Exam Grades & Misguided Sense Of Duty

Friday’s session was a little different – my therapist wrote a letter to my health insurance (which wants to “promote” me from student fare to their standard fare, because I’m “too old” for being a student), stating that I had substantial health reasons rendering me “unable to study at all times prior to September 2011” and that it is very important for my recovery to not put obstacles in the way of finishing my education. I also have a letter from my general practitioner documenting the treatment with antidepressants, so I’m fairly optimistic that this will come to a good outcome.

The rest of the session we just talked: usually, we focus on situational analysis and solutions related to the problems in relation to the SA, but this time we just sat there and had a conversation – I could provide more than ample material for that. I am very much aware of the limitations of a therapeutic relationship and do not think of my therapist as a friend – but there’s no denying that I like him and that I enjoy talking to him beyond the fact that he cures me of an emotionally painful illness this way. He is very easy to converse with, both because he is professionally trained to “say the right thing” and because I stopped worrying about coming across as awkward – he knows I sometimes can’t find a word right away and expressing myself sometimes proves difficult, and we two are aware of the reasons behind that. But apart from the relative effortlessness of our exchanges, I find it interesting to discover his perspectives on life and the world in general.
As I said before, CBASP actually utilizes the therapeutic relationship as a tool for achieving the patient’s recovery, and you get to know your therapist’s background this way. Friday, we spoke mostly about university and the challenges going back poses to me. Knowing that I put a lot of pressure on myself, he warned me to not focus on grades too much and burn myself out again quickly in the process, and told me about his time at university and his grades in the final school exams (called “Abitur” here in Germany):
“Do you want to know my Abitur grade?” he asked.
“If you’d be willing to share it,” I replied.
“You know what you need to do,” he responded.
“Yes, I do – I need to ask you. Would you please tell me what your Abitur grade was?”
That’s how these conversations are used as short training sessions, because one of my “hot spots”, my areas of major problems, is that I retreat into myself and have a very hard time coming out of my shell. By making me ask, which happens very frequently, my therapist also makes me practice becoming more visible and active, and because I experience that nothing bad happens when I express interest in another person, I become more courageous outside of the sessions too. The third effect this exchange has is that by revealing his grade – which is good, but by no means as inhumanly good as I most likely would have assumed – he illustrates the fact that indeed good grades are not everything, and leaves no room for assumptions about my own perceived inferiority.

It’s already become apparent in the emails that I had temporarily slipped back into behaviour and thoughts which are typical for chronic depression – globalized thinking like “I will never succeed” or “I am not good enough for this”. It had not played much of a role anymore during the summer when I wasn’t facing as many challenges as I do now, so this is something where I definitely need to pay more attention. My BDI-II score had already risen to 12 points and doubtless would have gone up even more had I not pulled the emergency brake chain and stayed at home Thursday and Friday.
My next appointment is in three weeks, but afterwards I’ll be on a tighter schedule again for a while, to give me more support. And in between, I am to report via email about how I am doing every week.

My therapist strongly advised me to stay at home and recover properly from the sinus infection instead of going on the excursion which was planned for Saturday: “You belong in bed with a hot water bottle, not in a cave or quarry. If you’d broken your leg, you wouldn’t think twice about going…” I was hesitant, even though of course he had a very good point, but eventually cancelled my attendance. It’s going to create some complications and I’ll have to ask if there’s something I can do as an alternative, but in the end health goes first. The worst case scenario would be that I have to repeat the excursion next year.
What tipped the scale in favour of cancellation was that if I had gone, it would not only have meant an entire day outside when being sick, but it would most likely have affected my performance in the written protocol afterwards too. I’d have laboured – for months, possibly – on the fact that the result would not have reflected my true potential: it’s an open invitation for depressive thoughts.

Advertisement