I'm starting to trust my therapist more.

Well I saw my therapist today and I brought up a lot of hard things with her. I told her about being tired of a bunch of stuff, like taking the world's weight on my shoulders and not helping myself. Like getting overwhelmed and shutting down a lot. etc. We have a lot to work on, but I'm hopeful. She really 'gets' me and it's such a new feeling, to have someone really understand me.

She wants to watch clips of videos or t.v shows with me, so I can try to process the subtle nonverbal cues in the actors and compare my observations to hers, so we can see where I'm weak at and where she can help.

So much to work on though.
Being able to taking criticism.
Sticking up for myself.
Learning social 'cues' like body language, expressions, etc..
Setting boundaries so I'm not taking everyone else's problems as well as my own.
Creating a healthy routine...

She also thinks that I could be over critical of myself, and observing things that I'm not even aware of. I'm not so sure what she meant by that, we didn't have enough time to go into it.

She encouraged me to call her if I need to. She does every week. I always have trouble calling her but it's something I need to try and work on.

She said she's glad to see how motivated I am to work on things. And she was super glad for the present I made her- I made a little 'therapy coupon book' that she could use on me. Things like proper use of eye contact or initiating a phone call, or entry into "forbidden territory", one more probing question, etc. She loved it and said she'd have to re-use the idea herself.  :blush:

I have the next 2 weeks off without her, but I think I'll manage. I will call her if I need to, but I can also email. I might call her instead because I can't read her tone over email and it kinda scares me sometimes, she's a lot more personable over voice. Her voice calms me a bit.

Tired.

I’m tired of shutting down.
I’m tired of getting overwhelmed and overloaded by every day occurrences or situations.
I’m tired of feeling like I have to prove myself to the people around me in order to be taken seriously.
I’m tired of carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders while trying to carry my own baggage too.
I’m tired of being so depressed that I just don’t feel anymore. Not feeling is scary. Scarier than crying in front of someone, which is really scary.
I’m tired of this 24/7 brain fog. Not being able to get the words out. Not remembering what I want to say. Not being able to say what I need to say.
I’m tired of stuttering and having trouble with enunciating words. I feel it, I hear it, but no one else does. My therapist doesn’t even notice it. How?
I’m tired of things being awkward and uncomfortable around my only friends.
I’m tired of falling behind more and more. I can’t drive. I can’t go to the store alone. I can barely take the bus alone.
I’m tired of trying to read in between the lines and not being able to understand how to.
I’m tired of trying so hard and not being heard. Not being taken seriously.
I’m tired of being belittled.
I’m just tired of it all.

Anxiety.
Depression.
Pain.
Constantly.
I wish I didn’t have the gut wrenching sinking spinning feeling every moment of my life about the smallest possible things. Picking up a phone. Even THINKING about picking up a phone. Talking to my therapist about important topics. Talking to the cashier. Thinking about all the things I need to do but can’t do. Worrying about everything that might happen, how it’ll happen, if it’ll happen.
I don’t want to fall to my old habits of spinning the conversations off topic when I’m talking to my therapist.
Or  to act like things aren’t as bad as they really are.
But I do this all the time because it’s habit and it’s a protective thing I’ve learned over the years.
Pretend you’re fine and people won’t bother you.
Right?
Not when I’m really feeling like I have to hold everyone around me up with their problems.
But my problems fall to the wayside.
No one understands, no one cares. The only people in my immediate surroundings who do care are my boyfriend and therapist.
It’s not that I perceive them as not caring. It’s that I know they don’t care. They do not understand. They prove to me every day they don’t. My mom especially.
“See it’s not that hard. You’re learning kid.” I’m not a ‘kid’, I’m 21. I’m not “learning” how to make a phone call- I know pretty dang well how to make a phone call. My anxiety will not LET me without making me feel like I’m going to curl up and die right then and there. It’s physical just as much as it is mental.
“How will you ever get a job if you can’t even handle the store?”
“Why don’t you just go back to college and stop being lazy?”
Etc.
I can’t count how many times I’ve broken down in a sobbing ball on her bed just pouring my heart out with everything until I finally become nonverbal from the pure stress. Until all I can do is bite my fingers and wish I could curl up and stop the pounding headaches and the tears and the overwhelming everything. All she can say is “I don’t know what to do.”
I’ve been trying all the techniques and tools my therapist taught me to try and control the racing thoughts and the ever growing anxiety, but they’re so minimally helpful. I do them anyways but I feel like I’m just hiding from the inevitable. Deep breathing, mindfulness, grounding. It only helps so little. It slows my heart down for half a minute and then the anxiety is back in full force.
A bigger breakdown is coming, and I’m not sure how I’ll come out of it. How long can I postpone it from happening, and how much worse will it get if I do postpone?   
Sorry it’s so long. Just a lot of things on my mind and no outlet. -sigh-

Sorry, I poofed.

I guess I forgot to update. I kinda lost motivation again. These things happen.

Stuff has been on and off okay and not okay. Black friday was horrible for me, I went shopping with my bf and his stepbrothers and I shut down in the store. Badly. It's super scary to shut down in the middle of a crowded store and not be able to find your partner, not be able to find an exit, or even find your feet. I was stuck in place last time it happened, and it wasn't until people physically pushed me out of the aisle was I then grabbed by my boyfriend and was able to 'come back'... I'm thankful that he understands as much as he does, and tries his best to look out for me. But i don't want to have to be dependent on him for even simple tasks like grocery shopping. I wish I was even remotely independent.

Things were okay for a little while after that. I got to see my therapist again after not seeing her for 2 weeks. That made me feel better.

This weekend though things took a nose dive. My dog had a seizure and it seemed to re-traumatize me all over again. The last time I felt a dog in my arms like that, it was my dog of 13 yrs passing away...And before that it was my puppy of 2 months old passing away...

Thankfully my dog is fine and acting like normal. But I can't get the images out of my head. I can't get the thoughts out. I broke down into an hour long anxiety attack that same night. I couldn't breathe very easily, I couldn't get a deep breath in. I couldn't stop worrying. I felt so out of control, I felt like calling a crisis hotline for help. But i was frozen in place, I couldn't really bring myself to move from where I was at. It lasted for almost an hour, with multiple people online trying to help me out.

I'm now thinking about service dog with a lot more consideration. There's many tasks it could help me out with.

 providing deep pressure to stave off meltdowns, to help bring me out of meltdowns, physically blocking people from getting too close in stores or public transit, alerting me to people coming up from behind (i startle way too easily and it screws with my anxiety badly), finding the exit or finding someone (bob, mom, friend) when i've shutdown...