Notes I took to prepare for my calls with my therapist.
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* Focus on getting better under whatever time table it takes. I don't care if it takes another two months. You need to get better. And Tara is not the fucking path to get there. The past two weeks have made that clear. I'm just disappointed that that's all she has, but radical acceptance: it is what it is.
* Here's one big part of the problem: expectations.
* You were expecting to be better, to be euphoric, to handle everything, at 4 weeks. It didn't happen. You lost it.
* You never had that expectation before. You didn't even know if you'd ever be better. You didn't just rely on the medicine.
* You have to go in not knowing how long it will take, and not have expectations. Tara will have to deal with it.
* Just because she says she wants an open relationship. But that doesn't mean she's breaking up with me. This is what Johanny said. Radical acceptance might be helpful she said, rather than rejecting these things, just accept them for as they are. It helps take that pain and prevent it from turning into suffering. For instance, you would say "If she is really going to break up with me because I want us to stay monogamous during my mental health crisis, then so fucking be it. She's just not right for me." I obviously don't want to accept the fact that she isn't right for me, but maybe that's what I need. She's even said this much: I am too dependent. That's the problem. I am too dependent. I need to be more independent, she's right. I don't need her. I feel like I do but I don't. I can live a life without her. And if she really is going to break up with me because of this, then I should live a life without her.
* I have been focusing too much on what she needs. Johanny even said it at one point, that she shouldn't have been asking for certain things. I need to focus on what I need to get better. That's the best path for both of us. And one of the biggest obstacles is me thinking "I need Tara to get me there". No. I don't. I don't need Tara to get me there. That's why I think I wanted her to yell at me sometimes, because I needed a reason to sever myself from her, I needed a reason to stop being dependent. I needed to be angry at her. I needed to hate her. Because once she hurt me, then I could finally get better without her.
* Like mom said, she is someone who does care a lot about herself. Think about the LSAT stuff, think about the way she has difficulty admitting she's wrong (although she has gotten better about saying sorry), think about what's happening now with her talking about an open relationship 1 month in and during my mental health crisis. She's not taking care of me, after years of me taking care of her. She's being selfish right now.
* Just need to leave and go home and get better, then get better myself, focus on getting myself better first.
* Need to de-couple Tara helping me get better from actually getting better. You should think things like "I don't need Tara.", "I'm strong, I can get better myself"
* You should think things like "Tara has been with you for 10 years. That's not going away over night. We don't really know how serious she is about the things she's saying. We can't know for sure, but that kind of thing
* She needs space, that's what she's saying.
* I can go to NC, give it a try, and if it's not right, I'll come back. At least I won't have to see her every day.
* She said that I should get my medicine in order too, she thinks it's good I'm talking to my psychiatrist.
* We know for sure that she would never cheat on you. We know she will cut off that friendship if she feels like it's going in the wrong direction. So just hold on to that indefinitely and focus on getting better without her.
* You shouldn't accept an open relationship if you don't want to. Don't do it. It's not right.
Johanny thinks that I should probably go back to NC, given how bad things were. Try to keep a routine in NC, though. Should go for run, should try to see people like Paul, Neil, and Camilo.
On Monday she told me she had fleeting feelings with someone. She said she wanted to tell me immediately because she felt bad. She said she would text him and tell him that she is in a long term relationship and things between them can only be platonic. I thanked her for her honesty and just said we'll try to get through this together.
After Monday I got noticeably worse. Have been having more frequent physical symptoms and stuff.
Today, we had another discussion. She said she feels like she wants an open relationship, that she doesn't want to be with me while I'm still like this because I'm not able to be a partner. She‘s afraid staying in the relationship without it being open will make her resent me and we won’t recover from it.
We feel like we're at an impasse. I feel like I need to know she’ll stay with me however long it takes for me to feel better, and she feels like she doesn’t have any more to give and needs to be in an open relationship in order to give me any more. She also feels like she's the only one who can help me, and she feels like she can't give any more.
Tara fees trapped. She doesn’t want to be with me like this. But she cares about me and doesn’t want to hurt me. She wants an open relationship
Tara wants an open relationship and I do not
I think I need her to help me through this anxiety crisis, but she is exhausted by me. Not only that, but she sometimes triggers more anxiety in me when she’s trying to help me. DadMy parents think that by me insisting that she help me, she will break completely and break up with me.
Tara thinks that by starting a relationship with someone else, she’ll be better able to take care of me
Tara feels trapped by not being in an open relationship. She doesn’t want to be in this relationship right now. But I definitely do not want to be in an open relationship.
I need to talk through these issues, but that talk frequently leads to difficult situations.
I didn’t want to get out of bed this morning. I had panicky feelings during the night. I forced myself to run in the morning and that enabled me to get to work.
Yesterday at work I wasn’t feeling great, and Tara and I were supposed to have dinner with my family at a restaurant in NYC, so I got off of the subway early and ran to the restaurant, which enabled me to get through dinner.