Dear calisister (and Cali Chica):

Your most recent breakdown (the word your sister used) started Jan 27 and ended Jan 30. Here is a selection of quotes from your writings and one from your sister’s:

Jan 27: “On Monday, I start a very tough rotation… how do you recommend I can get through until June 30 (to finish this post-dc program).. the approaching of Monday is causing me severe anxiety.

Jan 28: “I have this anxiety… how do I get through the next couple of months doing something I hate…  The reason I am not quitting (is) because I would have no source of income. That’s the only reason… I would love to quit.

“Jan 29: “It is the middle of the night. I’ve made a decision to take a leave from the program. Not quitting. But asking for a mental health leave… I am so unhappy… I cannot keep living like this… I felt the body of pain today so intensely. I felt the anger so  intensely. I am MISERABLE… My body hurts so much I can’t move. ..I don’t want to feel tortured anymore… I am hurt. Traumatized. Severely. And I need healing time. I truly need to heal.

“I am sad. scared. lost. This is who I am? A person that can’t function? A person who needs to stop working? I am having trouble accepting this person… My sister and I have decided to ask for a 3 month leave… I go to therapy (which I made an appointment just now for tomorrow) and then what? I am frightened at the idea. I stare at my apartment and dog all day? I can’t…I see this lady going to work. I want to be her. I want to be normal… I feel like my patients I work with in the psych ward. Troubled and crazy.

Jan 30: “I understand I have to heal.. but how.. will all these amazing things happen?…

“I know I have to heal. But I did not like the way I was going about it. It was inducing even more stress upon me…. I can keep the job security and all I have worked for and still heal maybe?… Yes, I have been working. But have I actually been trying to heal? No. Psychiatry. Therapy. No…

“My goal is to function. To eat. To survive… I am not sure I truly hate what I am doing as much as I make it seem.. I can finish this program. I know I can. I want to… My director arrives… He made me feel calmer that I have ever felt in the past 5 months… He stated how my therapy appointments, psychiatry appointments- will all be dealt with and accommodated.

“This entire time when I was making the decision of leaving and only healing, I knew in my heart it was not right… Next time this happens, because it will, I will go in to work… And this is what I want my focus of therapy to be. And my conversations with you… I am continuing. But not the same way as before. With more honesty with my director… and with ACTUALLY healing.

Jan 29, Cali Chica:  “She (calisister) has reached this rock bottom before, but had to go back to her normal ways (work, interacting with parents, getting abuse from parents) that these breakdowns never led to any enlightenment- how could they.

My input today: Clearly functioning is your very high priority. You value functioning well, that is, completing the rotation phase and continuing your employment. And so you decided to do just that. But you also decided to heal while functioning. You mentioned having made an appointment with a psychotherapist on the 29th for the day after. That appointment should have already happened then two days ago. You wrote that your director told you that he will accommodate therapy appointments you make.

This breakdown need not be one of many preceding it and yet to come, where you let off some steam, relieve yourself from distress, receive some attention and empathy, feel better, continue to function…until the next time: another breakdown, letting off some steam, relieving yourself of distress, feeling better, and back to functioning… and then back again to breakdown.

It shouldn’t be this way because there is no healing in it. This pattern is similar to a child throwing a temper tantrum, the parent giving the child candy, the child calms down until next time.

I need to change the way I interact with you, calisister, so to encourage your healing, and to not encourage this pattern of breakdowns.

I will no longer give you input that belongs in a psychotherapy session, such that you made an appointment for, intent on healing. I will let this kind of input be between you and your psychotherapist. My input therefore will be different than before.

anita