• 💖 [Donate To Keep MyPTSD Online] 💖 Every contribution, no matter how small, fuels our mission and helps us continue to provide peer-to-peer services. Your generosity keeps us independent and available freely to the world. MyPTSD closes if we can't reach our annual goal.

Video entry phone - ugh!

Status
Not open for further replies.

barefoot

MyPTSD Pro
My therapist moved to a new building a couple of months ago. I really like the location, building, room, everything...except that it has a video entry phone system.

In her previous places, I just had to press a button to ring her room, we'd speak through the telecom and then she'd buzz me in through the front door. Now, she sees as well as hears me when I buzz her.

I find it very stressful and always have to spend a few minutes on the pavement psyching myself up to press the button to dial her room. I then feel incredibly awkward and self-conscious while it rings and when she answers and when I have to speak - I really don't know what to do with myself or where to look and I just basically want to crawl out of my skin.

She is then up several flights of stairs so I generally arrive at her room feeling flustered and anxious about the phone, and hardly able to breathe or speak after climbing all the stairs. So, I am reaching the conclusion that I think I am always starting my sessions with a pretty high level of discomfort and anxiety, which then just seems to snowball. I have written elsewhere here about my frustration about not being able to focus and pin down what I want to talk about and my tendency to follow T's topics or to go off on tangents and that then I feel like I've wasted loads of time. And I think that is a separate topic. But I'm also now wondering whether starting off sessions already feeling anxious, self-conscious and...exposed, really...from the phone is somehow exacerbating the other problem? I don't ever really calm down from the phone anxiety and then am unfocused and start babbling and...ugh!

My main challenges with the video phone are:
- I hate that she can see me but I can't see her
- I hate that I don't know exactly what she can see of me - I don't know whether I'm some massive close up on her screen or if she can only see the top of my head or what
- I feel vulnerable and exposed somehow but I also feel pathetic saying this because this is just about pressing a button to get in to her building!
- I feel uncomfortable that I clearly see her next client on her phone screen when he buzzes in towards the end of my session (I see his whole face, not just top of head!) and I feel incredibly awkward when I then see him on the stairs or in the waiting room because I know that he is her next client (but he presumably doesn't recognise me or know that I'm her client)
- this means that I also feel uncomfortable about the fact that the client she sees before me sees my image on the phone screen and would then be able to recognise me. And it's not that bothered (ok, I'm a little bothered, maybe) about being identified as my T's client or as a therapy client generally...it's more about the imbalance again...that I could pass someone on the stairs who recognises me as being my (our) T's next client but I have no idea who they are - they could be another practitioner who rents a room there. I don't know why this matters to me but there is definitely something around an imbalance and feeling exposed.

I feel really, really silly about how much this is bothering me and I don't really know why I am so bothered by it. Something feels...unequal somehow or that there is some kind of imbalance...which feels like I'm in a vulnerable, exposed position. But I know all I am doing is buzzing her room so that she can open the bloody door!

I actually mentioned it yesterday because I felt in such a flap about it at the start of the session. I basically just blurted out that I was sorry that I always acted like a weirdo on the entry phone but that I hate the video phone and I don't ever know what to do with myself so I was sorry that I must just always look very awkward. I said it very light heartedly and she was very smiley and casual about it and said she doesn't ever really look at anyone, she just gets up and buzzes the door and that she often just sees the tops of people's heads because they lean down to listen at the speaker. So, she was trying to reassure me that it was fine and I don't think she really realised how stressful I find it because I made light of it.

So...any thoughts on this...should I contact her before next session asking if there is a way around the entry phone? E.g. can I just text her mobile when I get there (I have her mobile number and texting her is fine with her - so it's just about whether she is ok with that being how I announce my arrival and get into the building)

Or do I just need to grow a pair and get over it?!

This is one of those times when I get stuck on knowing - when do I ask for someone to help me with something I need (i.e. can I just text when I get there instead of using the video phone) and when should I push through and make myself do something instead of just avoiding something because it feels stressful?!

If I keep using the entry phone (either because I just choose to keep doing that and don't mention it to her or because I ask if I can text on arrival instead and she says no and insists I use the entry phone) I can obviously do that. But then I think I need to find a way of calming the anxiety at the start of session. Or, of course, even better, get to a point where using the entry phone doesn't create any anxiety in the first place!

Oh my God...I can't believe I have just written so much about an entry phone!!!
 
I would have the same concerns!!! About all of that!!! You're not overreacting and I LOVE your text first idea. If something is really getting in the way of you being comfortable enough to open up in therapy then that's something that needs to be discussed for sure. I'd hate the stairs, too lol. Alternatively you could get there extra early and do some breathing exercises to calm down. I wouldn't like that option as much as your idea but it could be a way to get better with it. Good luck!!
 
I would feel exactly the same way!! and I would be afraid to ask to text in case she said no lol.
However my fear of the buzzer would probably be enough to push me to ask.
What do you have to say into the speaker?
 
OK I feel compelled to give a word of warning about avoidance behaviours. It's tempting to avoid all the things that PTSD tells us are a danger. The problem is when we do it it makes our worlds smaller and smaller. Until we get to a point where we struggle with anything outside our safe but joyless routine.

I understand the desire to do it. I've done it for years. It hasn't helped me in the least.

I strongly encourage you to work with your T to overcome your fear of the videophone. Its a nice safe place with good support. Its a chance to fight back and make your world a little larger.
 
To be honest, I can't see the video phone being the "thing" to work out avoidance symptoms on. If it means you come to session calmer and more able to work I'd ask about an alternative way of letting her know you're there - texting sounds like a good compromise. You don't need to fight every. single. battle.

I'd also sit somewhere that I couldn't see her video screen so I didn't see her next client. I would mention that to her because it's her job to maintain her clients confidentiality in and out of session - good practice would be for none of you to ever see each other so she either needs to change how visible her entry phone is or change her schedule to make sure there's no overlap.

That arrangement would drive me batshit crazy.
 
Thanks all. I wasn't sure whether I was being hugely over-dramatic about this so it's helpful for me to know that this would be an issue for some of you too.

Yes....the conflict between when to tackle avoidance head on and try to push through comfort zones and when to respect the resistance (not sure that's really the word I want but it'll do for now!) and see not pushing and fighting as an act of self-care. It can be a tricky one!

I think my main thinking here is that, at the moment, I am starting sessions with a heightened sense of anxiety, unease and discomfort, which isn't the easiest/most productive position to then spring board into the rest of the work from! So I think I want to prioritise calming (or, bette still, not having any) anxiety at the start so that I can be more present and open and focused.

So, I think I will contact her before next session (tempted to email asap but may actually just text her earlier in the day of our next appointment in a couple of weeks time) saying that the video phone is more stressful than I probably made it sound when I was quite jokey about it yesterday and asking if I can text her next session when I arrive instead of using the entry phone.

I will then plan to raise the challenges I have with it, which I mentioned in my OP.

These things cropping up at the moment...I think I have been so frustrated with myself because it has felt like they are getting in the way of me doing the work. I think I am starting to realise that they *are* part of the work. That this isn't just a silly thing about not liking the entry phone. But that there's probably loads of stuff we can explore around the vulnerability, the imbalance of whatever (power? Dunno), the feeling exposed, the lack of sense of safety around lack of privacy... And that I don't need my T to just validate my feelings or reassure me that she's not really paying any attention to what people look like on the screen or whatever. But that I want/need her to pick up on these things and help me dig around and explore them a bit as themes. Feeling exposed is definitely a theme that has come up quite a lot with us in that she has named it a lot but we've never really dived in to that. So, perhaps this conversation about the entry phone may also act as a potential "in" which I am struggling to find.
 
@NightSky I don't have to say much into the speaker. I buzz, it rings (and my image is up on her screen in her room all the time it's she answers and says hello)...I then say hello and she then tells me to either go up to her room or to take a seat in the waiting room. But, even though I don't really have to say anything, it just feels so awkward to me. I don't know where to look or how close I'm supposed to be and I don't really need to say anything because she can see I'm there. I just feel horribly self-conscious about it.
Ugh! :-)
 
it's her job to maintain her clients confidentiality in and out of session - good practice would be for none of you to ever see each other so she either needs to change how visible her entry phone is or change her schedule to make sure there's no overlap.

Yeah, this is what I think too. And she has always been very, very careful and deliberate about that. So, before I leave, she will open the door and poke her head out and if someone else is on the stairs or if someone is going in or out of another room, she will keep me in the room so that I don't have to see anyone on my way. And this just feels very far removed from that. It's not her building so she can't just decide to rip out the video system but I am surprised that she is ok with client faces being clearly vsisible on a little screen right in front of where other clients sit.

That arrangement would drive me batshit crazy.

Erm...yup!
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top