Change Therapists Or Wait It Out?

[BlackbirdSinging]

whereas distraction just tries to take you someplace else.

You and I are on the same page. It would take me to a place where it would be much easier to not face it or deal with it. It's like little kids and monsters. At some point you have to face it even if it's scary and hard and take your power back.

My mind has been swimming. It's like sometimes none of this makes sense and all I know is I feel terrible and I don't know how to change it. That's why I ask her. And when she says I should occupy my time more I want to scream because what my time wasn't occupied when I was raising my kids and PTSD was slowly getting worse and making things harder and harder to handle?

 

[CrazyHorse]

I am loosing my 'faith' in T's altogether! I am sure there must be some good ones left out there, but I have personally experienced too much wierd stuff from these people so I am done letting someone poke around in my head just because they have a degree of some sort. I occured to me, I know nothing about them, their lives, their personal moral, their intentions or anything about how they structure their own lives really and I let them into my head.

last week I was supposed to start EMDR treatment and the T asked me: Are you angry about what happend to you (rape)? I answered yes. Are you angry at yourself? Before I could answer she continiued: You must be, for letting yourself drink so much he was able to rape you! Thank you very much lady, here is your money, I am not comming back! As strange as it must sound to some, I have found that healing from a plain old psycic works best for me! She cuts through the BS.

 

[Donna-1]

What I was hoping she would say was something more like "remember to do your deep breathing and meditate

I am not speaking for you, but in my own case, I tend to wish my T would encourage me to do something that I already know will help. Like relaxation techniques. Instead of just taking the initiative to do it myself. I want someone to take care of me because my parents didn't. But hey, there's nothing wrong with that. Fortunately, I still have faith that someone else CAN be accepting and loving and concerned.

But sometimes I do think my T brings out her "bag of tricks" (do you remember Felix the Cat cartoons?) expecting them to work magic. She might as well cast a spell or give me a good luck amulet. She will say, "Get more exercise, eat right, try tai chi or yoga classes, don't do things alone -- ask someone to go with you." She wants me to bring three "successes" with me from the week between our appointments. If I had three successes under my belt each week, yeah, that would be nice. I asked her what her criteria for success were. She said whatever seemed successful to me. Yet, most of the time I hesitate to bring them up because she picks them apart, demanding something else that I'm not able to accomplish at this point. It doesn't feel like encouragement. I would like a little affirmation. She would probably respond to that by saying I need to learn to be my own parent, to give myself approval and affirmation, not wait (or pay) for someone else to do it.

 

[Sandstone]

I spent most of my session asking her "but what do I DO?"

I tend to wish my T would encourage me to do something

BlackbirdRising, I identify so much with the desire to know what to do. For me, learning some theory doesn't help at all, I want something hard, practical and applied, and I want a therapist who can act like a coach and train me to it. My big problem is remembering at the time that there is anything I can do.

In answer to your original question, I don't think you can base your decision on this one incident. How long have you been seeing her? How usefu has she been up till now?

 

[Abstract]

You must be,

Aghhh... :mad::poop: I am so sorry. What is moronic idiot like this doing trauma work for. Not everyone is like this and I hope you find someone good sometime. I have had something similar said to me too in the past but less directly.

to make myself busy today

It seems that she was not listening to you. That you were telling her that you have distracted and kept busy for the longest time and that being encouraged to do so now feels like her sending you backwards and her not hearing what you need. Correct me if I am projecting as that is how I have responded to similar suggestions.

If I am being objective I don't think suggesting distraction would make a T "bad" but I do think that just repeatedly suggesting distraction as the only coping skill sounds problematic. And I think its very problematic that she has not included any push towards self care along with the other things. I think thats quite unusual actually.

I want to be able to do something proactive

I don't remember if you have told me this before but have you actually had proper skills training before? Like CBT and DBT with homework? If you don't feel you have enough skills to stay safe whilst you do trauma work then it may be better to stop, do some of those before you re start. Did she seem to evaluate what you are capable of managing before she dug in there? Symptoms are always going to go through the roof and life fall apart a bit with trauma work but we need to have enough skills to manage the basics and stay safe enough. Safe enough to get through it and to get to a place where it all calms down again.

I think whether you leave her would maybe be about if she regularly does not listen despite you telling her something that doesn't work. And if you feel that she is not managing/evaluating the big picture of your care sufficiently while you do trauma work.

I tend to wish my T would encourage me to do something that I already know will help. Like relaxation techniques. Instead of just taking the initiative to do it myself. I want someone to take care of me because my parents didn't.

Hi Donna, :) Hope you don't mind me commenting. Not aiming this at you and just commenting in general about it and more from a theory perspective.

This is exactly what therapist are taught they should never do and that tends to cause regression and potential real serious harm and helplessness (and reinforces staying unwell despite the persons intentions) and it is also something that many yearn for. All the awful pain of unmet nurturing needs. That is different from reminders and from teaching us skills of course. But doing for us what we can do for ourselves is supposed to be damaging. And I have met people who though they needed this, got it, and feel in retrospect that it was very damaging for them.

My big problem is remembering at the time that there is anything I can do.

I so understand this Stenni. Knowing and doing are such different things. Practising doing things in the moment is so hard. I have used a coping box where I put all sorts of options and other inspiration in so that I have reminders when I can't think. I also find sometimes I have to work through them to find something that works more for that specific situation.

Your t taking you through a coping situation sounds like a good idea!

 

[BlackbirdSinging]

I don't remember if you have told me this before but have you actually had proper skills training before? Like CBT and DBT with homework? If you don't feel you have enough skills to stay safe whilst you do trauma work then it may be better to stop, do some of those before you re start. Did she seem to evaluate what you are capable of managing before she dug in there? Symptoms are always going to go through the roof and life fall apart a bit with trauma work but we need to have enough skills to manage the basics and stay safe enough. Safe enough to get through it and to get to a place where it all calms down again.

I think whether you leave her would maybe be about if she regularly does not listen despite you telling her something that doesn't work. And if you feel that she is not managing/evaluating the big picture of your care sufficiently while you do trauma work.

I've been in therapy with her for 6 months and it's CBT. She likes to analyze my dreams and do tapping too. The homework she gives me are things like work for an hour in my PTSD workbook everyday. Or to write a letter not to be sent. Sometimes she will give me an affirmation to say when I start feeling worthless. Or sometimes she tells me to do this breathing exercise she taught me.

As far as what I can handle I feel a little bit confused. Last week she told me I'm stronger than I think I am and this week she told me I'm fragile. That sounds like a contradiction to me. I know there are layers to this work but I had this idea that I'd go in and tell her what I was feeling and she'd say for example "that's hypervigilance and typically you feel that as a result of anxiety your brain has become hard wired to become hypervigilant for *insert reason here* and the way to counter that is to *example here*. Instead after experiencing hypervigliance over and over and sitting myself down at home and really thinking over what I was feeling and what caused it then I was able to make the connection that I would feel anxious and then hypervigilant. At the next appointment I told her about my idea and she validated it.

My problem is I can't come up with what's happening and why on my own all the time. I sit and obsess and have a lot of anxiety and go in circles in my head trying to make myself stop. Clearly it hasn't worked. I feel like I have to stop her sometimes and clarify again and again. Like one week she told me something I was afraid of. I corrected her and we discussed it until she had it. And then for weeks after it when it came up she would say her original thought again. And I'd have to stop her and correct her again and explain why it wasn't my fear but THIS other thing was.

Sometimes I feel like we go in circles trying to make sure the other person is getting the first person's point. It's not always like this but it does happen. I have gotten some help from her. It's just that I still feel like I have so many questions. And I feel like I'm still looking for tools for things I've been asking about all along. Maybe my perception is off though. That happens. I just feel sometimes like so much of this just doesn't make sense and like I'm still reaching up trying to pull solutions out of the air.

 

[Donna-1]

But doing for us what we can do for ourselves is supposed to be damaging.

Oh of course! And I certainly understand this. But it doesn't keep me from WISHING for it, nonetheless. That is part of the allure of therapy. Therapists must find it awfully aggravating at times, clients wanting them to be their "mommy."

 

[BloomInWinter]

Distraction is actually one of the first, most helpful skills I was encouraged to practice in the first months of my therapy.

Why? Because my traumatized brain could not do it.

Instead, I'd waste whole days of my life in rumination and mental self-harm via abusive self-talk. Distraction costs nothing. It requires no equipment, no medication, no guru, and no judgment.

It is not a value judgment nor a 'get over it' statement. It is simply as skill, that when practiced, can help us heal.

By finding something to distract ourselves from the same thoughts over and over again, we are literally retraining the neurobiological pathways to break the cycle and form new connections.

Distraction becomes easier the more you practice it. It decreases negative experiences, and fills that negative space up with different, ever more positive ones. It pushes back against the prison of mental constriction. It helps us learn who we really are, what we enjoy, what we gave up along the way that we'd like to retrieve.

Looking inward so much at our traumas never gives us the mental rest needed to become stronger for processing. We need that.

 

[BlackbirdSinging]

There are times when I can use distraction and it helps to some degree. But when I'm in crisis it doesn't help. I don't mean that I can't stop looking back on my trauma and ruminating on it. I'm talking about times when something happens in everyday life that triggers my anxiety so high that I'm in crisis. I'm talking about that moment when I need to counter the negative voice and ground myself in the present again. It's then that I'm able to distract myself from that trigger. But it's a coping mechanism I lack and want my therapist to teach me. How to come down from the anxiety so that I can ground myself in the present moment distract myself away from the trigger somehow and be calm again.

 

[BloomInWinter]

All coping skills must be practiced over and over again when we're not in crisis before they'll be internalized enough to be effective at decreasing suffering while we're in crisis.

One way is to pick 5 statements which are comforting, whether or not not believe them yet. Write them on sticky notes, and post them around your mirror. Every time you are in that room, pause, and say them sincerely as you look into your eyes.

I began with "I am a good person", "I deserve to be here", "I am loved", "I have people who care about me", and "I am safe now."

When I'd go into crisis, I could use those as a mantra, while deep breathing, without drawing attention.

Also, it's helpful to identify at least one grounding item in every room of your home, car, and workplace. Something not connected to any traumas. It might be a picture, or a beautiful object, or a textured pillow, or a plant...whatever you can find. It only has to be consistent, and noticed.

For three weeks in a row, every time you're in a room, notice it, and describe it to yourself. Think of feeling peaceful and relaxed. Note I'm not saying you have to actually be peaceful and relaxed' just imagine it as best you can. Over and over. Try to put a half-smile of appreciation for it on your face.

Within a few weeks, you might notice a silence in your mind sometimes where you have begun evicting the abusers in your head. It feels bizarre after a lifetime of noise. Just notice it, take a slow calming breath, and say to the traumatized part of you "good job! You're doing great!"

It will continue to get easier with each passing day as you practice it. You'll soon be able to speak kindly to yourself with a lot less effort, which will drive down your overall activation level. As it is lowered, you will be triggered less and less.

 

[Donna-1]

But doing for us what we can do for ourselves is supposed to be damaging.

Of course it is! I wasn't being serious...except in the sense that yeah, it would be nice to have a nice warm fuzzy nest to crawl back into at the end of a hard day. And mama bird to come feed me and keep me warm. But I would never expect a therapist to do that. I don't want her even me touching for a handshake. I was just fantasizing. I am new to this site. It may take me a while to acclimate and get use to warning people when I am not to be taken seriously.

 

[Pencil]

what we can do for ourselves

If we really could, would we be going for therapy?