Speaker 0: 0:11

G'day everybody. My name is Elliot Waters and you're listening to the Dysregulated Podcast as always. Thank you for tuning in. Today's episode is the next of my therapy reflections.

Speaker 0: 0:21

So last week I went to therapy and it wasn't particularly good and I'm going to explain why, but it needs to be said in the context in which it occurred. So last week was a 5am week, you know early shifts at work. I had horrendous sleep all week and the therapy session fell on a Thursday and I had horrendous sleep, like I said, and we know that poor sleep can cause a lot of poor outcomes, certainly if you've got multiple psychological disorders doing their thing. So my anxiety was way up. My internal inner critic was dialed up as well, because my ability to push back against those thoughts, those negative cognitions, just wasn't there, because I was just so tired. There was a lot of that sort of negativity going on.

Speaker 0: 1:15

But, as we know, I don't get a choice when it comes to going to work or not, and most of us don't. But in the sense that I need to be going to work to get the therapy, because I need the money to be able to pay for therapy, and I need to be going to therapy because I need to get the confidence to go for a new position somewhere and live out my dream. That feels like he's slipping slowly away. So I am sort of stuck in this cycle which we all are. We've all got bills and stuff to pay for. I'm not unique in that but at the same time the pressure is still on. I've got to get to work, I've got to get the therapy, I've got to do everything. At least that's what it feels like, because in general I don't feel as though my life is going particularly well. So my inner critic and the workaholic and the cognitive overthinker and a few of those parts that I've spoken about before, they firmly believe that we need to work harder, we need to think more about it, we need to do more, more, more, more. Because although we seem to be trying hard, we're not getting the outcomes in life that we want, and that's not good. So something's wrong. And those inner parts tell me it's me basically not working hard enough and doing the right things, which people who are external, who have an objective view, tend to disagree with that. But those voices ring very loud inside my head.

Speaker 0: 2:37

I don't mean in a schizophrenic way, but I mean constant negative cognitions, running myself down, running my life down, and I've got to overcome that somehow and get to work every day. I've got to overcome the anxiety that I feel every day, like this morning, for example. This is going off topic a little bit, but this morning I woke up straight away, boom, panic attack. And I don't even know why. You know like I can't think of a reason that would have triggered it off. It just did so every day. You know, I've got to fight and battle and rip and tear and try and just get through the day, somehow get my responsibilities under, done, underway and completed. And I need to do this because if I don't, everything will fall down, or at least again, that's the feeling I've got, that's what I keep getting told. If I falter, everything will crumble. So, as you can imagine, the pressure is on and that's probably where a lot of this anxiety is coming from, because my body is in fight or flight. My mind is as well, it's in well, it's trying to be in fight mode to get things done, but what's actually happening is I'm going into freeze mode and I'm not getting things done, and then that adds to the stress. So, anyway, that was well, that's every day.

Speaker 0: 3:54

But that was certainly a big, big way of my thinking last week and when I went to therapy, I was all charged up, I was all revved up because I had to get to work. So, admittedly, I had used a bit more of some of my prescriptions to get to work and then to get to therapy, because I have no choice. Somehow, one way or another, I've got to tick these things off or else it'll all fall down. So I'll do whatever it takes to be able to do the things that I need to do, which is difficult when your circuitry and neurons are all mixed up, crossed over and don't work and function as maybe we wish they could. And maybe you know, and a lot of people experience this, this isn't a thing that's an Elliot thing, although it is an Elliot thing in the sense that this is my life and it is very, very difficult at the moment to proceed in a way that's healthy, that's functional and gives me a chance at living the dream that I feel is slipping away, and that's essentially what I was going on about in therapy.

Speaker 0: 4:59

So, as I said, I was all charged up, I was all revved up, and when that happens, I get stuck in these negative loops and I really, really can't get out of them. Often, the only way to get out of it is to go to bed and then wake up and hope that everything's calmed down a bit, which sometimes works. Sometimes doesn't. So I'm in therapy, right, I walk in, I'm all red in the face, I'm all flush because I'm tired and my blood pressure's probably up because of a little bit too much maybe dexamphetamine and caffeine and all those sort of stimulants to get myself out of the hole and functional and active and being able to do things that I need to do. So I walk in there. I've got constant negative ruminations just swirling around my head, which is a constant. That's an everyday thing as well.

Speaker 0: 5:46

But this particular day, with the lack of sleep, the stimulants, all that sort of stuff, and a few losses on the board too when it comes to me applying for jobs, I was not in the best of moods. So I went in there, I sat down and I just went very much like I'm doing right now. I just blurted out everything, these negative loops in my head, I verbalized, and we just went around and around and around in circles, and it didn't matter what my therapist said. There was no way, in that moment, that day, you were going to snap me out of those negative ruminations. It just was not going to happen and it didn't happen. And my therapist even said she said a few things when she got the chance to speak and one of them was that the therapy session essentially from the standpoint of working through trauma and working on those confidence things is a waste of time today because I just was not, my head was not in the game at all. I wasn't in the game at all. I was on the sidelines and there was no chance of knocking me out of those negative loops. I was just too strong, fueled by lack of sleep, too many stimulants and just me being frustrated at life in general.

Speaker 0: 6:59

So I was going on about things that I talk about on here. So I was saying how there's winners in life and there's losers and how I feel like I'm a loser and that unfortunately I don't have the ability to be ignorantly bliss about the evils of the world, because life is a tragedy. We all die, life is a tragedy and most people, as far as I'm aware, are able to push that thought aside, not look at it, compartmentalize it. Perhaps if we want to talk psychological and proceed with their day and achieve the things they want to achieve or at least give it a red hot crack, not being weighed down by these negative thoughts. And unfortunately, with the way that my brain is wired, I can't do anything but dwell on these negative thoughts. It just depends on the intensity. But even my good days, I'm still constantly thinking.

Speaker 0: 7:51

I think about death all the time, all the time, and I think about how there's winners and losers and how a lot of people that I help at work are winners, and how I feel like I'm a loser that's destined to be deficient in life and not achieve the things that I want to achieve. And we know why I think these sorts of things because I don't have a relationship, I'm not in one, I don't have any money, I'm not in a career that I'd like to really be doing. There's a lot more to it than that. There's like eight mental illnesses at play. I'm autistic, so I see the world a bit differently and the world isn't made for people like me or at least that's how I feel.

Speaker 0: 8:34

And I battle these things every single day and it's like belting your head against a brick wall, and this is what I was saying to my therapist in therapy and, as I said, when she got the chance to speak, because I was just going for it and, to be honest with you, it didn't even feel cathartic, it didn't really feel like lessening my burden at all. If anything, me just rattling on about how the world's evil and I'm not destined for anything good and what's the point of continuing on, what's the point of all this suffering if there's no trade off and no reward at the end of it, which is a question I still ask myself. Even today. I ask myself that question what's the point? The idea is you make sacrifices in life and then there's some sort of reward and I feel as though the rewards are not coming for me, even though I feel like I've made lots and lots of sacrifices. Every day is a struggle, every day is suffering, and the idea is, if I keep at it, keep going, the good things will come.

Speaker 0: 9:36

But as I sit here now, 34 years of age, look, I'm falling into the loop again. I apologize for being so negative, but I can't help it because at the moment things are not going well at all. Things are not going well. And when things are not going good and your mind tends to take over, or at least the negative parts of your mind tends to take over. That's when psychological therapy becomes very difficult, very difficult, and that's what happened last week in my session.

Speaker 0: 10:07

Now, like I said, I didn't really feel that much better for speaking it out loud and it just revved me up and got me, you know, it's sort of in a way, I think, maybe reinforced what I was sort of thinking, because my therapist wasn't given the chance really to be able to push back against those negative cognitions that I was spewing out and even if she was given the opportunity, I don't think I was going to listen anyway that I was spewing out, and even if she was given the opportunity, I don't think I was going to listen anyway. I was in that sort of mood where I was like, nah, I know how this world works and it ain't working for me, I ain't listening to nobody because she's all wrong. I'm right, you know, leave me alone. So it's very difficult to engage in psychological therapy when you're in that frame of mind. My walls were up and they were powered by anger and frustration and there was no chance that we were going to bring those walls down and have a productive therapy session.

Speaker 0: 10:57

So I'm not going to say it was a complete waste of time, because these things need to happen, because this is life for me, this is how I live and I need my therapist at times to see me at the low points to really understand what's going on so she can better formulate a plan for me moving forward and how we're going to shape the therapies and what we're going to do now and then. But it's a shame when they do, because you don't really make much ground. The improvements aren't there, because it's just the playing field, it's not on, it's not on the opportunity to get in that therapeutic space and make some real sort of advancements. It's just not there. The opportunity is not afforded to either of us because those negative thoughts were just way too strong and they were fueled by lack of sleep, too many stimulants and just this building, building frustration that I have at the moment because I'll tell you, this New South Wales mental health system has dropped the ball big time. I don't know how many doctor's referrals I need to be sent. I need to send to get myself some sort of help, but it's not coming. I don't know. It's not coming and it's making me so angry that this is happening and I know that this isn't just something that's occurring to me. This is happening across the board. There are a lot of people in the state of New South Wales the great state of New South Wales at the moment that need specialized psychiatric care and we're not getting it, and it's dangerous and it's not good at all.

Speaker 0: 12:34

And again, this is another thing that I kept going on about in the therapy session. I just kept whinging although I think rightly so about how the help has not been afforded to me and how it's not really fair, and I don't feel as though it's fair. You know, I try hard every day to do the right things, to do the right things by people. You know, I try to do the right things by me, as difficult as that is and as difficult it is sometimes to get the motivation and the inspiration to actually do the right things for me. But I sacrifice a lot and I suffer a lot as well, and all I want are the basics. All I want at the moment forget about getting a wife and a mortgage, whatever. Don't get me wrong. I'd love those things, some financial security and all that. I would love all of that and I'm hoping that it may still happen one day.

Speaker 0: 13:26

But what I really want at the moment is just some help from a doctor, from a psychiatrist, that can look at my meds, do some tweaking and see if we can get some better results. Because for someone who's on like seven or eight medications heavy, heavy psychoactive medications I'd expect more out of the meds than what they're giving me. There's a lot of side effects that seem to be occurring, but the benefits I just am not seeing because these negative loops are just getting stronger and stronger. And that's the sort of stuff that I was hoping that things like chlamypramine, the tricyclic antidepressant which is the gold standard for OCD, those obsessive, constant thoughts. Well, I'm on chlamypramine, I'm on higher than the max dose and it still isn't stopping these negative thoughts. They just keep coming in and keep swirling around and ripping me down.

Speaker 0: 14:17

So I'm at the point and I was saying this in therapy that you know therapy is important. Obviously that's where the biggest gains are going to be. For me, for sure, it's psychological stuff, the trauma work, talking to these inner parts and getting everyone on board with the healthy, positive way forward. But there's some barriers to any therapeutic efficacy at the moment. And the barriers are that there's these thoughts and the way that my wiring is firing at the moment. That just makes it near impossible for a therapist or myself to get in there and change the narrative. And that's what we're trying to do in therapy at the moment, is change the narrative and get my inner parts like the inner child. Well, not so much the inner child the inner child, hopefully, will be the beneficiary, but my inner 16-year-old, the loose cannon, the newly discovered 15-year-old, which I haven't named yet, but the one before I got corrupted by school or school forces, social forces, while at school, the workaholic which has been crazy lately, just trying to drive me forward. But I know it's not healthy, but hey, I can't come up with an argument at the moment against it to say this isn't the right way forward. I don't know what the right way forward is, so let's just try and work out of it, even though that's not worked in the past, Anyway. Anyway, what I'm saying is those inner parts.

Speaker 0: 15:41

Now I've forgotten what I was going to say. There's that ADHD. This happens every. Does this happen every episode, or does this happen every episode? What was I saying? Um, I don't remember what I was saying.

Speaker 0: 15:52

But the point is, unfortunately I went into that therapy session not in the headspace for any chance at all for any any sort of probing work to be done, any trauma work. It just was never going to happen. The walls were up, they were fueled by anger and it's getting worse because I'm getting more and more angry because I'm not getting the help that I desperately need. So my therapist basically said that the session was, at least from the point of view of working on traumas and rewriting that narrative, that unfortunately it was going to be a complete waste of time because obviously I was way too aroused, hyper aroused, way too much fire and fury and just way too much talking by me, just blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, just constant. She had to pull me up a few times and be like all right, take a breath and just hang on. But she did say she'd never seen me in that state before. It was the worst that she's probably ever seen me and it was definitely the most negative that she's seen me as well.

Speaker 0: 16:52

And I was like, well, look, it's sort of in a way, although you know, unfortunately this particular session wasn't the most beneficial, I think it's important that my therapist sees me in that state, because that state that I was in is becoming more and more common. It's not an exception anymore, it's not an outlier. When you look at my behaviors and moods, it's becoming the norm, because I feel like life is not affording me the basics, the fundamentals that others seem to take for granted, even though I'm suffering so much, because that's the whole point. As human beings. The idea is in this world we have to suffer and make sacrifices, but we do it because of our meaning and purpose and the things that will grow out of our sacrifices.

Speaker 0: 17:40

And for me, I don't see these things coming. I don't see the wins, because there haven't been many wins that at least I can consciously think about in this frame of mind. There probably are wins, but I'm probably ignoring them. I'm well aware of that. But hey, this is what I'm up against every day. I don't see the wins on the board that make it worthwhile. And it's a tough, tough thing to swallow, but that's how I feel. And the longer this drags on, the worse it's going to. Tough thing to swallow, but that's how I feel. And the longer this drags on, the worse it's going to get, the more frequent these days are going to be where I'm just in no shape whatsoever way, shape or form, able to think anything differently than the negative narrative that is being told to me inside my head.

Speaker 0: 18:24

Um, you know, this is becoming more and more common and it's a big, big problem, and this is a thing that medication I would have hoped might lessen, and then that the idea is for me, the medications would lower those walls so that the therapy can do its thing, and that's where a life worth living really is. So that's basically what that therapy session was about. It was about me venting. It wasn't cathartic. Unfortunately, I didn't feel better at the end of it, like, oh you know, I've offloaded some of my burden. That feels good. You know, I'm glad that I hashed it out. You know what I mean.

Speaker 0: 18:58

Unfortunately, I didn't feel any better from doing it, but a day or two later I did look back and even now, as I sit here, a few days on from when I went there, I'm very happy that I went, because it's so important that I stick with these routines, especially things like therapy, even if the sessions aren't of the quality that we're hoping for. The fact that I'm going and I'm going consistently, that in the longer term, I believe, will bear fruit big time. And although every session isn't going to be amazing and rewriting the narrative and be life-changing, just going every single session ticking that box, walking in there, walking out and knowing that I've done good and I gave it my best shot, that is a huge, huge win. And even if I don't feel the win in the moment, thankfully when I've got a clear ahead, even if it is a day or two later, I look back, like I did last week, and think, okay, all right, that wasn't perfect, but we did it and that's pretty bloody good. Give yourself a pat on the back, son. You did well, so that's the go.

Speaker 0: 20:03

So my therapy session was very negative, very negative. It was just me talking like I have today negative loops, blah, blah, blah. You know the story. It's not blah, blah, blah, but you know what I mean. It's the same old story. We've heard it a million times before. But unfortunately it is the same old story because things are not changing and a lot of it was also talking about the fact that I have not had the help from the New South Wales mental health system thus far and talking a lot about that and maybe some strategies. We spoke a little bit about strategies, about the whole phone calls thing, which I don't like, but yeah, unfortunately most of the session was just me ranting and raving Um, but in a way that was not aggressive, not volatile, just very intense.

Speaker 0: 20:52

And this is the last thing I'll finish on, um, cause I was a little bit concerned, cause I've been told before by people that oh, elliot, when you get real fired up, you know you seem aggressive and angry and all this and stuff. And you know I've always been worried about that because I'm not an aggressive, angry person. But I know I get fired up because I'm a very intense person and I feel things the good and the bad very, very strongly, and that's just the way I am. But I certainly don't want to come across as volatile and I don't want to come across as dangerous to people. But I also am acutely aware that sometimes with certain mental illnesses borderline personality disorder is the one I'm thinking of, but it's not just BPD. I mean, you don't need mental illnesses for this to happen either. People just get pissed off. But I know at times, the expression of these illnesses, the expression, potentially, of my own behavior and my thoughts and feelings and emotions.

Speaker 0: 21:51

I do worry that it errs on the side of volatile, but I did say this to my therapist. I said that I was worried. I hope I'm not coming across like that, because that's not how I feel. I'm just frustrated and thankfully, this was great. She said without missing a beat that at no point in any of the process has she felt like I've been volatile, potentially aggressive, in some way. Any sort of danger was posed to herself or me as well. Never in our experience, which is it's just growing and growing. I see her every week. You know every mood state she's now seen. Pretty much at no point during any of this does she feel that there's any volatility involved, which is great, because that's something that I do worry about, because the aim is not to.

Speaker 0: 22:42

I don't want to hurt the people around me, but I do need to get across how bloody, difficult and hard my life is and how crappy my days are. I'm not going to sugarcoat this stuff because this is as real as it gets. This is real life and it's not just me. I know there's so many of you guys listening right now who are probably going. Yeah, I can relate to that, because I'm struggling too. I need a few wins on the board and I don't feel like I'm getting the rewards for my efforts that I deserve.

Speaker 0: 23:08

And I don't know about you guys, but I get pretty pissed off about that. I do. I really get pissed off about that because it's not fair. I'm sorry, it's not fair. I've got to be careful and I don't want to be slipping into this negative way of thinking, but it's something I'm very passionate about, and it's not just passionate about my own circumstances. It's a lot of people I look around and see going through similar things as well. It's not fair for any of us, and all I can hope for is that things will turn out okay. But maybe somehow, through all of this I don't know I'll figure out a way to help people get out of this sort of way of thinking and I'll cure it forever.

Speaker 0: 23:46

There's the manic Elliot talking, but yeah, what I'm saying is I get very passionate about it and it's something that I think about constantly. So obviously, when I express it in real terms, there's going to be a level of intensity to it, and I'm just so glad that at no point has my therapist felt threatened which she shouldn't, because I never, ever even think anything like that. But I know that I've been told this before, probably by people who were looking to bring me down not actually, you know, try and help things at all and just looking for a way to stick the knife in. You could say and point fingers, but those words stick with you. So I just want to make sure and thankfully, even in that session where I was just blowing up, I did not overstep that mark, which is great because I certainly didn't want to and I haven't and I won't. But at the same time I'm pissed off because I need help and I ain't getting it from the sources. I feel like I should be getting it, but that's another story for another day. That's it. I'm not going to keep blabbing on because I don't want to fall into that trap. So thank you for listening.

Speaker 0: 24:57

I hope you're enjoying the therapy insights. They're getting a bit topsy-turvy. There's some rough seas out there, the waves are crashing and this boat is. I'm trying to turn it around and therapy is getting very interesting because unfortunately, things are getting even harder. But the fact that I keep going to therapy I've got to give myself a pat on the back for that that's a real big one, and I'm so glad that I've been able to do that, because that is something to build on, that is a foundational block to build a life worth living, even if it doesn't feel as though that dream is possible at the moment, I reckon one day hopefully, fingers crossed I'm going to look back and go. Man, they were the days when I was really in the hole. The walls were closing in. You know, when I was really in the hole, you know the walls were closing in, but, man, I stood tall. I just was so resilient, just kept going, just kept trucking, kept going to therapy. Look at me now. How amazing is this life that I've built for myself.

Speaker 0: 25:53

All right, thank you for listening everybody. If you're enjoying the show, feel free to like, subscribe, give it a great rating and you can share it around with your mates. You can follow me on Instagram at elliotttwaters. A few of you have reached out this week, which is great. Thank you very much. I will do my best to reply. As you may be aware, my social capacity is pretty low, so give me maybe a couple of days, but I'll get back to you, I promise. And you can also follow the show now on Facebook. Just search the Disregulated Podcast and the page will come up. More content will be posted on there, moving forward. So thank everybody for listening. I'll see you next time here on the Disregulated Podcast. Thank you.