It’s funny how trust works.
The Guru (aka my psychologist) in what I suppose was sheer
desperation told me something in confidence about experiences in her personal
life today. It gave me some insight and perspective – which I guess was her
intention – and it also deepened the trust I have in her.
Prior to The Guru (and now apparently the citizens of the
internet) I have never actually told anyone the whole truth about everything
before. I know it is her job to listen, but she is very easy to talk to and I
feel that I can trust her. I also feel like I am slowly re defining the way I
view the definition of trust.
Up until now my version of trust would have been strictly
limited to me being able to say whatever I wanted and The Guru’s job being to
lend an ear, offer some advice and keeping my thoughts in her strictest
confidence -not telling a soul, no matter what.
This particular appointment, I was having a pretty shit,
depths of despair type day and the traffic on my trip into town was unusually
heavy resulting in me being about 10min late. Now I can’t stand being late at
the best of times, but particularly so when I am paying through the nose for
it!
So needless to say I arrived and wasn’t in an ideal mindset,
very depressed and agitated and I accidently ended up blurting out thoughts I
wanted to keep private regarding my plans and actions towards suicide.
Something I really didn’t want to do as I am petrified and paranoid about being
hospitalised and thus stopped. (Yes, I do know how that sounds. Shut up.)I obviously freaked her out a little bit, and after some further
She enquired as to why I was so hell bent against the idea
and I told her the more socially acceptable reasons why it wasn’t an option,
such as stigma and fear whilst omitting the fact that frankly I will not be
stopped, I will go out my way and
that I have a permanent contingency plan in place anyway should anyone try and
force hospital on to me involuntarily. (No, I’m not a control freak at all….)
Of course I would rather go out on my own terms in
accordance with the 365 plan, but I do have the ability and the will to take
immediate measures to ensure my desired final outcome if such a situation
should arise.
At that point she said she wanted to call The Better Half
and talk to him about how serious this was getting. Also a deal breaker move
for me (I purposely didn’t sign the consent form for disclosure when I first
started seeing her). My pain is just that, mine and I can’t risk others finding
out about it.
Then I think she must have reached deep down in her
psychological bag of tricks as she went through every “talk down” scenario in
the book including telling me her private story and even trialling the whole –
‘fine then, run away to Ireland and never come back, but just don’t kill
yourself!’ line.
She did say that if it comes down to it, she will have to
make the decision for me and used the analogy: A monkey might be having a great
old time and think it is quite capable of driving a bus but when it comes down
to it, the zoo keeper is not going to let a monkey drive a bus, because well
frankly, it’s a monkey.
Metaphorically speaking of course I’m the bus, she’s the zoo
keeper and I suppose the monkey is my deemed ‘not so sane’ mind. – I like
monkeys, they’re cute.
I then spent quite some time convincing her that I was too
chicken shit to go through with it at this point anyway and even fessed up
about the recent failed attempt to stress the point – omitted the fact that I
have changed “how” plans now anyway since everyone has become aware of the
bipolar I don’t feel the need to cover up a suicide to look like an accident
anymore but accidently let slip how angry I was at myself for failing.
I lied a lot, and after nearly double the appointment time
The Guru let me go home. She didn’t look too confident with her decision and I
feel like adding in here quickly that if you happen to know me IRL and are
reading this after the fact, DO NOT SUE HER, she is an awesome Psychologist who
did all that she could have done in the situation and ended up making me feel
so much better that by the time I left I was able to go to work for the rest of
the day.
Ironically I returned from work that night to find My Better
Half in bed barely able to breathe, that chest infection had become a nasty
pneumonia and so I spent the night at the hospital after all looking after him.
Now a few days on, in another blur of hypomania I assume caused
by lack of sleep (damn ER wait) I have been thinking quite hard and I really feel
that I can trust her to make the right decisions for me, even (as hard as it is
for me to admit right now) that she might have to make those decisions I
disagree with if or when I am not able to anymore.
I don’t think that is a kind of trust I have ever been able
to put into anybody since I was 14yrs old.
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