Graduated?

I had a pretty good meeting with the therapist, ending in her telling me that I no longer need therapy! I am staying on her roster, with the plan to contact her if anything changes, and to pro-actively start coming back when I'm considering going off the P@xil.

I told her about the MIL issues, about certain things that happened and how I responded and she told me I'd "achieved great interpersonal growth" in dealing with her. She's absolutely right. I mentioned this a while back, but something changed during her visit last summer and I no longer demonize her or hate her and she no longer has the power to completely ruin my mental state. Sure its still annoying and stressful around her, she's a challenging in-law, but I can handle it. I even challenged her on something last week, and I didn't completely curl up and die. I can take the worst of her and survive, and its empowering.

We talked about how we are working hard to help B right now, how I put a lot of that off last year because I just...couldn't. I am planning to focus my time taking him to weekly social skills groups and continuing to see the family therapist with G on a regular (but limited) schedule to stay on track.

We talked a bit about work, about how I've stopped beating myself up or thinking I'm a complete failure when I can't stay focused and productive every single day or even week. I realize I work in spurts, getting unreal amounts of work done in a few weeks and then just...stalling out. I have been trying SO HARD to be a more steady producer, churning out equal amounts of product every day and I just keep failing over and over and over. Maybe I need to allow myself to work the way I enjoy, and give myself more time & space to really fall into the flow when I'm feeling it, and using the less laser-focused time to take care of the many many administrative and mundane aspects of my job.

I brought up the question of going off the SSRI and we both agreed to wait until fall (and actually October, after I submit my R01) because of the changes coming up to my work schedule, kids' schedule, and travel this summer, in addition to my desire to simply ENJOY this summer.

Overall she said I seemed to have most of my issues under control and she didn't believe in "over-therapizing" and that she trusted I would return should I need it. I felt pretty damn good.