324- Psychotherapy 2018-01-22

I'm back from today's psychotherapy session, which was productive, though I didn't get to discuss everything that I wanted - as I lacked the time for it all.

As my last session was in late September, there were a lot of things to discuss. I covered my progress and subsequent ending of CBT for social phobia ; Becoming autonomous in social exposures ; Hosting and attending my very first NYE parties in my entire life - outside of my maternal family gatherings for such occasions ; and switching to a CBT for my emeto-complex.

The main topic was my upcoming DFSP surgery, from its infancy to post-op:

• The issues surrounding the past few months, ever since I was going to have my first biopsy ; 
• All subsequent biopsy, stitch retrieval and confirmation that I have this DFSP - a type of skin cancer that must be operated to reduce recurrence risks down from 50 to 10%. 
• Communication difficulties I had with my mother who started to display anti-scientific, anti-therapy and anti-medicine concepts. 
• Her forgetting the topic and me not bringing it back in conversations, as I didn't need the aggravation from her replies
• Having to avoid talking about my psycho-emotional and physical health with her as a result ;
• Having no possible support from her for any of my struggles, mental/psychological and physical alike.
• Anxiety for the surgery itself, as well as all preparations and post-op treatment and recovery
• I asked him to prescribe that anti-anxiety medication that he had initially prescribed a few years ago and that I hadn't taken back then, as my crisis was over. He did so. It'll be Atarax, a medication that is known for many years mostly for its anti-allergy and anti-histamine aspects, but which is also used for anxiety treatment and which I can take sporadically and with no risk of addiction - hence no withdrawal either. So I can take it when I need, anywhere between half and 2 pills at a time, once or twice a day if needed. It takes 30-60 minutes to act. 

He suggested that I try it tomorrow, to find which dosage works for me, prior to the surgery date itself.

As I told him, I’m very responsible with medication and take only when needed ; this is good, not only to avoid addictions with addictive substances (where applies) but in this case, I’ll have to be careful not to take often, as all variants of this medication has lactose, to which I am allergic and which gives me indigestion at the very least. Hence, if half a pill’s enough, that’s what I’ll do, and only in cases of extreme foreseeable anxiety- with the exception of tomorrow’s trial.

As a result of lac of communication and lack of support from my mom, I mentioned to him that I didn’t want to lay it all in my wife, and that I reached out to my friends, including from the twitter MH community, and that it was a big step for me, since I tend to have difficulties in this area. 

I also told him, as an aside, that I was rather happy with the online MH friends that I made in past 1-2 years and that we exchanged wish cards for xmas/end of year this year (a first for these friends) and that we also expanded our topics of conversations whenever possible, to get out of the MH friendship and widen it to other mutual interests.

I asked if he knew of a way I could help sway my mom’s opinions, and he replied that there isn’t, and that it’s her own story and difficulties that prevent her from seeing more clearly, and that it’s her self-protection mechanism, because she’s not ready to face her issues.

He asked if I’d read Eckhart Tolle’s book Power of Now that he had suggested last time. I explained that I found out that Tolle seems to have a bit of truth and a lot of WOO, though not as bad as Chopra, and that both and other WOO-self-help gurus were promoted in the same Oprah Winfrey tv show, and that it’s so sad, because they all have so much pseudo-scientific aspects to their millionaire guru-ness. As he still thought that I should read and weed out the WOO parts out of Tolle’s book and that I didn’t want to pay him any cent, I can take it at our library, as they just bought it recently.

Still discussing books, I mentioned that I checked and found that I tend to read 1-2 MH books per year, and that the rest are non-mh fiction and non-fictions, and that my current book is Ochberg’s about PTSD therapy. I further explained how I found his videos and approach on youtube, and that he was a pioneer and which is why I chose his book to under PTSD even better.

As you see, we covered quite a few topics – thought just over half an hour wasn’t enough to discuss others that I wanted.

My next session is April 23^rd.