barefoot
Diamond Member
I'm feeling very anxious, upset and confused about where I am in therapy and what's next.
Some context/background:
I've been seeing my therapist for about 2.5 years. She's the first therapist I've ever worked with and we have built a strong relationship together. My ex-boss at the company where I used to work put me in touch with her and the company paid for my sessions. After I got made redundant, my ex-boss very generously added a significant amount of money for therapy in my redundancy package. Overall, I think I've had over £20k of therapy with her, all paid for by my old employer. I feel very lucky - firstly, that so much money has been provided by my old company and, secondly, that we have turned out to be a good match.
Before I saw her, I didn't know I had PTSD, I didn't know what dissociation was (let alone that I dissociated myself) and there were things I hadn't ever told anyone that were weighing heavily.
We have had a few ruptures along the way - generally related to miscommunications or me just getting spooked (!) - and have always sorted them out and the relationship has, I think, been strengthened as a result.
She has said all along that I have a lot of resistance - that I'm very self-protected and have a lot of defences. Whenever we dip a toe into more sensitive trauma-related content, I end up in shutdown and dissociate. When I have a bad, full-on dissociative episode there, it is very distressing and pretty much writes off my week - and it is worrying for her as she gets concerned about how I will get home safely.
We're now at a point where I only have 3 or 4 sessions left that have already been paid for my old work. The end of this block of sessions caught us both by surprise a few weeks ago. My old company will obviously not be paying for any more. And I can't afford her fees - her fees are high and I am in a poor state financially at the moment as I'm earning very little money currently (I'm self-employed now - currently in a very dry spell). She has said repeatedly for ages that she wouldn't just drop me and that, if there was still work to be done, we would work something out in terms of her fee.
Three weeks ago, she brought up the subject of there not being many sessions left, so I needed to think about how I wanted to use them e.g. we could start having shorter sessions and we could spread them out more (I currently see her for 90 mins every week). She also said that we were in an unhealthy cycle of trying to do the "deeper work" then I would dissociate and get retraumatised, then we would have to have light sessions for a few weeks to regulate the space, then we would try again and same thing etc etc....so she said I needed to listen to and respect "the no" - my strong internal resistance. I got totally spooked and went into a massive panic thinking she was winding down our work and was then going to terminate me when my paid-for sessions run out. Following that session, I had a hideous week full of anxiety and convinced myself that there was no point to therapy anymore because I wasn't able to make more progress and that she was going to tell me that and we would be done. I wrote about it in this thread: https://www.myptsd.com/threads/has-anyone-conquered-dissociation-in-therapy.67621/
https://www.myptsd.com/threads/has-anyone-conquered-dissociation-in-therapy.67621/
Next session, we talked about all of this and she assured me that she wasn't saying it was pointless and perhaps we could still do the deeper work and that she had meant what she'd said before about us making something work money-wise. We had a great session - I'd done a lot of prep and created some mind maps, which I took in and we talked through together. We felt really on the same page. I felt really hopeful and positive about moving forwards. The following week was a good session and we both said how great the previous session was.
Yesterday things went a bit pear-shaped but I don't know why. I'd taken in a couple more mindmaps - one about shame, which felt like a big deal for me to create and then share and then she didn't really seem to want to talk about it much. Something about her/the energy in the space felt different yesterday. She seemed...a bit distracted...? A bit angry with me. A bit like she didn't really want to engage with some of the stuff I was trying to bring in. Or was I just projected my shame from presenting my sheet of shame??
And we ended up having a conversation about unconscious material and my huge resistance so then she was back to saying about how we needed to think about what was actually possible with the work and whether the deep work I needed to do to heal was going to be possible because, to do that, my resistance needed to soften and she didn't know whether it would. The session ended quite rockily and she was quite snappy and i felt upset and it felt like she just wanted to get me out.
I'm now back to thinking that she doesn't believe we can accomplish much more together - because of my resistance. I feel so disappointed that that might be the case. And I feel very confused - because yesterday it felt like everything we talked about and felt good about the previous couple of weeks...it was like those sessions had never taken place.
I feel worried about the uncertainty of not knowing what's happening after these last few paid-for sessions are done. Surely, she can't be expecting we're not going to continue seeing each other, when we only have three sessions left and haven't discussed that they will be our last three?! Even if we look to continue though, I have no idea what she will offer fee-wise, so I don't even know whether we will be able to come up with an arrangement that I can afford.
I feel terrified that she is going to tell me she can't do anything more with/for me.
I can't bear the thought that this may be as good as I get. That I just get stuck with all these symptoms because my resistance means I can't do the deeper work that she thinks is needed for healing.
I feel stricken at the thought of "losing her" - ugh! How did I let myself get so attached?!
I feel so anxious and miserable about the whole situation. And I know I'm in a massive panic so my judgement is probably off and I maybe catastrophizing etc. But I'm just so confused - I feel like I've had really mixed messages from her over the past three weeks but when I mentioned that (and I didn't say it critically - I was just telling her how confused I felt about where we are and what's next) she just said she wasn't giving mixed messages and that she'd said all along that I have a lot of resistance. And then she got on a bit of a roll about how she always told me the truth, it was her job to tell me the truth/name things and she had never been deceptive... It felt like she thought I was accusing her of lying or something, which isn't what I thought at all.
Ugh! Anyway...so it feels like a confusing mess and I'm just so worried about so many things around therapy. I'm seeing her next week so know we need to somehow clarify what's going on and what we're really looking at.
I think I'm looking for some reassurance/tips from you guys to make the next week more bearable -next session feels like a million years away and I feel like I need to sort it all out now before I lose my mind!
And if anyone has any suggestions for how to use next session, that would be really helpful. I don't think it would be helpful to try to unpick everything from yesterday and to get back into "but two weeks ago, you said X and then last week you said Y and I'm totally confused..." I tried to do that yesterday and we just ended up clashing and I didn't get the clarity or reassurance I wanted. I want to somehow get some reassurance about how we can keep working together and what we can achieve. I'm thinking we should maybe focus on what I can work on that will make a difference instead of what I can't?
I'm just so incredibly worried that I have three more sessions to go and then that will be that :-(
I can't stop crying :-( I hate that this/she matters so much to me.
Sorry this was so long....needed to get that out. Thanks for reading.
Some context/background:
I've been seeing my therapist for about 2.5 years. She's the first therapist I've ever worked with and we have built a strong relationship together. My ex-boss at the company where I used to work put me in touch with her and the company paid for my sessions. After I got made redundant, my ex-boss very generously added a significant amount of money for therapy in my redundancy package. Overall, I think I've had over £20k of therapy with her, all paid for by my old employer. I feel very lucky - firstly, that so much money has been provided by my old company and, secondly, that we have turned out to be a good match.
Before I saw her, I didn't know I had PTSD, I didn't know what dissociation was (let alone that I dissociated myself) and there were things I hadn't ever told anyone that were weighing heavily.
We have had a few ruptures along the way - generally related to miscommunications or me just getting spooked (!) - and have always sorted them out and the relationship has, I think, been strengthened as a result.
She has said all along that I have a lot of resistance - that I'm very self-protected and have a lot of defences. Whenever we dip a toe into more sensitive trauma-related content, I end up in shutdown and dissociate. When I have a bad, full-on dissociative episode there, it is very distressing and pretty much writes off my week - and it is worrying for her as she gets concerned about how I will get home safely.
We're now at a point where I only have 3 or 4 sessions left that have already been paid for my old work. The end of this block of sessions caught us both by surprise a few weeks ago. My old company will obviously not be paying for any more. And I can't afford her fees - her fees are high and I am in a poor state financially at the moment as I'm earning very little money currently (I'm self-employed now - currently in a very dry spell). She has said repeatedly for ages that she wouldn't just drop me and that, if there was still work to be done, we would work something out in terms of her fee.
Three weeks ago, she brought up the subject of there not being many sessions left, so I needed to think about how I wanted to use them e.g. we could start having shorter sessions and we could spread them out more (I currently see her for 90 mins every week). She also said that we were in an unhealthy cycle of trying to do the "deeper work" then I would dissociate and get retraumatised, then we would have to have light sessions for a few weeks to regulate the space, then we would try again and same thing etc etc....so she said I needed to listen to and respect "the no" - my strong internal resistance. I got totally spooked and went into a massive panic thinking she was winding down our work and was then going to terminate me when my paid-for sessions run out. Following that session, I had a hideous week full of anxiety and convinced myself that there was no point to therapy anymore because I wasn't able to make more progress and that she was going to tell me that and we would be done. I wrote about it in this thread: https://www.myptsd.com/threads/has-anyone-conquered-dissociation-in-therapy.67621/
https://www.myptsd.com/threads/has-anyone-conquered-dissociation-in-therapy.67621/
Next session, we talked about all of this and she assured me that she wasn't saying it was pointless and perhaps we could still do the deeper work and that she had meant what she'd said before about us making something work money-wise. We had a great session - I'd done a lot of prep and created some mind maps, which I took in and we talked through together. We felt really on the same page. I felt really hopeful and positive about moving forwards. The following week was a good session and we both said how great the previous session was.
Yesterday things went a bit pear-shaped but I don't know why. I'd taken in a couple more mindmaps - one about shame, which felt like a big deal for me to create and then share and then she didn't really seem to want to talk about it much. Something about her/the energy in the space felt different yesterday. She seemed...a bit distracted...? A bit angry with me. A bit like she didn't really want to engage with some of the stuff I was trying to bring in. Or was I just projected my shame from presenting my sheet of shame??
And we ended up having a conversation about unconscious material and my huge resistance so then she was back to saying about how we needed to think about what was actually possible with the work and whether the deep work I needed to do to heal was going to be possible because, to do that, my resistance needed to soften and she didn't know whether it would. The session ended quite rockily and she was quite snappy and i felt upset and it felt like she just wanted to get me out.
I'm now back to thinking that she doesn't believe we can accomplish much more together - because of my resistance. I feel so disappointed that that might be the case. And I feel very confused - because yesterday it felt like everything we talked about and felt good about the previous couple of weeks...it was like those sessions had never taken place.
I feel worried about the uncertainty of not knowing what's happening after these last few paid-for sessions are done. Surely, she can't be expecting we're not going to continue seeing each other, when we only have three sessions left and haven't discussed that they will be our last three?! Even if we look to continue though, I have no idea what she will offer fee-wise, so I don't even know whether we will be able to come up with an arrangement that I can afford.
I feel terrified that she is going to tell me she can't do anything more with/for me.
I can't bear the thought that this may be as good as I get. That I just get stuck with all these symptoms because my resistance means I can't do the deeper work that she thinks is needed for healing.
I feel stricken at the thought of "losing her" - ugh! How did I let myself get so attached?!
I feel so anxious and miserable about the whole situation. And I know I'm in a massive panic so my judgement is probably off and I maybe catastrophizing etc. But I'm just so confused - I feel like I've had really mixed messages from her over the past three weeks but when I mentioned that (and I didn't say it critically - I was just telling her how confused I felt about where we are and what's next) she just said she wasn't giving mixed messages and that she'd said all along that I have a lot of resistance. And then she got on a bit of a roll about how she always told me the truth, it was her job to tell me the truth/name things and she had never been deceptive... It felt like she thought I was accusing her of lying or something, which isn't what I thought at all.
Ugh! Anyway...so it feels like a confusing mess and I'm just so worried about so many things around therapy. I'm seeing her next week so know we need to somehow clarify what's going on and what we're really looking at.
I think I'm looking for some reassurance/tips from you guys to make the next week more bearable -next session feels like a million years away and I feel like I need to sort it all out now before I lose my mind!
And if anyone has any suggestions for how to use next session, that would be really helpful. I don't think it would be helpful to try to unpick everything from yesterday and to get back into "but two weeks ago, you said X and then last week you said Y and I'm totally confused..." I tried to do that yesterday and we just ended up clashing and I didn't get the clarity or reassurance I wanted. I want to somehow get some reassurance about how we can keep working together and what we can achieve. I'm thinking we should maybe focus on what I can work on that will make a difference instead of what I can't?
I'm just so incredibly worried that I have three more sessions to go and then that will be that :-(
I can't stop crying :-( I hate that this/she matters so much to me.
Sorry this was so long....needed to get that out. Thanks for reading.
