CBT- When the Adaptive Becomes Maladaptive

As I've said before, there is an experiential factor for my anxiety disorder. Many of my behaviors and beliefs* and attitudes were born as coping mechanisms and defenses against my father's behavior. At the time, those things were adaptive. They were necessary. I did need to be hyperaware of other people's emotions, it kept me safe from my father's ever shifting moods. I did need to be cynical at best about other people's promises and motives. My father's promises- and by extension, my mother's**- were meaningless and often manipulative, and his motives were base at best. Knowing and being aware of these facts helped me cope. I needed to keep things inside, letting them out would have resulted in harm.

The problem is, these adaptive behaviors become maladaptive as time went on. They crushed me under their weight.

And there's more.

I obsessively take notes and make lists. This is necessary to a degree. My illnesses have destroyed my short term memory and in order to keep up with the normals, I have to write things down. I don't have to write down everything that will happen when- when- I get fired. (That list starts with "homeless" btw.)

Again, adaptive behaviors becoming maladaptive.

For the first time, I grok the struggle of people with ED. Alcoholism has one advantage: you don't need alcohol. If you can manage to stop drinking it, you don't have to go back to survive. Not so much with ED. You have to eat to live. There's no getting around that.

My therapist told me to stop taking notes and making lists. For people with normal memory function, this would be good advice. I don't have normal memory function. Even on a good day, I will walk into the copy room with the document to be copied in my hand and not be able to remember why I'm in that room. Then I get back to my desk, see the document in my hand and remember.

So, adaptive behavior that is also maladaptive, and I can't stop doing it.

So, we compromised, the therapist and I. Before I make a list, I have to ask myself what this list will accomplish, or rather whether it will accomplish. Lists that will actually accomplish something- helping me buy the right food at the store, reminding me of chores to do, reminding me of tasks to do at work- are acceptable. Lists that simply codify panic- what will happen when I get fired- are not acceptable. I must put down the pen, the ipod, whatever, and walk away. Literally walk away.

But, but, but . . . I can deal with it if it's written down. It's just words. Words I can control. All the words are mine and they must obey me! . . . um, yeah, I'm obsessing. I can't control the world. I really want to, I really need to, I cannot just let things happen because who knows what will happen, but it will be bad, I promise you that. Here, I'll make a list of all the bad things that will happen if I loosen my grip just the tiniest bit.

Yeah, well, it can be done. I'm going to do it. It's just hard. I wonder if my knuckles are just permanently white at this point?

*Not the atheism, my beliefs about myself and other people and relationships.

**There is a reason I do not advocate "staying together for the kids". Speaking for at least some of the kids, no, we're not better off that way.

Well, We'll See How This Goes

That's how I used to feel about Meanboss. (He's the German Shepards, I'm the cat.)

Last week, I had a cognitive behavioral therapy breakthrough of sorts. Meanboss was going to Florida to visit family. Meanboss is absolutely convinced that the only thing stopping us from setting the building on fire and then hunting down and killing all the clients is his presence in the state. Consequently, he is completely insane the day before a trip. He is equally insane when he gets back.

So, there I am listening to him freak the fuck out on Lady Lawyer, practicing being calm. {breathe normally, his anger is not my problem, i am calm} It was working well enough, though I don't have any idea how to control my heart rate*. Then Meanboss smashed the handset of his phone down onto the base so hard the handset shattered- and I had a moment of perfect clarity.

I wasn't afraid, I was annoyed. I felt exactly the same way about his behavior as I do about a small child throwing a temper tantrum. It was absolutely ridiculous that this grown man was acting in a manner I wouldn't accept from a toddler. I wasn't panicking, I was embarrassed for him.

Then I realized something else. Meanboss is nicety nicenicenice in front of clients, which means that he knows this behavior is unacceptable and he is perfectly capable of controlling it. This increased my annoyance. Clearly, I am unworthy of controlled, sane behavior. I am unworthy, in his eyes, of the simple respect of politeness- something I extended to the drunk homeless man who barely missed puking on my shoes Friday night while I waiting for the bus**. ("Would you like a napkin to wipe your mouth?" He did.)

So, we'll see. Meanboss wasn't yelling directly at me, which made achieving perspective easier, but it was definitely a success. I've spent years having panic attacks every time Meanboss twitches, so it was a big success.

Meanboss comes back from his trip today, and his returns are usually worse than his leaving, so we'll see if one success begets more successes.

Calm, I am calm.

*I frequently have episodes of tachycardia anyway, so I'm good at ignoring it.

**Had he actually puked on my shoes, I'm not sure I would have been so polite. I'm not a saint.

CBT- Day One

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy was something I used to deride. So let's take a step back and see why my opinions have changed.

I grew up with a father who was an unmedicated rapid-cycling bipolar with narcissistic personality disorder. I say that he was his diseases because that's all he was to me. That might seem unfair, especially if you suffer from mental illness. I don't normally identify people by their diseases, but honestly, my only interactions with the man were interactions with his disease processes. I have no idea who he might be under all that and little motivation to find out.

When you grow up with a person like that, family dynamics get warped. A person like that can end up ruling the family with their moods, their rages, their never ending need- need for attention, need for approval, need for validation. It gets abusive quickly, abusive to the mentally ill person in that the enabling prevents them from getting help, and abusive to everyone else, whose needs get steamrolled by the dominant illness.

As a child, your only possible defense is to cater to the crazy*. You learn to be hypervigilant, always on the alert for dad's quickly shifting moods. You learn to crush down your own feelings, because expressing them could cause dad to become angry or sad, and it will certainly take attention from him, and that will trigger a narcissistic rage the likes of which I hope you are unfamiliar with. Narcissists cannot handle not being the center of attention, not even for ten seconds.

So I learned quickly to stuff my actual feelings down somewhere dark and only express acceptable feelings. I learned that other people's feelings are of prime importance and directly affect me and everything about me and my life. I learned that I am only acceptable as far as I can make the crazy accept me. I learned that love means submitting completely to another person's every mood and whim and that having my own feelings and needs is simply not an option. Ever.

Even thoughts were a danger. The narcissist is always right. About everything. Always. Other thoughts are an affront, a personal attack upon the narcissist.

So by age 20, I was a fucking mess. It confused me to be asked what I thought or felt. I thought what you thought. I did not disagree. As to what I felt, what do you want me to feel? That's what I'll feel.

First of all, you can't actually do that. You feel. You're human. That's what we do. So I had feelings, I was just suppressing them. They bubbled up in other places and I became self destructive. And thoughts? Hey, I'm really smart. I think thoughts, I can't help it. I am perfectly capable of observing the world and seeing it is different from what the narcissist says it is. This was upsetting at best.

So I ended up in traditional talk therapy. Which was good for me. Talk therapy is all about discussing your feelings and I needed that. Very, very much. I needed someone to tell me that feeling my feelings is acceptable. I needed someone to react to "I feel [blank]" with a neutral "Okay, then, let's talk about that".

After a year of that, I was all about feeling my feelings. So you can imagine how I reacted to CBT, which is about controlling your feelings. "Fuck that noise, you need to feel your feelings!" would sum it up.

It's true, you do need to feel your feelings. Feelings are valid, always. They may not be reasonable or acceptable or particularly useful, but they are valid. However, when your feelings get in the way of living, control is a good thing.

That's where I'm at. I need some control. Clearly, I cannot do it myself, or I would have by now.

Anyway, the Lyrica is still tamping down my general anxiety to the point where I can think thoughts. In a row. For more than 3 seconds. Which is A Good Thing. The side effects are tapering off, though I think the morning grogginess is just something that has to be lived with.

We were going to start CBT by learning how to separate my body's reaction to anxiety from my emotional response, i.e., recognizing that a racing heart is a physical thing and I don't have to panic just because my heart is racing.

Ha! I'm chronically ill. I learned how to separate physical feelings from emotional feelings a long time ago out of sheer self defense. I could teach graduate level courses in how to do this.

So I'm feeling like the most successful therapy recipient ever when Therapist asks me, "What is something that causes you anxiety?"

Me: My boss. I never know what I'm getting with him. Could be Shoutyboss, could be HappyJokeyboss. It's a bit nerve wracking.

Therapist: How do you want to feel about dealing with him?

Me: *mind blown* (Normally people tell me to get a new job, or something equally unuseful.) Like my other boss.

Therapist: What do you mean?

Me: Niceboss just shrugs it right off. Meanboss starts ranting, and niceboss nods his head and goes on with his day. I'm upset and jumpy for the rest of the day.

Then the therapist told me something amazing: I could be Niceboss. I could shrug it off, I could have a nice day anyway. I just needed to pretend to be calm, practice being calm in the face of The Shouty- because in pretending to be calm, you're being calm.

It's not as easy as that, of course, but it's possible, and I'd really like to live in that world, as opposed to ZOMGStress!ville. So I'll give it a try.

*Yes, I am using that word. In my story, about my childhood and my own mental illnesses.