What Do You Want From Therapy?

[Deleted member 12723]

What do I want from therapy? To get rid of the intensity of my symptoms. To make them more manageable.

 

[Pencil]

I will call my specialist tomorrow. Promise. And the next chance for the buddhist centre is Friday.

Have been holding onto the hat, undies and DSM the whole day. Please let know what happened. I'd like to let go and do other things with my hands ...

 

[saffy]

For me I think I would like to feel comfortable and happy with myself so that I can form meaningful relationships. I have so many self doubts and have no self esteem when I comes to this. I definately cannot control my emotions in any type of meaningful relationship.

I need help in being able to communicate effectively and to be able to control my feelings and be assertive with my boundaries. I need to beleive that I am worthy to someone. At present I seem to have this self fulfilling prophecy. I think I am not good enough and they will not be interested, this effects my behaviour and thought processes and they react as I predicted by running away or not being honest with me, I think this is because I am not worthy or interesting enough. And so it goes round and round.

I know this behaviour is the effect of years of abuse. But I can't even convince myself that they were wrong in some cases.

Saffy :)

 

[Springer80]

Please let know what happened.

Hi Pencil, I tried her three times today but no reply yet.

 

[Pencil]

Sh*t! But at least you're vertical :)

 

[BlackbirdSinging]

I want to learn coping mechanisms to deal with the anxiety. I want to reduce the symptoms and how often they occur. I want to not feel afraid and hypervigilant. I don't want to feel like I'm creeping and crouching around corners in life in general. I want freedom from the symptoms. As much freedom as I can get from them.

 

[Springer80]

I don't want to go through life either pretending I'm fine and amazing or the neutral opposite of a eyes tight shut grasping koala bear.

 

[piratelady]

It's been over two months since I started this thread and I think I finally have a better idea of what I want/need from therapy as well as why it's so hard for me to talk about.

I need help controlling my perfectionist tendencies. Every time I start to make improvements, they are not exactly like I want them to be. I get mad that I'm not perfect and sabotage myself. When I do that, I tend to go all out. By admitting I need help with that I am admitting I'm not perfect, which is incredibly hard for me.

The end result has been months of me bouncing between trying really hard to control my ptsd, improve other areas of my life, stop self-harming, and throwing it all away in frustration and becoming reckless. I think it's time for me to get off this horrible merry-go-round and have an honest conversation with my therapist.

I know he will ask where the need to be perfect started. That would mean talking about my teen years. I don't know if I can do that though. Ugh this is a difficult pile of :poop:, that's for sure.

 

[safenow]

What I want from therapy right now is being deprogrammed from the training my uncle's group did to me. I want to be able to look at things and not get other meanings from them. When I see the sign of evil and not allow it to trigger all those other thoughts to come flooding into my subconscious. I want to get rid of those sounds of gunshots and flashbacks to all the horror of yesteryear. I want the type of help that others got and I didn't. I am asking for a miracle. I want the type of help I really need.

 

[Pencil]

I want the type of help that others got and I didn't. I am asking for a miracle. I want the type of help I really need.

This is very hard - knowing that others got the type of help you need, knowing that it is available. I hope and pray for you that you can get the help you want and need and deserve, Safenow.

 

[safenow]

I hope and pray for you that you can get the help you want and need

Thank you, pencil. I need those prayers.

 

[maddog]

Currently what I want from therapy is the safety, stability and guidance to help me chart my journey through the most difficult chapters of trauma processing that I have ever faced, and, I hope, will ever face. I need the skill and sensitivity and pragmatism of an untraumatised mind to help me make sense of the twisted wirings in my own brain and to help me by gently but firmly guiding me in how to rewire them.

I need a safe place, where it *feels* safe, right down deep to the parts of me that are deeper than thoughts or feelings. Only with this sense of safety can my mind unlock its darkest secrets and allow me in to explore them, and then, more importantly, allow me out again to find my way back to today.

I need a place and a context where I can learn to experience, to experiment with and to tolerate emotions - all of them, including the ugly and terrifying ones that I've never been able to face. I need a place where I can fall apart under their weight, and then slowly learn to stand up and to carry them.

I need a place and a person who can help me learn to live with the past, and then help me to build a future. Both elements are critical, and I have no idea in the world how to do either on my own.

I'm lucky. I believe that in every objective sense, I have what I need in therapy right now. The challenge is mine, to stick with it, to hang on, to endure the pain, to find the courage to say the things that need to be said, to not run away from the fear or resort to the lies and suppression and falseness that became my mask of protection long before I even recognized them as such.

I have what I need... except for perhaps the personal capacity to do what has to be done with it.

I hope I can find that.
Maddog