Uncertainty

Well, I haven’t posted for a while, so I thought I had better write something. Not that I am really sure what to write, but then that seems to sum up my life right now. I am feeling unsure about quite a lot of things, with the psychoanalysis being up there at the top. It is such a rollercoaster ride of emotions that I am exhausted by it all. After a session I can feel upset, flat, disappointed, or just plain relieved that it’s over for the week. But then there are the times when something from an appointment leads to a small insight that makes it seem worth the emotional upheaval of it all.

I have had numerous sessions with the psychiatrist since I first posted about it all, and I still don’t know how I feel about it. Sometimes things seem to make a load of sense, and I feel I am gaining from my visits, but then other times I feel it’s all just a load of crock and is not worth my time. I am still extremely sceptical that my childhood can have so much bearing on my adult cognitive functioning. Anxiety I understand, but things such as procrastination and memory issues are more of a stretch.

I must admit that I have seen cognitive issues in patients who have had traumatic events in their lives that they did not deal with successfully at the time, but we are talking major events, often multiple, in patients with prior psychiatric issues. And they are not commonly seen. My cognitive issues seem to be bigger than my history would explain, in my opinion.

Take procrastination for example, as it was one of the most recent things we discussed. Theory has it that procrastination gained me something as a child, and I have retained it as a coping mechanism due to a “need” to retain some part of my childhood, supposedly because I have not been able to completely” grow up”, so to speak, because of unresolved issues. Maybe because I was not nurtured fully in such a manner to enable me to learn what I needed to become a grown woman. In other words, I did not have enough of a female role model in my life, so have stalled in some areas of development.

Makes sense. Sort of. I certainly didn’t get along particularly well with my mum, as she could be either suffocating, or not very sympathetic when I really needed her to be, and I never had a female role model to take her place until I was in uni and found a close female friend to talk and bond to. But I find it hard to reconcile such issues with why I procrastinate now, and how I ever really benefited from it when I was younger. Children do it as a subtle form of opposition and control, or because it gains them attention. It supposedly continues into adult life when there are unresolved issues that keep a part of a person reliving their childhood instead of moving on. I might not have been close to my mum, but I also don’t think that our relationship was awful either. We just didn’t see the world in the same way as one another. Why should that have such a huge impact on my life now?? And I did eventually end up with a female role model and peer support that enabled me to grow and develop more as a female.

The anxiety I have makes more sense. There were separation issues in my childhood that could quite well explain the anxiety issues. I spent time (weeks) in hospital with serious burns as a toddler, in the era when even parents had to stick to visiting hours. Then, shortly afterwards, my brother was born prematurely and was very, very sick, so I spent lots of time with grandparents and my dad, while my mum spent lots of time at the hospital. I guess that sort of explains why I worry about what others think so much. “Rejection” or “abandonment” by my mum (as I would have perceived it, anyway) seems to be a theme in my toddler years. It seemed to recur too. My youngest brother was also prem, and mum again had to spend time with him in hospital, and mum also had surgery that meant a long hospital stay. I probably wondered what I had done to cause my mum to leave me so much. And maybe it explains the lack of a stronger bond between us, and why I, of all my siblings, bonded the most with my dad and grandparents.

I don’t doubt that there is some benefit to the psych sessions. I have become more aware of my reticence regarding “opening myself up” to anyone, despite a desire to do so, and have a better understanding of why I do this, which mostly due to fear of rejection and/or humiliation stemming from, the “abandonment” thing in childhood and reinforced by events as a youth/teen…..sort of a vicious circle sort of thing where the expected happens (rejection, in my case) just because it’s expected to happen. I kept myself withdrawn, because I was avoiding rejection, and so I was rejected due to being shy and introverted. Even when I did become more outgoing, I kept a part of myself tucked away from others, and because I never opened up to others, I didn’t become close enough to anyone to get the emotional support I needed, or become anyone else’s “pillar of support” in return. Simply being aware of this has opened the door for better communication, and hopefully stronger friendships.

But there is still doubt that things will improve to the degree that I am given the impression they should, in the areas I would like them to. So I am still counting down the weeks until my appointment with the ADHD specialist  in March. I can always cancel it if things improve in leaps and bounds, but it helps to know that it’s there.