Does Therapy Change Relationships For Better Or Worse?

[jedijackie]

Question... how has therapy & working through your processing, changed you, changed your relationships with family or others, for the worse?

SE therapist gave me... not really an ultimatum but more of a crossroads statement... that after a year of working on only symptom reduction I'm gonna need to decide to make that leap of faith to trust her and start working on my traumatic history (she's not gonna kick me out if I say no, though -- I like the lady very much). She topically knows my background from the news and referral, but I've never shared a narrative, never spoke the words or shared any details. Last week I attempted to put her at arms length when she said the 3 words in a sentence: "...your traumatic background...", and I blew up at her and shouted, "That's BS, I never told you I had a traumatic background, those words never came outta my mouth!" (which caused her to roll her eyes; probably exasperated the hell outta her, I'm sure). Hence, her giving the sorta-kinda ultimatum. The question made me pause and I'm trying to overcome my last real objection before proceeding.

Okay, so I KNOW I need to make that decision for myself; trust or not. Fish or cut bait, I get it. My decision, fine. Co-dependency stinks. But the answer I'm looking for is for some feedback from you guys who found that the end-goal of processing worth more than the relationships they damaged by working through their trauma. For example (not my story): the child who grows up with a good (but obviously in-denial) relationship with the family who hurt, or allowed him/her to be hurt, as a kid.

As long as no one else is currently getting hurt, I'm afraid that dealing with my memories will change my perspective of what happened in the past, and how I interact with my "people"… because I depend on them, because I've always depended upon another person, and right now I have to keep on depending upon others, for help, for my kiddo, for survival (monetarily, emotionally, physically, etc).

Have you found that therapy & processing the old, worth potentially losing existing relationships? Or has it made life worse (confronting, no longer able to be around that person, etc.)?

 

[BlueDream]

For me, the only relationships that were further damaged were the unhealthy relationships.
As I become stronger,
the love & respect for myself also grows and I'm finding it does not leave much room for people who want to hurt or hinder the process of my healing.

Unfortunately two of those relationships are with ppl that were supposed to be there for the long haul,
however I'm learning everyday to open myself up, and I love the results, some of the best friends I could ask for are finding their way in.

 

[Lifetraveller]

Hey Jedi Jacki,

A few bits of feedback here...

First, I think this is such a richly helpful topic and there's something in how you present it that I really like. Maybe it's how you seem to know your boundaries and situation very well. It reminds me of how we are each the true expert in our situations.

Next, it sounds like you're being needlessly 'all-or-nothing' in the situation, like you must trust your therapist completely or not at all, and I don't think that's accurate. You yourself say that she will accept No as an answer from you here. In a similar way, I think that you're assuming that if you trust her and work through your trauma, your perspective of what happened in the past, how you interact with your "people" and the effects on existing relationships can only change for the worse.

Here's where my personal experience feedback comes in.

Sometimes trusting others, including therapists, made things worse but it has sometimes made things infinitely better because I am living honestly. I think it depends on the relationship in question. Also, what happens in one moment in time is not how that relationship will necessarily be forever. It reminds me of that popular wisdom about changing one's self: the ones who really love you will stay with you through it and the ones who don't, won't. We learn about the true love of others. Or how when we hit rock bottom, we see what is really essential in life. That last one came from J.K. Rowling's (Harry Potter author) Harvard commencement speech.

I think that if I went and tried to repair all the relationships that were damaged by my working through my stuff (as opposed to managing symptoms), I couldn't live with myself because I was being so dishonest. Then again, life can be long and maybe those relationships will be repaired one day.

I think it's best to find a way of sharing what you wrote here with your therapist in order to make your decision. I would even consider bringing it with you to your session.

One other small thing...I had a negative reaction to your therapist rolling her eyes at you. I think if she's good at what she does, she should have been able to make an internal note to herself that your blow-up probably means that you're not ready to do what she's asking, and that she should bring up that incident with you at some point so as to make it useful for you. Also, setting some part of therapy on a seemingly arbitrary schedule of one year, I don't think that's appropriate. Some people may take longer than a year to learn symptom management and some make take more than a year before they're ready to go to the heart of the matter. So, especially if you are the one paying out of your pocket for the therapy, if it isn't free of charge to you, please remember that ideally you guide the therapy as much as does the therapist. If my therapist (whom I pay $100 an hour to) was pushing me to be on her schedule of recovery, I would have a problem with that.

I wish you a good journey.

 

[Seasounds]

First, to join the band, I agree with the above post; you reveal your trauma on your own time. Truly, your therapist is not wise to suggest to you that you reveal trauma on her schedule. Maybe look around for another therapist. I did, and it worked out better.

Secondly, (now getting to your question), first and foremost you get to be in control of what changes you make in 'your people', your family and community relationships.

Some thoughts, along these lines. Some people get great and enough relief by sharing their truth with their therapist. Some people decide to take it further to talk to the involved family members, about their memories--this often fractures relationships. Once again, you are at choice.

For me, I was not interested to blame; I wanted to have the courage to speak MY (no one else's) truth, since finding courage and my voice/truth, were necessary for my healing (doing this stopped the nightmares.) What valuable thing I can pass on, is that even though I claimed that it was MY truth, everyone one else felt very accused, and therein lay more fractured family relationships. Would I choose to continue to have nightmares or loose family? After two decades of regular nightmares, I would choose to speak about MY memories.

There was great liberation in sharing memories with my therapist. I was freed from being the family scapegoat, and made new insights which were pivotal in me becoming empowered. Other than sharing MY memories, I did not feel I had to challenge their daily BS; I could simply make a choice to not participate in their patterns, and still be kind to them, (although I had to greatly reduce my time with them to reduce my flashbacks) while I knew My truth.

I hope, in your own time, you find your way to handle each individual relationship, the best you can. Keep trusting and forgiving yourself. Life is an inprovisation. I can choose what I do; I can never predict or control others. In revealing your trauma, you may find you make and cultivate more honest and deeper relationships; so if your current 'people' react to you, you will still have (newer) 'people'.

 

[Sideways]

Sometimes our T knows we're ready. We don't always want to be ready, but sometimes we are, and your T is letting you know that she's ready when you are...

Your T isn't necessarily saying "Okay, let's blow this wide open". Maybe (just my experience), your T is saying "Let's take the next step". That doesn't have to mean destroying anything.

For me, the stuff with my dad - that's on the backburner, because my T agrees that probly my mum is gonna side with my dad if I put it out there in the world and my relationship with my mum is too important to me to lose.

But I know that at some point, I'm gonna have to talk about it. Because it's there, regardless of whether I'm dealing with it, and I can see that over the years, the rot has already set in. My relationship with my mum has been tracking a downward trajectory for years. At some point, there isn't going to be much left to salvage...unless I start working on my issues.

And that's the thing. They're your issues. You don't have to talk about anything with anyone. Deciding to scratch the surface with your T, stick your toe in the water, that doesn't have to detonate your entire world.

But, again my experience, you can either choose to start scratching at the surface with your T, or eventually, your trauma history will make itself known (painfully) regardless. Like rot that's set in, you can carefully start to treat it by your own choice, or you can let it keep chewing away at your foundations until the whole floor collapses underneath you. Either way, it needs to be processed.

Choosing to deal with it, choosing to control that process, doesn't have to mean destruction. The therapy process might ultimately make you decide that there's stuff you want to raze, or rebuild, but it's a process that you can have control over. But it does mean that you have to start dealing with the rot. Because the rot is there, even though you don't want it to be.

Take your time, take it slow. The rot is there. And your T is saying "Let's deal with it, let's control that process, rather than sit back and wait for the floor to cave in".

Just an alternative perspective.

 

[EveHarrington]

On the one hand------not going through therapy would potentially keep the relationship in a ho-hum mediocre state.

On the other hand------going through therapy has the potential to make relationships SO much better.

IMHO, it's worth the risk.

But can I ask a question?

Why are you basing the future of your health on relationships/other people?

I'm curious as I've never seen this concern before.

Aren't you good enough to say "gosh darn it, this is my health, this is my life! Healing is a priority to me above how it may effect other people."

But yeah, treatment can be hellacious at times. I'm nowhere near done with mine and about to enter a new/scary phase that will likely turn much of my life upside down. I'm doing it for me because I deserve to be happy. If I lose people along the way, it's kind of an unfortunate consequence of healing. But, I'm not worried as I don't think that's going to happen.

 

[jedijackie]

Why are you basing the future of your health on relationships/other people?

I'm curious as I've never seen this concern before.

Really? Not trying to break new ground, just trying to stay alive. I'm afraid if I start to process things, I'll start to believe the things the therapists keep saying. They keep playing that card of: "If such-and-such happened to another person, would you think it their fault?" or "If this happened to me, would you blame me for what happened?", or the one that really ticks me off: "If the same thing happened to your kiddo..." (totally not fair!).

Because things HAVE to be my fault. That's the only way what happened can make sense. Ex-Catholic guilt I suppose. I cannot accept that bad things happen to good people, or this happened just "because." It has to be my fault.

And if it's not... that's where I'm terrified. Okay, so I'm not an idiot, I know deep inside rationally where the blame should go. But it's much easier to compartmentalize and own the guilt myself. If I listen to the therapists, release the narrative and unleash the anger (which I don't do), and place blame where it would go for another person experiencing the same situation... I'm afraid I can no longer have the same relationships. And I'm afraid to lose them (for monetarily, emotionally, etc reasons). It's not just about keeping my mouth shut; unfortunately I do a really good resting bitch-face and I'm afraid that they'll know, that I won't be able to hide my feelings. Disgust, blame, fear. And they'll know I spoke about it (was raised southern and we aren't supposed to talk about our problems).

But I also know that I need to heal; can't continue like how I am. My final objection to the therapist was what I asked above. Every single week I've made objections and every single week they overcome my flawed logic. This was the last question I had that they are leaving to me to answer: is telling your story, is healing, worth it to you, knowing you may have to take a risk in ending your current relationships? THAT'S what I can't figure out. How do you know when it's right?

For me, the only relationships that were further damaged were the unhealthy relationships.

Wow... this powerfully resonates. Thank you.

Next, it sounds like you're being needlessly 'all-or-nothing' in the situation, like you must trust your therapist completely or not at all, and I don't think that's accurate.

The word that came to mind reading your really excellent feedback was authenticity. My yoga therapist uses this word, although I don't really grasp it's meaning well.

Regarding the therapist eye-rolling, I hold no offense on it. It wasn't intentional to hurt me, it was her in-the-moment unconscious reaction, her B.S. meter going off on the utter crap I was spewing. She knew it, and at that moment I knew she knew it.

Sometimes our T knows we're ready. We don't always want to be ready, but sometimes we are, and your T is letting you know that she's ready when you are...

Your T isn't necessarily saying "Okay, let's blow this wide open". Maybe (just my experience), your T is saying "Let's take the next step". That doesn't have to mean destroying anything.

Wow, I like all your responses very much. Much food for thought here. If okay, I'd like to copy/paste some of your responses for my appt this week. Thank you!

 

[EveHarrington]

Thank you for clarifying. I now understand where you are in healing. I was curious as your perspective was one I hadn't seen before. I think you do deserve healing and I hope that you can work through this with your therapist. I don't personally know Catholic guilt but I can understand how it could hinder healing.

 

[Lifetraveller]

Hey Jedi Jackie,

I'm really glad you liked our feedback.

You write:

is telling your story, is healing, worth it to you, knowing you may have to take a risk in ending your current relationships? THAT'S what I can't figure out. How do you know when it's right?

I would say that you won't know whether it's worth it to you unless you try it out. I think trusting our own judgement about when it's right is part of becoming an adult, PTSD or not.

You have my permission to copy/paste all you want with my own response.

Best to you...

 

[Whyteferret]

If you trust your therapist and you feel ready, move forward. She's not given you an ultimadum that I can see. She's willing to keep working with you at your pace. I see it as a nudge to deal,with the PTSD, not "just" with your reactions. We get stuck on some things that seem "easy" to others. Then beat ourselves up for being stuck. At least I do.

It sounds like,you're afraid of the possible changes- a normal reaction. What you have now is the "known" and familiar. Not having the constant PTSD stuff going on will be something new. For me, familiar is how I function now.

Relationships will change. You will change, so the interactions with others will also. I think there will be some stress as people define their new roles. IMO, if the other person pushes you away as you become more healthy, there was something not quite right- like some codependency. Maybe you're stuck in the "broken" role? I think things will improve after the time of figuring out new roles.

 

[jedijackie]

Feedback, if it could possibly help anyone else... took your copy/paste-from-here feedback to SE therapy today and discussed. Had totally psyched myself up thinking I needed to tell my story, and likely as fast as possible while dissociated (was NOT looking forward to that). But she cut me off entirely from doing that saying it would be far too traumatizing, that she knows I always come in to session already fairly activated and that she doesn't need to know exactly the "what" because she sees it in my body reactions anyway. She said all she'd really like to do is start putting together a genogram of family relationships, based on feedback when I choose to provide it through the course of her gently probing starting with an extended session next week. Kinda surprised when I asked if I hadn't been doing that all along anyway... apparently, I haven't said jack-squat about my family other than my relationship with my kiddo... geez, what HAVE we been talking about all year, lol?!

What she suggested (and apparently meant last week that I didn't understand) was that she wants to proceed with me only visualizing a snapshot/movie screen of one of my past traumas and she'll guide me through pendulating back and forth from resourcing, back to visualization, back to calm. She said it may take a few months, maybe longer, of titrating different images until I can be ready to talk about them out loud without activation. She said she doesn't want me to verbalize what I see in the image until I can handle seeing it without any body activation (and that she sees when I'm activated through checking-out, flushing, fidgeting, stuttering, ect). When I asked which distressing image should I choose, she said that my body will know which one it wants to work on; I may bring up one in my head, but that my body may actually choose something else (no idea how this works, but gonna let this question slide for now).

Regarding therapy causing relationships to change (the original intention of this post), she listened to me read off my thoughts and you guys' feedback about my concerns of, "Will getting into the meat of therapy make my relationships worse?" She responded with: Yes, probably initially -- because my "people" will see a change in me, and that they won't like that I'm moving from my "assigned role" as the fixer, as the co-dependent, that I'll be focusing more on what's healthy for me instead of them, and there will be push back at least initially. But that they might (or might not) decide to later get healthy themselves, get their own therapy, in relation to seeing me change for the better.

She did say that I might likely risk losing any non-family friendships because of the type of friends that people choose when they're unhealthy/co-dependent might not be the healthiest for them when they get to healing (like if I was a recovering alcoholic and surrounded myself with friends who party). This actually isn't a problem for me as I don't really "do" friends at all, so bonus! :-)

She related a bit of her personal story that her family still tends to minimize their own family drama and that she (therapist) knows when to moderate her time with them because of that. I very much appreciated her openness.

So, long answer was yes, she suggested that healing WILL change my relationships as you all suggested also. I might be financially cut off, I may risk in the short-term losing emotional support from family members. But that it IS worth it, especially when at a bottoming-out point (currently am at).

I am really glad I asked for you guys' feedback or else I may not have felt comfortable enough to have this conversation with her tonight. Thank you!

 

[EveHarrington]

Hi JJ,

I'm actually quite impressed with your therapist and her approach to healing! It can be hard to find a good therapist, but I think you have done just that.

I agree with her in that you may lose friendships formed when you were at a more dysfunctional place in life. (I have.) Throwing off existing dynamics can make people balk. If you're the designated giver and you pull yourself out of this role, those who were always coming to you for things will stop coming to you-------but really, if you think about it, a friendship built on one person giving and the other person always taking isn't healthy or balanced. The good news is that you'll be free to form healthy/balanced relationships that are mutually beneficial.