Maybe I Am Just Not Good At This

[mylunareclipse]

Maybe therapy is not for everyone.
Maybe I should give up.
I just go mute and despite the fact that I have been i therapy for a year and half I still struggle a lot.
Some weeks I slightly connect to my therapist, but then it goes back to this freeze mode.
I am starting to think that maybe all of this is futile. I don't see how I can ever emotionally connect to her. I want to. I just can't. I feel like I am boring her and wasting her time and I don't me to be so difficult.
When I read here what a close relationship some people have with their therapists it blows my mind. After a year and a half I still feel like an invisible shadow. And it just makes me wonder if I should just give up.

 

[Gold light]

I'm not sure what the answer is, but I wanted you to know that I have experienced something very similar in therapy and I feel for you because it's so hard. Turning up for therapy and then just freezing a lot of the time - is so common for some of us, but it certainly makes therapy frustrating (and expensive)!

I'm wondering how is your therapist with you while this happens? For me my therapist wasn't very experienced and I could pick up her sense of panic and or frustration which just made my freezing worse! Then I got so worried about freezing again I would be so anxious that I would definitely dissociate and freeze. It was a vicious cycle.

I'm wondering if maybe on some level you might do better with trying someone else for a few sessions and see if the same thing happens with them? Maybe something about this T triggers something in you you aren't even aware of? Or you are sensing your T getting frustrated? Because that is the last thing you need!

In my view a great trauma T will just happily sit with the freezing and be there with no judgement and if that takes years of frozen sessions then so be it. But so many T's try to rush it or view the freezing as a failure to progress in therapy and this just makes us feel guilty about our trauma responses which is the last thing any of us need.

Take care I know it's a hard road. I don't think you should give up on trying to heal but maybe their are different people or options out there who might help more.

 

[Rumors]

Listen, I was the same way for a VERY long time. Just recently have I been able to open up and not feel like I am betraying someone or scared because what I am saying is ugly. There is no judgement there like what I receive from others. It has been a liberating experience. I am thankful I stuck with it.
If I can share with you one thing you take to heart it would be to stop judging yourself. The second would be to take your post in to her and let her read it. Doing that would perhaps open dialogue into how you can learn to better open up in therapy. Intimacy is learned for some of us and it comes naturally to others. You have to learn to crawl before you walk. The first step would be to share your concerns. Based on your therapists response, you should have a better feeling for how you can proceed forward. Plus!!! Just sharing this would be healing in itself and proof that YOU CAN do this... Good luck!

 

[Friday]

There used to be a poster here who would repeat a lot

"Trust the process, not the person."

I really couldn't agree more. I'm not trying to date my therapist. I'm not trying to be friends with them. I'm trying to learn from them. I don't even have to like someone, much less trust them, in order to learn from them. I do have to respect that they have something I want to know. If they don't? Then there is very little point of my being there. If they do? Then that's why I'm there. Not to be friends with them. Not to entertain them. Not to do whatever the hell they say blindly. (That's obeying, not learning.) Not to get close to them. I'm there for me. That's why I hired them, instead of invited them out for drinks.

 

[NightSky]

About a month ago I emailed my T a message very similar to what you wrote. I had basically had enough of going for a year and a half and not being able to connect the way I needed to. I saw someone for two years ten years ago and relayed all kinds of information and it never occurred to me I wasn't connecting. Because I was so dissociated and felt zero connection to the person, so there was no desire in me to have any kind of validation or whatever. It was more like a class and I was the student and I was told how to think differently and act differently. It helped on a very basic level but wasn't nearly enough. My new T is a different story. She has managed to stir all kinds of things up for me, including attachment issues (so, yes..trust the process but I think for some developmental trauma sufferers trusting the person has to be equally important?) So now I go in recognizing how disconnected I am and feeling frustrated that I can't seem to change it. The email to her about wanting to quit sort of broke things open for me though and we have made a ton of progress in a month. All because I hit my limit of frustration and let her know I wasn't getting what I needed and I knew it was because of how frozen I am. That lead to conversations about fear of emotion and then lead us to grasp just how dissociated I am and to come up with a solid plan to work only with the freezing and dissociating in a very direct way. Now, even though I don't feel the emotional connection how I want to yet, I feel like she's sitting in the thick of it with me and helping me find my way through it. So I don't feel as alone as I did. And that gives me the hope I need to keep going.
It's possible an honest conversation with your T about this frustration will be really helpful. I'm sorry you're feeling this way. it's so disheartening to want to heal and to feel like you have no control over your automatic reactions. But I say stick with it and keep being brutally honest with your T, if you feel like she's a good fit.

 

[One step at a time]

Sorry for the wall of text... turns out I have a lot of thoughts on this one.

I don't even have to like someone, much less trust them, in order to learn from them.

For me, this sense of "trust the process, not the person" doesn't work. The person was more important than anything else.
There were a lot of therapists that were not right for me for specific reasons. They could not provide/teach what I needed.
But, especially early on, I wasn't aware of those reasons. All I knew was that I couldn't connect with them, trust them, and like them. That feeling of lack of connection was a warning sign that it wasn't going to work.
Eventually, I also learned (or became aware of) what I needed from a therapist.

In other ways, I totally agree with "trust the process, not the person."
A T is a person, and trusting them to the point where you forget that - putting them on a pedestal - is a problem. Trusting them to the point of doing what they say rather than learning what they teach - following them blindly - is a problem. And if things go wrong with one T, deciding the whole therapeutic process is a hoax or a sham is also a problem - the person was not to be trusted, but the still therapeutic process works for some people.

The freezing is gonna happen.
If your therapist is not responding in ways you find helpful, I would suggest talking about that with them.
If you, like Friday, don't need to feel you are particularly connected, you can still learn useful techniques for not-freezing or for un-freezing yourself, whether or not your therapist's response changes.
If you need to feel connected, and after talking with your therapist and asking them to change their response, you find yourself still feeling disconnected, you might consider looking for another therapist.

 

[Deadman]

Maybe I should give up.

Giving up is not really a good option. If you have made an honest effort and there is something about your T or that style of therapy that is not working for you then look for someone better. You can even tell your T why you are looking elsewhere.

Some weeks I slightly connect to my therapist, but then it goes back to this freeze mode.

Do you freeze because you don't trust your T? Or do you freeze because you don't trust yourself? Are you afraid that if you say something 'real' she won't understand? Or do you just say nothing because you don't feel you are worth it? Are you afraid she will hurt your feelings? Are you afraid she will make you angry?

 

[Freedomfighter]

Maybe therapy is not for everyone.
Maybe I should give up.
I just go mute and despite the fact th...

A year and a half in therapy is actually not a long time, it blows my mind how long it really takes to heal the PTSD brain. So your therapist is right in just plowing away. That is not to say that is easy on the patient. Oh no sir, it is the toughest thing I have ever done in my life, getting mad? Hell yeah, especially when I do not understand certain treatment options and why I am made to suffer through some cruel exercises? I know it is working so then I feel bad for questioning it. But at times these exercises make me suffer so much I think I will die on the spot. Literally thinking my heart will stop beating, flat lining right where I am at. It is sooooooo scary....

You have to stick it out, temporary down times are like additional bridges you have to cross. What I get most mad at is that my physical health suffers. Nothing makes me more mad then when I realize that my physical well being is endangered. O.k., that makes me straight out livid, and then it is: watch out, pisses me off so much.

 

[mylunareclipse]

Wow guys!

I have tears in my eyes from reading all your responses. I really appreciate all your input.

This therapy stuff is hard.

In the beginning I didn't think so much about the connection I was supposed to have with therapist, and I just kind of went there for the "education", but then with time I realized that that could only bring me so far. A valid truthful connection was needed.

And I know in my brain that this is what I am supposed to do, just let my guard down, jut feel my feelings. But I just can't make them happen. Then I get frustrated with myself. Then during the week in between sessions I feel this undescribable amount of pain, like physical soul pain, yet in session I keep going mute. I feel so small and I feel like I am taking too much time and space that I don't deserve to be in therapy, that my therapist is bored or annoyed at me, and I just wish I could be a better emotionally connected person, but I just can't. I have actually never cried in therapy.

I would have never thought this therapy thing would take so long. there's been so memories that have come up that I don't even know what to think. Lately, I actually spoke to my therapist about this quiet style wasn't working for me so much and I needed her to just acknowledge my presence a little more often, or that she was listening to me, and I can feel a difference. Maybe it's time to have another conversation. It's just in my head I think that everyone else is probably competent in therapy and I feel so out of place. As much as it saddens to see so many others going/or having gone through the same situations, I am grateful for your support and for sharing your stories, it makes me feel like I am not alone in this. <3

 

[NightSky]

Wow guys!

I have tears in my eyes from reading all your responses. I really appreciate all your...

Please do have that conversation with her. I have spoken with mine at length over the last month about how I keep feeling like I'm so bad at therapy. And she keeps reassuring me that everyone's journey is different and everyone is broken in different ways and there is no one right way to do it. She tells me how some people stare out her window the whole time and never look at her and does she think they are "bad" at therapy? No. She knows they are hurting. Others go in and cry the whole time. Some go in and never show emotion (me), and no one is right or wrong. This past week she was telling me I can't look at it like I'm following a recipe and if I add all the right ingredients I'll have the end product I want. It's more like putting a little of one thing in the pot and trying it and then adding a little of something else, to find what works as you go. This feeling you have about being bad at it can be the caralyst for your next right step, or your next realization about yourself but you have to work it through with her. It sounds like she would be receptive to that.

 

[mylunareclipse]

Please do have that conversation with her. I have spoken with mine at length over the last month about...

Thank you so much Nightsky. I have been following your posts closely as well, as we seem to often follow the same path and deal with similar problems in therapy.

A few weeks ago I tried to have a more open conversation with her and I think it helped. I think a lot of my fears dissolved. I also asked her to please show a little more verbally about how she cares etc, and she has started doing that a bit more. But I always sense that she holds back. She said that she tries to not show to much emotions, because that's just her style and what she thinks works best. So I never really hear "I care" "you're resilient" "that sounds painful" type of thing, so I think it kind of has me doubting all the time. She said that people in my life won't be able to always show those things so maybe this would be good practice.

I have reached the point where at least I want to connect to her, but always feel like something is missing, and I feel that it's in part because she is holding back? If that makes any sense at all.

thank you and good luck with your therapy!