Dear Lindsey:

Will you read the below and correct where needs to be corrected, or add drugs tried, your reaction to them (after the ->) :

19, diagnosed with major depressive disorder.

19-24, Zoloft-> “didn’t work”, alcohol

24-30, lexapro

30-35, other SSRIs.

35, after your “depression was under control”,  you noticed a “major issue with anxiety”.

35-   , Xanax as needed

37 or 38,  “Started having panic attacks”.

37/38-40, SSRIs to help anxiety -> “brought out more panic”.

39-now, other drugs

39, “diagnosed as on the bi polar spectrum”

40- on, Risperdol

* One more thing, at what age was it that your mother moved and didn’t have a room for you where she was living, that sudden abandonment you suffered, unexpected?

anita

Dear Lindsey:

I will be back in a few hours, will read and reply to you when I am back.

anita

Dear Lindsey:

You live alone, sharing custody of your six year old and seven year old. You moved out of your marital home last month after 12 years of marriage, of which the last 1.5 years, the two of you had your own separate rooms, living together as roommates and co parents only.

You live in a small town and work for a big company. Your estranged husband also works in that big company, as well as M., a man you had a three month romantic and sexual relationship with earlier this year.

You suffer from significant anxiety, panic attacks, a mood disorder (on the bipolar spectrum) and you obsess a whole lot over M, your co-worker, all while being on heavy psychiatric medications and parenting your two young children part of the time. You did not have any or any significant psychotherapy experience, and have made an appointment with a psychologist today.

Your mother had you when she was 19, then had two other children when she was 31 and 33. When she had you at 19, you were her only child for 12 years. You received a lot of her attention, not as a person, but as a doll. For the first twelve years of your life, you were your mother’s doll, her plaything, her toy: “I was always with her. She did everything for me: picked out my outfits, did my hair, and made most of my decisions for me really”.

For the young you, safety was with your mother and danger was away from her: “I had a hard time going to school and not being with her; I cried everyday the first week of school”.

When you were 12, about the time you entered middle school, for the first time in your life, you were not your mother’s only child, and the doll- child was entering puberty: “I remember everything embarrassing me in middle school. I suddenly felt ugly when puberty hit and I was slow to develop”.

At about 17, you “started barely eating”, perhaps (?) wanting to return to the pre-puberty doll like body, and you started “drinking and smoking pot”.

“I knew I was different and I felt hollow”- a human being treated like a doll, a toy, an object, does feel hollow because so much about you has been ignored, as if it wasn’t there, specifically, how you feel, what you want, what makes you happy.. or sad.

Sometime after your mother had two additional children, you, her toy, became a problem for her. You transitioned from Toy to Problem. When you went to college she took the opportunity to remove the Problem from her home by moving to a home without a room for you, and so you lived in the college dorms.

“She emotionally cut herself off from me overnight”- it was not overnight, it just hit you hard when she “moved into a new house without a room for me”.

What has been happening ever since she moved to that new house is that you’ve been chasing her, begging her to take you back. You call her, you ask for things, you beg, you get angry, you fight and then you apologize, and repeat: “I texted my mom to Venmo me the money 200-300 dollars.. She got frustrated and said she doesn’t have money just sitting around… I then got very upset and said some smart words and that I was not coming down to visit next weekend” (notice you used the term “smart words” as a child would use regarding talking disrespectfully to her parent).

“She is away at a tennis tournament and last time I spoke to her she made it clear she has her own problems to deal with and for me to  figure it out on my own. This is her tone 75% of the time”- you chase her like an exiled-from-home child, chasing her mother.

“So I had to eat s*^* basically early this morning and apologize to my mother even though I don’t mean it”- you fight with her, using “smart words”, then you apologize, even though you don’t mean it. Like a child.

What happened with M is a reactivation of the same dynamic you have with your mother (except for the sexual element): “I was begging (him) not to end it…as soon as he said this can’t go anywhere he cut himself off emotionally and I felt like I kept chasing it… We argued back and forth and I got out what I needed to say in general. I was thinking of apologizing to him tomorrow?… I told him this morning I was sorry about what I said… how can I not think about begging him to not stop talking to me”.

“he is pissed about my hurtful text messages. Because I knew what to say to get to him. I felt like a child”- you try to get to him just as you try to get to your mother, to get him/ her angry at you so that he/she will pay attention to you and take you back.

You start an argument/ fight with M/ your Mother so that he/ she will think about you, which is better than him/ her not thinking about you at all (“I’m confident that 1. He probably does not think of me at all”).

“I feel a sense of panic when I’m alone it’s hard to describe”- same as that separation anxiety you experienced when she dropped you at school, grammar school, isn’t it?

The relationship with M was mostly this: “I would go to his house and eat dinner play with his dog watch movies etc. we talked quite a bit about life”- you felt comfortable, at home with him, at as much at home as you know home to feel like. But there was a feeling of disappointment on your part with M as there has been all along with your mother, the connection with both has been unsatisfactory and disappointing: “With M. I wanted sex it just .. was disappointing after.. I wanted comfort and connection… Trying not to call my mom for advice bc I’ll just end up getting disappointed.

You wrote regarding M: “I just have things I want to say and it keeps going around I my head”- you also have things to say to your mother, things she never listened to.

M activated your childhood-and-ongoing dynamic with your mother because he was a “very alpha male. Very confident… gives you the impression he’s an a hole until you talk to him and he’s cool to talk with.. not attached to anything… disrespectful/indifferent to me and my feelings”, like your mother.

“I think I may have been in a manic state when I started flirting/ hitting on him”- the same passion a child has trying to get the attention and love of an unattached .. a hole kind of a mother.

“I took that as (M) thinks I’m obsessed/stalker/he’s trying to avoid me at all costs. I took that very personally”- you perceived his behavior (and it may have been so) as your mother’s behavior, treating her daughter like an obsessed stalker, in later childhood and ever since.

Time to stop that dynamic, with your mother and with M. Time to never chase and beg again.

Enough for now. Take your time, if you will, before you reply. I would like you to calmly consider what I wrote here before you reply.

anita

Dear Lindsey:

No, I am not a retired mental health counselor. What I know  is what I learned since my first quality psychotherapy 2011-2013 and since, a lot of my learning has been right here, four years of extensive and intensive communication with hundreds of  people from all over the world.

I hope you let me know tomorrow how the appointment goes, hope it goes well!

anita

Dear Lindsey:

I agree: you are not as crazy as you sometimes suggested here. Your thinking is quite clear, I noticed it yesterday when I re-read your posts, and your humor is also pretty healthy, so it reads to me.

You are welcome and I appreciate you expressing an appreciation of me, I smile as I type this.

I am glad you like the therapist you met today and that you will be meeting her every Friday at noon. Regarding the medications, with your report of Lexapro not working, well, none of them have been working then, maybe it will be better for you to gradually, very gradually stop taking all of them, one by one, I suppose, while seeing a psychiatrist throughout the process of coming off all these drugs. This is what I did and am now psych-drug free since Oct 2013.

I will soon be away from the computer and back tomorrow morning.

anita