• 💖 [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.

Do You Ever Get Embarrassed Over Things You've Done In Therapy?

Status
Not open for further replies.
O

Ohaz

Sometimes when I think back over past sessions I get really really embarrassed!
I'm 20.

I think of all the things I've done including:

> Blacking out once
> Getting disorientated and not knowing where I was
> Getting angry at my T
> Getting dizzy and double vision
> Going into a spaced out state and mimicking self harming my arms with my fingers
> being very distant
> shaking uncontrollably during any 'processing' sessions
> being too upset to leave at the end of a session

and I just get really really mortified and wonder what my T thinks of me...I'm going to bring it up soon but I get so embarrassed and reimagine it. I'm not long out of my teens so try to image that teenage 'dying of embarrassment' idea.
 
  • Like
Reactions: C j
I've done all of the above. Most of them more than once. For me, therapy is the only place I feel safe. I feel guilty (because that's my thing, lately) but not necessarily embarrassed. My therapist has made it clear that I can't do anything "wrong" in therapy and that everything that happens is part of the therapeutic process. That helps me.
 
lol No. I always let them know just how nuts I am right off the bat. And then, go home and sleep like a baby. ;) Doesn't bother me.
 
No, not bothered. I haven't done anything in therapy settings I'd consider crazy, or feel shame or guilt for. There are things that I haven't done that bothered me a bit, as I wanted to do them, but again, it's not something major.
 
I have done many of the things you have described. I know from personal experience working as a case manager that people have done all kinds of things in therapy.

Most therapists generally do not sign up for the job with the expectation that all their clients are going to have their sh*t together all the time.

And if/when people do the kinds of things you have described, therapy is the best place for it! It actually sounds like you are working hard enough in therapy to risk being mad at your therapist and to be vulnerable enough to stay in the room when you are struggling. Instead of being embarrassed about your actions, I hope you can begin to replace it with being proud for sticking it out even when it has been really tough.

If the therapist has training and experience in treating trauma, then they have likely seen it all before and are not much phased by it at. If they don't have trauma training, then they still are likely to have seen other kinds of behaviors that people may feel bad about.

I have felt really embarrassed about things I have done and said in therapy. It is hard and painful to endure. I strongly suggest you talk to your therapist about the embarrassment, and any feelings of shame, and how to work through them together. That alone may be a really helpful process that will strengthen your relationship and this the therapeutic work together.
 
If you can't dump your damage out in therapy and process it, where can you?

Your therapist's JOB is to nonjudgmentally help you sort through this stuff. If they do judge you they are maltreating you.

Please do bring this up.
 
Yes - but I know I shouldn't, I just can't help feeling ashamed and embarrassed sometimes. When therapy gets tough I shake uncontrollably. This happened for the first time this week with my current therapist. She was a bit surprised and unsure what was going on, understandable as I have been seeing her for a while now so I guess she thought she knew all my traits. I explained it happens when I get into very uncomfortable territory. I can't control it. I was recalling an act of sexual humiliation from my childhood, so yes I feel ashamed and embarrassed at times.
 
The shame that you are feeling is actually from the trauma itself. Sexual assault tells us to feel awful about our bodies and what they do and how they respond. The judgement is from ourselves and from our perpetrators. Not from the therapists. They may not know what to do but they do not feel towards us what we feel towards ourselves.
 
I am absolutely mortified by some of the things I've done in therapy (either in session or outside of session but involving my therapist). I know it's about trauma, core shame issues, etc. etc...I feel physically ill when I think about some of it.
 
I am afraid my therapist will say "yes you are a horrible person please go away" or tell me that I am broken and unfixable... I try to keep my crazy locked up...
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top