I texted my T about 4 weeks ago and told him i wasn’t coming back, ” i quit”. Granted, this occurred during my latest bout of suicidality – i was determined to die by starvation, i’ll get back to this later but at the time, it seemed pretty obvious to me that i didn’t need or want therapy if i was going to be dead.
He did the CYA (liability-conscious) and OK, decent thing to do and asked me why? and are you safe? From past experience, i know one cannot say to a MH professional that they are not safe and expect to be left alone. I don’t like lying either, so i just didn’t respond to his questions. To his credit, his texted the following week and asked me if i wanted to “talk about what is happening with you” the following day, our usual session day for the past 6 years. Again, i chose not to respond. Bye, Bye.
And so, i have stopped therapy after almost 10 years. Finally. And i am fine.
From the beginning, i have been unsure of what i was supposed to be gaining from therapy or even if i was “doing it right” because i never felt any better because of it. I started therapy after i received a MDD dx from a psychiatrist and the notion was reinforced after every hospitalization. I felt like it was expected of me, like seeing the shrink or taking the meds. My appts. were always made for me before i got discharged. My shrinks always asked me if i was seeing a T and sometimes they’d ask who.
Over time, my sense of something not being right or helpful about the whole process grew larger and harder to ignore or brush off as me doing it wrong or maybe not having the “right” therapist or type of therapy. Some of my most intense self harming occurred as a direct result of feeling this disconnect, usually as soon as i got home. I remember thinking – this can’t be right. But, either through laziness or bewilderment or both i kept going to someone. Actually 4 different someones’ in the last 10 years.
In the past, when i’ve mentioned my unhappiness about therapy etc. here, i have been advised to keep looking b/c “it can take a while to find the right T”. But, i don’t have it in me to keep looking because i don’t honestly believe it will make a damned bit of difference. I kept going, in part, because it was easier to just go rather than consider trying someone new or like a rational person would do, explain why i was leaving to my current T. So i just walked away, ghosted him. He probably thinks i’m mental or, more likely, just a dick.
So, it’s been – actually 6 weeks- without the grind of every friday morning pretending i had anything worthwhile to say and dreading the little dance of nontherapy. And i’m saving myself some cash. It always felt like i was just paying someone to sit across from me and pretend to be interested. Fuck that shit.
So yeah, the starvation thing. I did some research on it, like how it feels to die by starvation, how long it should take, what actually causes death etc., but it was a more painful process than i had expected. By the third week my back was killing me, i had bad abdominal pain – not hunger – and i was too weak to properly look after Blue, who still needed daily walks and my attention. When i eventually told my intentions to my sister, she asked me if i was planning to “take her with” me. No dear, i was hoping you would take her in – she said she would. Even with the comfort of knowing Blue would have a great home, i came to the realization that this wasn’t the death i wanted. I want to die peacefully and not in pain. So, i abandoned my starvation and as luck would have it, i have cycled back to hypomania and here i am happy and full of energy.
I’ve been binge watching the old episodes of the X-Files, and one of the characters said he could take the bad times as long as he could remember the good times. I guess that’s how i feel about bipolar cycling right now.
Doc
