The first week of my DBT program as well as reading Brené Brown’s Atlas of the Heart have inspired me to work on staying connected to myself and my emotions, which means leaning into the negative feelings like shame, fear, disappointment, rejection, and abandonment. It’s been exhausting and painful, but nonetheless it has been rewarding. On Monday, I told the group during check-in that I was struggling with feeling like the group didn’t like me and that I wasn’t welcome, not because of anything that anyone did, but just because my anxiety tends to blow the tiniest thing that might possibly be viewed as negative entirely out of proportion. When I did, I was met with empathy and compassion – I was asked how I was feeling, and I felt related to. I took the leap and asked if it was okay to read from my blog, which I’m not sure why but was so terrifying to me to ask, but no one rejected me and although it wasn’t the spark for further discussion that I was hoping for, I did feel proud for taking the risk of possibly feeling disappointed and rejection if they said no, so that I wasn’t living in disappointment, as Brené Brown says in her book. At the end of my turn for check-in, my group leader asked me how it had felt to share what I had, and I told him that I had been scared to share that because I didn’t want them to think that I was saying that they did something wrong or that they were being unwelcoming. He highlighted that he noticed that I was being vulnerable, and I told him that yes, that was a conscious effort on my part to lean in to the discomfort.
Later in group the same day, I asked him if he would read my blog, and although reason told me that he probably would agree, fear of his judgment and being rejected almost kept me silent. It was terrifying to voice that question, and I honestly spent so long fighting myself, with fear on the one hand trying to tell me to stay silent so that I won’t be in the position to be let down, while logic and rationality told me that the odds of him saying no were quite low, and that even if he did, it would be okay. Eventually I steeled myself and asked the question, telling myself that I refuse to let fear be the deciding factor in my decision-making. He said yes, and the relief and pride I felt at allowing myself to be vulnerable and ask that question makes me glad that I did not back down. Maybe some of you will be so confused as to why that tiny question made me feel so vulnerable, but this blog has been a passion project that I’ve wanted to do for at least a year, and I’ve also been afraid that my group leader doesn’t like me (even though I have no solid reason to believe that he does), so that combined with my pre-existing sensitivity to rejection and proclivity towards shame made asking that question feel like it was a big risk.
Then yesterday, I spent a long time debating about another thing that I wanted to bring up in group, but was afraid of everyone’s reaction. I have had romantic feelings for my psychologist for a long time, and in the past, being viewed as having romantic feelings for my therapist (not the same person) has gotten me in a lot of trouble and was really just a horrible experience for me at another program. I have disclosed these feelings to the man himself, and we’ve discussed it in therapy many times. He is aware, and he is of the belief (as am I) that these feelings are to be worked through, not a cause for termination. But romantic feelings for your therapist is a very touchy subject (though it shouldn’t be), and I was very much afraid of judgment from my groupmates and group leader. But even though it was really nerve-wracking – I even started sweating all over and my skin suddenly felt too small for my body – I decided to follow through, because vulnerability is the prerequisite to courage, and is the forging oven for deeper connection. I explained that I had discussed it with him, and that no, the therapeutic relationship is only compromised if we were to act on those feelings, but seeing as that is not the case, it’s okay for me to continue seeing him. My group leader asked again how it made me feel to share that with the group, and I tried to be honest and told him that it felt shameful, which was also difficult because it felt vulnerable to admit that I was being vulnerable. He again highlighted that he saw that I was trying to be vulnerable and lean in to the negative emotions, which felt good to have someone acknowledge that they could see my efforts. At the end, I felt really warm inside that my hard work was acknowledged.
This morning I had an appointment with my private psychologist, and I decided to discuss with him how I felt unsafe with him (yes, I feel that way with him and yes, I also have romantic feelings for him – it’s a complicated relationship, which is probably not uncommon for people with BPD) because I felt like it had taken him a long time to apologize for being defensive eight or nine months ago when we were fighting all the time, and that it felt unsafe to me because when I brought that point up with him, he didn’t really acknowledge it. We discussed how the origins of that come from my relationship with my dad, and he said that the way I told him about it was putting the blame on him, and he helped me realize that I tend to shift the blame to someone else, how I am so afraid of being blamed and being labeled as the problem that I tend turn around and assign blame to someone else because I feel so small. Instead of being reactive like I normally am, I decided to try to sit with it and look at it from his perspective, and just be curious about the possibility that maybe what he’s saying is true, and that maybe there is a healthier way to approach such issues. I could feel the urge to dismiss what he said and start fighting him inside me, trying to convince me to push down that feeling of smallness when someone points out a flaw of mine, but I really wanted to stay connected to what I was actually feeling instead of letting my secondary emotions take over and mask my primary emotions. So instead of pushing back and defending myself and attacking him as I might usually, I asked him questions. How would a healthy person approach this problem? Why am I so hung up on apologies as a litmus test to whether someone or not is trustworthy? How can I stop doing that? We ran out of time at the end, but he told me that he could see that I was trying to be open and curious instead of shutting down, that he could see me making a shift towards more vulnerability and accepting the negative emotions instead of fighting them, which really felt very meaningful coming from him. It actually made me day, even though I was crying throughout and at the end of our session.
Then this afternoon I went to my ketamine treatment, and I had been really excited to get there and tell the two techs and my psychiatrist there about this blog and to ask them to read it. Like I said, I’ve really put a lot of my heart into this project, and I really wanted them to read it and know me a little better. And, I really thought that they would be excited about it with me. But I told one of the techs, and although she had a positive response, she was really busy and wasn’t really able to take the time to talk to me more about it, and she didn’t ask for the URL, which kind of hurt a little, but looking back I realize that I tried to suck it up instead of being honest with her about how I felt. Then my ketamine psychiatrist eventually came into my treatment room to talk to me about my treatment progress, and I told him about the blog too, and that I wanted him to read it. He had a less than enthusiastic response, which I think I had been planning to and trying to suck up and not show how much it hurt, but then as he was starting to leave I started crying, which really was not intentional. I was actually confused at first about why I was crying, and it took a minute or two for me to figure out when he asked me what was going on that the reason I was crying was because I had been really excited to tell him about it, and I thought that he would be really excited about it too, so when he kind of brushed it off a little, it actually really hurt, and I cried quite a bit. We talked it through a little bit more, and he apologized for being dismissive of it and not asking more about it, and I ended up leaving the URL on a post-it note with them. I really appreciated how he took extra time when he noticed that I was crying to sit down with me and talk through that rupture and try to repair it. It’s one of the reasons I trust and love him so much – he is so compassionate and caring with his patients, and always tries to put in the time to make sure we feel individually cared for, which I think is rare among doctors, even those in the mental health world.
Looking back and writing about these experiences has really shown me how much of a practice it is to stay in touch with your feelings. I didn’t even realize that I had been trying to brush off some of the hurt and shove it down until I wrote about it just now. Obviously I need more practice with it, but overall, the last few days have been rewarding, though exhausting, and I do feel that I am living life a bit more authentically and fully, instead of pushing down and through those painful emotions and living in a gray world so that I don’t have to see the shadows in a vibrant, full color one. I am doing my best to stay in touch with the edges so that the center becomes stronger and everything overall becomes more fulfilling, and I think that as I continue to practice and reflect on it, it will become more second nature to stay in touch with the pain, uncomfortable as it might be, and I think I will be rewarded with a more joyful and vibrant life overall.