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You guys are great. I knew sniffing the flame before it got any hotter was the right thing to do, I was just having a hard time with it due to the presence of hope+desire, but now that I've done it, and heard from ya'll that it's probably the best thing for both, I am much relieved.
But here's the unfortunate thing. I could sign off from Okcupid and put on blinders when it comes to girls and within a day or two the hope+desire (hd) chemical flood would recede and I'd return to being the guy who started that other thread. In other words, I'd have no need to try to work on myself and get better.
I think I need some of that hd in me to give me the kick in the ass to join a group or see a therapist.
But then I run the risk of falling into the same situation that I just extricated myself from. But, okay, so be it. Because 1/ I think the odds must go way down now of me running into someone else who is so simpatico and 2/ I can always cut'n'run if'n I feel the old ways acting up. The trick is to do it before anyone's feelings get hurt but my own.
Is this wrong of me? Would that make me a user of other people for my own benefit? It strikes that this is true. But if I only let a one or two messages pass either way, maybe not.
You know what's great for me about this thread and the other? Being able to get what's in my head out of my head and into print such that some of that bad stuff is no longer clogging my head so much and I can move forward maybe hopefully in a good way. Up and out, as a therapist I had once said. But you know what else? I've learned more here about myself from ya'll than I have from 20 years of therapy or whatever it was. Maybe it's because I'm much older now and am trying to be more open and allow myself to be more vulnerable. But whatever. It's been really good for me. Thanks!
Look, OP. You don't need to provoke a crisis or near-crisis situation in order to motivate yourself to get the help you know you need. All you need to do is review these threads. See, you've documented it all, right here.
You now know you need help, so even when your mental and hormonal levels settle back down, you still have that knowledge gained about yourself. So when you're calm, you can begin the search process for a therapist. You said you have a few names, now you can call them and talk to them, or go in for a session or two with each, to feel them out, see if it's a good fit. You still don't need to take the plunge and commit to a program yet; just put yourself in research mode. Just testing the waters. Easy does it.
Last edited by Ruth4Truth; 12-01-2016 at 12:46 PM..
"The moment I start seeing a woman and feel attraction, I go nuts on myself. First, I try to break up and if that doesn't work (and it never has), then to calm down (or whatever) I start to cut myself with a razor blade and burn myself with kitchen matches. Thankfully, that stage doesn't last too long. And the sex has been as good as it gets. But then something new arrives in the bedroom. I start to tremble pretty violently. I get muscle cramps that roll all over my body. I start feeling like someone has put a pillow over my face; I can barely breath, I can hardly talk. Not all of this happens at the same time but each thing individually is enough to kill the mood, obviously. And should I happened to make it through to the big moment, the consequent pain down there is like you would not believe. Crazy, like I'm on fire. Then the sex goes away and we hang out for a while then the relationship goes away.
"To keep this from happening again -- to me but also to any anyone who happens to take an interest me -- I've successfully steered clear of women for the past ten years. Moved to a small town, never go to parties or bars, etc etc. It can be done. That part of my life is over, and I couldn't be happier -- or at least that's what I tell myself."
And yeah well little did I know. So I started the above thread, learned a lot from it, opened some old wounds ... and almost in a fugue state signed up to the Okcupid dating site for the big town I'm soon moving to ... and, what do you know, I connected with a very pretty artist woman. It happens we know some of the same people and have other stuff in common, etc etc., and now she's given me her email address ...
Well, no, I shouldn't be doing this. For her sake and mine, I should nip this in the bud. Right now, I'm trying to wrap my head around the rightness of going away. I kinda like need somebody here to second my opinion -- not so much for my benefit but for hers, since her life has had some deeply tragic moments and she certainly doesn't deserve the so-called tragedy of me.
So, okay, there's that.
But then there's the second sentence of the first paragraph above. Yup, I'm falling into an old pattern but there is no way on god's earth that anything is going to be different from earlier attempts at relationships. So, the only kind and generous thing to do is disappear.
Whew. I just seconded my own opinion. But of course I welcome yours -- as long as it agrees with mine, ha ha.
I don't know how it happened on Okcupid, either. Frankly, I was looking at girls who were only vaguely attractive to me and whose profiles were kinda bla. And then this other girl showed up.
Sheesh, man, of all the gin joints ...
If you are not "put together", if you haven't conquered your demons, you are right that you should not subject anyone else to them. Your reactions are very extreme - as you mentioned in your previous post. You say that you have stopped "working on yourself" and accepted that, but it doesn't appear that you actually have accepted that because you keep doing the same thing over and over again.
You will not have a healthy relationship with anyone until you get a hold of wth happened to you as a child, and work through that dark, hideous place. Memories can be shoved down so far that they are almost impossible to retrieve, but it is OBVIOUS that something happened for you to have this type of reaction when you're with females. You have got to find a better psychiatrist if none of the ones you have gone to are able to get you some type of help. Simply implying that something happened to you is not helpful. You need someone who can help you figure out why you react this way, diagnose you, if necessary, find some type of medication for you - and I say that being adamantly against most medications since they seemed to be prescribed like they were nothing more than pieces of candy.
You're not healthy, mentally, if you hurt yourself. You're just not.
One of the hardest parts about overcoming horrific incidents in the past is to admit to yourself that something did happen, and working backwards to find any slice of a memory that you can possibly get more from. Sometimes, you just can't get more from a memory - but if you can get even just a part of one, even just a 1 second scene, it can be beneficial...if you allow yourself to go there. That's the other hard part, you have to allow yourself to go there. With the walls you've put up, you're going to have a very rough time doing that.
Regardless, push that aside if you want, you said you were done working on it...so if you truly accept it, then you know you can't put another person through this UNLESS you are upfront, from the get go, with them....about all of it.
You've gotten some great advice on your two threads, OP. I just wanted to add that you don't need to see a hypnotherapist to retrieve your buried memories. First of all, I wouldn't recommend retrieving them until you're in good care, therapy-wise. The therapist can determine when you're ready to dredge that stuff up. First, a good, safe environment would have to be created, trust established, and so forth.
And secondly, there are other techniques that allow the client to access those memories: breathwork, for example. CA4now mentioned Erickson in his post on your other thread. Therapists who incorporate elements of Ericksonian psychology into their "toolkit" would offer that. And those would be childhood trauma specialists. I just thought I'd mention it, as one thing you could inquire about, as you look for a good practitioner.
Hang in there, OP! You can do this. Good for you for starting these threads. It seems like you're getting closer and closer to taking that step to get the help you need. We're rooting for you!
Just in case anyone lives in the San Diego area and knows of a good therapist there, please let me know. I wasn't going to mention where I'm headed but at this point what the hell ... and also because, when I look at the therapists and psychologists on Yelp, at least in my somewhat northern neck of the SD vicinity, they mostly seem to be oriented around spiritual practices of one sort or another. I have nothing against that stuff, but I don't think it's going to help me at this stage of my journey. Unless I'm mistaken, and please let me know your thoughts, I need something and someone more grounded. So, if you live in SD and have thoughts on this ...
I mentioned meetup groups before. I think a good bet is to go to a few meetings and see if I can find suggestions there.
Last edited by whirlisking; 12-02-2016 at 05:43 AM..
Just in case anyone lives in the San Diego area and knows of a good therapist there, please let me know. I wasn't going to mention where I'm headed but at this point what the hell ... and also because, when I look at the therapists and psychologists on Yelp, at least in my somewhat northern neck of the SD vicinity, they mostly seem to be oriented around spiritual practices of one sort or another. I have nothing against that stuff, but I don't think it's going to help me at this stage of my journey. Unless I'm mistaken, and please let me know your thoughts, I need something and someone more grounded. So, if you live in SD and have thoughts on this ...
I mentioned meetup groups before. I think a good bet is to go to a few meetings and see if I can find suggestions there.
I took a quick look at listings in the SD area, to try to see what you're pulling up, about spirituality, and didn't see anything of the kind. Try different search terms. I pulled up some really great references using San Diego + psychologists + childhood trauma. (Check the rep note I gave you for names.) One guy specified in his profile that he helps patients resolve panic attacks and self-harm, and teaches calming techniques. That sounds great, but of course one would also want to know if he helps delve into the underlying causes, retrieve buried memories, and do healing work for those painful events. You could also use "self-harming" as a search criterion, "panic attacks", or whatever is relevant to you.
Based on the results you got, I'm guessing you didn't include "psychologist" in your search terms; maybe you used a more generic term like "therapist", or didn't use a practitioner term at all. I've learned that with internet research of any kind, if you don't get helpful results, experiment with different search terms. Sometimes using a different search engine makes a big difference.
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See, you've documented it all, right here.
