Anyone Else Have Trouble Completely Opening Up To Therapist?

[Iam]

This is such a great thread. What is strange is I find myself getting anxious reading it. Thinking about opening up to my T. Though I really have come quite far and we have taken oh so many things out of my "closet".

Gosh everyone's different but am increasingly convinced opening up to anyone about anything can have an awful lot to do with being secretly convinced we just don't matter. What if someone agrees with us?

Anni, I think you are on to something here. My T keeps telling me that I feel worthless. Well, I suppose I tell him that too. Part of it for me too is that I am just soooo embarassed about the sexual traumas and my thoughts surrounding them. Could it be that it's hard to talk about those very personal thoughts because he is a man? Should that make a difference to me? I am embarassed that my body responded to something I didn't want or ask for. Embarassed that my body betrayed me because it makes me wonder if I wanted it maybe? Wow......Oh MAN.......I just really hit on something for myself. That is a HUGE revelation. Now if I can just ask my T about it. It would help me if someone here would hold me accountable to that....Any takers?

Ok...huge anxiety now. Think I need to do my EMDR exercises.

 

[faerie0101]

I wanted to comment on the tendency some of us seem to have toward minimizing our trauma. That has been a real issue for me regarding my assault. My tendency is to compare it to other 'worse' things, like the hurricane, and then tell myself I am silly to be upset about it. At least nobody died this time. I also blame myself for letting this man into my life, which was something I did not have to face with the hurricane, so I feel I don't 'deserve' to be upset. It was so much easier when there was nobody to blame. Well, maybe I blamed the government a little, but I digress.

This denial of the trauma presented a big problem for me when I tried to approach the topic with my therapist (before I stopped going). She would ask me about the assault and I would just blow it off or make light of it. I don't think that I have even begun to deal with it at all. A friend of mine pointed out to me recently that I actually smile when I try to talk about it. I approach it as some anecdotal tale, almost like recounting the plot of a good book. How weird is that? From this thread, I have learned, maybe not so weird. Thank you so much for that. Maybe I'm not a sociopathic alien afterall.

I know that I need to connect the emotion to the memory, so that the emotion will stop popping up uninvited over unrelated things. I guess I'm just going to have to force myself to do it with a big stupid confusing grin. Better to look crazy than be crazy? I don't think I would have realized any of this without this thread. I am so glad I found this place. I just wanted to share my experience to kind of add to the choir. Each of our unique voices is really creating a beautiful song in this thread.

I hope you can use your revelation Iam. I am going to try to use mine. Oh, and Popeye, Therapirate made me literally lol. He should be a comic book hero.

 

[seedling]

Therapirate, savior of the sociopathic aliens. They look crazy, there are crazy but Therapirate comes through every time. (cut to June and Ward Cleaver eating dinner at home with big smiles on their faces).

 

[Elphaba]

I completely understand the problems opening up, and I think it is fairly common. I don't really open up either. I did once - and afterwards I felt a bit in shock over hearing myself say all these things, and I kept thinking "that is not me, sitting here, having experienced and talking about these things" because it is not the "me" that normally appears. Since then, nothing has been said about that in following sessions, but that could be down to me or it could be down to me not quite "getting on" with therapy.

 

[Steve]

Hi,

This is my first time talking outside my therapists office so please forgive my bungling. Not that I ever seem to say much to my therapist. My diagnosis is somewhat different to everyone else here and I have to beg your acceptance for the subtle difference that is my C-PTSD among other things diagnosis but it is the same enough that I believe we can understand each other. I can relate to what all here are saying and for near two years of therapy I have been really struggling. I have gone through a number of councillors and meds and as yet have only found one therapist who I believe understands what I'm talking about. I still can't open up for real but since I tend to try living off logic and reason rather than what I call the chaos, then I can answer what I perceive as questions.

I cannot open up, and in most sessions I cannot remember much and seem to adopt a persona trying to go through the motions of therapy because it is what is expected. Even this is difficult and some times I go in and I am silent for a long time. The logic seems to be that my experiences have made me different and therefore almost no one will fully understand what I'm saying and that anyone who does not has no choice but to assume me to be lying. Many of there questions I don't understand the same as ordinary small talk, even to relate to Cthulhu there, questions like, " Hi, how are ya ? " . I am consumed asking myself what the question means, compared to what for instance; compared to the usual for me, what I may think there usual is, the accepted social norm, is it just physically, functionally. All this goes one of two ways, either I'm great ( or number 5 on the scale if I get Cthulhu's meaning) because its what they want to hear, or I try for honesty and hesitate for a long time making anyone. Including some therapists and doctors perceptibly irritated. I'm not trying to decide what I want them to think I'm trying to decipher the question.

My therapist found a way to understand that some of you may like to try and uses the same things that allow you to write on here. In fact it is the only reason I can write on here even if this one message is taking me hours to accomplish. She asked me if when I am having a bad night or any experience in my day or when I remember something if I would write about it. For myself or she could read it. I have only done this a few times most notably my experiences one night with insomnia and night terror. She has gained some insight to what its like for me when away from her office as well as I have got to say to her and even talk about some things that the persona I'm wearing when in her office would never remember.

Now I seem to have moved horrifically far in to the realms of excessive rambling for which I apologise. I just hope that someone on this site finds some useful piece in the ramblings.

If you have read this far I thank you :)

Steve

 

[zelda]

"It wasn't That bad." "I'm doing fine. Really." All while trying to maintain that sense of "me" that actually functions in the world, while that "other part of me" roils beneath the surface, threatening to explode and make a mess.

Yeah, I know the feeling. It wasn't until my current T identified the charges that could filed against my abuser, had it happened today with the mandatory reporting requirements, etc. that I intellectually accepted that, yes, society says this is unacceptable. It's. That. Bad. But emotionally? I had to feel the terror of the moment to make that real for me. And that was, and is, so hard.

So, I guess that I'm saying that I, too, can relate.

But mostly I want to point out that, if you can't open up to your T, maybe the fit is not good. All Ts are not equal. I wouldn't give up immediately, but your scared self may be giving you some hints. I was raised to be a people-pleaser/caretaker and damned if I didn't work hard to make my therapists feel like they were doing an exceptional job. And several just loved me as a client. When I was in my early 20's, I ended up in a totally inappropriate relationship with a therapist who wanted to be a friend. I ended up living with her for awhile and taking care of her kids.

I've had some bad experiences with therapists, although, to be fair, none of them specialized in PTSD. (However, the boundary-crossing of moving into a T's home would have been just as bad if the T was knowledgeable about PTSD.)

I have a great T now and don't at all feel like I need to boost her professional ego or censure myself. I hold back nothing, although some of what I share is in writing.

So, if you sense that you're holding back, I would suggest trying to get a feel for why. Don't want to blow your image of having it together? Is that for you or your T? You don't want to waste the chance to grow with a good T, but you also don't want to waste you time with a T that just isn't right for you.

My $.02.

 

[seedling]

I liked what kers said in another thread. That she talks to her T about not being able to talk. I like to feel that I can start wherever I'm at and take it from there. If that means I don't get it or feel lost, then that's what I say.

Sorry it I went too far with the joke above. Personally I can relate to feeling like an alien and feeling crazy. Not sure anymore what crazy or normal means.

 

[anni]

Shame? Got that Iams. Here's something, and listen- I'm still going to pre-justify the whole thing, make light of it and have it in the back of my head that it won't be believed-like the rest of the dam stuff. I've never told my T this Iams ( and yes-know how stupid this is-please do not anyone tell me how I'm wasting the T's time and not moving forward, etc-after 5 years of therapy think I at least know my own idiocies). I mentioned it here maybe once, in a year. I was raped, and now have to sit on my hands not to throw in all the adendums of how it couldn't have been a 'real' one since I knew the rapist.The T doesn't know-noone knows, in point of fact-the rapist is still dead so there's just me. There's been too much-the worst thngs do not speak of. The baby was kidnapped all those years ago( the wonderful court system helped set that up nicely)-by a raging, alcoholic madman who had shown me naked pics he'd taken of her, told me 'look, she's giving me a beaver shot'. 3 months old. These things have been minimized, glossed over, contained, whatever, and no, to not to this day feel I deserve them addressed. What if it doesn't matter, in the end? I do not think, thinking of it, my T knows much of the kidnapping, either. It's the rape, though. It was 20 years ago, he's dead-that part of one's head which avoids the crap out of anything it can says leave it the helllll alone. let sleeping rapes lie. So much is foggy and inexact, memory is awful things recalled dreadfully but that moment is clear down to the dust on the stairs and the baby crying. Oh Good God of course my husband does not know, it's never occured to me to tell him, through shame or avoidance or both do not know. noone knows, least of all the T. What IF I'm not worth the healing, or he doesn't feel it noteworhty to address? These thoughts are REAL, if one knows they're not rational.You should have heard the load of crap i told my dentist( he was told of the PTSD, but not the violent removal of teeth) about why the teeth were missing. I should be slapped for such nonsense, and isn't even that a self destructive statement? My exhusband hit me with things hard enough to remove my teeth, is the truth. But truth in my world is shame.Someone in the above posts said something about how one tends to minimize traumas, and also then compare whose is 'worse'. I'm alive, have my nice, fake teeth, my daughter is a brainiac overacheiver tearing up Freshman year and I have the single loveliest husband ever on the planet-others suffer so much more at the moment.What on earth right do I have to ( says my head) to pay attention to decades old dreck in the face of such blessings? And yet- my truth is shame. Somehow, somehow must find the whatever to tell my T of the RAPE. There was more, but if can get past that word, past perhaps feeling deserving of saying that word, who knows. Oh hell, intellectually yes, it must be done, one knows that. Feeling that- aye, there's the rub.

You know now. That's something-although even THAT, well, one does sit on one's hands to prevent the reams of 'proof', or justifications which follow the admission.

 

[zelda]

But truth in my world is shame.Someone in the above posts said something about how one tends to minimize traumas, and also then compare whose is 'worse'. I'm alive, have my nice, fake teeth, my daughter is a brainiac overacheiver tearing up Freshman year and I have the single loveliest husband ever on the planet-others suffer so much more at the moment.What on earth right do I have to ( says my head) to pay attention to decades old dreck in the face of such blessings? And yet- my truth is shame.

Yup. It almost seems like there is a Catch-22 here. If your life is going fairly well and you have strengths, then the past couldn't have been that bad, right? Any level of stability seems to help us dismiss the very real trauma we also live with. Sort of the "All's well that ends well, eh?" mentality. I have that shame. I'm a respected professional woman AND I am a shamed cowering huddle. I struggle with accepting that I am both and that my accomplishments in no way minimize what I experienced.

I am less ashamed and more angry. But how do I present myself as a whole, not only in therapy but in my greater life? My spouse gets it. My closest friends try. I don't want to live in a closet, but I'm not even sure where the door is.

Sorry if this seems off-topic, Anni. I just grabbed on to part of what you said and rambled.

 

[anni]

Oh it's not, Zelda-it's all the same thing. It's SUCH a relief to even say this stuff, and almost more of one to read it in others. I do not enjoy doing so- knowing you and others are that huddled mass of shame, but GOD it's a relief. I know my own mentality was/is to hugely minimize the bejeesis out of every, single thing-in my little warped head a. noone cares in the end so what's the point b. I'm not important enough to deserve attention c. the series of outrageous events over the course of years is too overwhelming-cannot possibly 'pick' one anyway, to work through or feel is important. You live in that head, too, so know one is not walking around wallowing in self pity, saying that, it's just what is. I'm not a professional, so can't say definitively but I'd have to bet your ability to be at leas angry is somewhat helpful, isn't it? I don't know how you do that, quite honestly, being the professional woman, kudos with that, seriously. My contact with others is as limited as possibly because boy, the smallest thing will rattle me and stir up that seemingly bottomles PIT of shame in there. It's just knee-jerk, isn't it? being self-employed is deliberate, since one does not have to be 'out there' every day.

I don't think you did 'only' grab part of what I said-you seemed to go to what the essence actually was/is, really. I do realize PTSD, in the end, is a neurological thing, with actual disruption of circuitry up there. Shame is a concept, not a biological reality so you'd think would be 'curable'. No doubt it is, of course, but oh my, it doesn't feel like it! I do have to say that the anger you have is at 'least' a postive, outward emotion, you know? That has to be some sort of progress, surely.

Thanks for more thought on this, Zelda-I thought it completely on target and bringing up anger awfully helpful to me. It seems a way 'out' at some point, although yes, then that has to be managed/directed/dissipated also. More work, when one doesn't quite feel worthy of the effort!

I'm pretty sure I've just talked myself into a circle, all to say thank you. :)

 

[seedling]

Zelda - can understand the "not even sure where the door is" - I have this place in me too. Hoping I can find the door, but right now the walls are smooth and high although I also realize it's a place I can exist in when it's all too much. A place I made to go when the contradictions of feeling/not feeling, being too confused/ashamed are just too overwhelming.

My T says he's going to buy me a book he's reading now called "The Gift of Shame". He says it sounds strange to say think of shame as a gift but... Will let you know if I read it. Maybe someone else has already seen it.

Some powerful posts on this thread.

 

[kers]

It almost seems like there is a Catch-22 here. If your life is going fairly well and you have strengths, then the past couldn't have been that bad, right? Any level of stability seems to help us dismiss the very real trauma we also live with. Sort of the "All's well that ends well, eh?" mentality. I have that shame. I'm a respected professional woman AND I am a shamed cowering huddle. I struggle with accepting that I am both and that my accomplishments in no way minimize what I experienced.

Oh, this is exactly how I have often felt. In some ways I think a lot of my therapy work is seeing things as you describe them, Zelda: both/and instead of either/or.