why don’t you start with talking about your pattern/ knee jerk reaction of canceling/ rebooking your appointments? That seems to be your standard response when things get tough. Talk to him about developing healthier coping mechanisms and how you can approach those situations differently in the future.

We have already worked on that and I haven’t done that in a long while.

But wait- didn't you cancel appointments last week? I'm sorry, i'm confused by what you said.

I think something to work on is maybe working on owning your behavior. I just always see a lot of “buts” from you for things that you very obviously did and very obviously have a problem with. If you cant accept that you need to make changes, and cant own when you struggle with it- its going to be hard to learn.

Again. I say this not meanly. But just observing

L is teaching me to use AND instead of BUT. It's part of DBT. It takes some getting used to AND it helps. It teaches you that there can be two contrasting ideas, thoughts, or feelings, 3both can exist at the same time.

Sorry if this is totally off topic.

Scarlet...I have learned so much from DBT. For example, I have made a lot of progress working on X AND I slipped by doing it again this last week. I am going to work harder at using my skills to my advantage next time.

Mindfulness is also great for calming yourself when emotions are strong. They do however call it mindfulness "practice" for a reason. It is something you have to practice everyday before you start to see the benefits.

Underover does have a good point as well. We can only work on what we are willing to admit as our shortcomings. Just as in any job, one must be open and accepting of receiving feedback for both strengths and opportunities. We don't learn anything from our strengths yet opportunities are what allow us to improve and grow.

I did that last week but what I meant was that I hadn’t done that in a while until last week.

That's interesting. I read some of your past threads and it seems like you have done it a few times this year. Maybe it would helpt to keep a journal of personal observations like this. It can be hard to see pattersn easily. Hugs hugs

I know that I have a lot of problems. But, I know where I was before working with this therapist and where I am now. If I had not made any improvements, I wouldn’t be sitting here posting about anything.

that's super cool and helpful. glad i read this