My T Thinks Therapy Is Making Me Worse

[Jane.l]

Also just realising that I am totally hyper and way too 'high' everything is racing and I know I need to tone it down - right now it feels too good - but a little voice is there saying ah ha but there will a down coming your way :(
Maybe that's the only reason I am coping so well cause I am on an up - maybe it will hit me when the down comes - will deal with that when it happens yes ? Chill chill :cool:

 

[Jane.l]

Still buzzing !! Getting kind of tired of it now, can't sleep, can't relax just have to keep 'doing'.
Thinking (rapid pace style)but if I feel so good at the moment maybe it's because there's a relief in the frantic feeling that my T might abandon me - so therefore maybe he's actually totally right ?? Only this is not a very comfortable 'up' feels like everything is racing at top speed and I know that it can't be sustained - I am like a ball of excited nervous energy it's actually really hard to concentrate when I am this 'high' - and I do worry about making crazed decisions - still checking my emails non stop to see if my T has left any and it's not impacting my mood that he hasn't - which makes me suspicious of where this 'high' is coming from because normally I would be gutted .I think I have no idea what I am trying to say and I am just talking blurb - how do you make your mind slow down?

 

[scout86]

Well, it sounds like you've had enough "fun" and it probably IS time to get your mind to slow down.

I suppose different things work for different people. I'd probably take the dogs for a walk. The old Bulldog is slow and we'd have to keep stopping to wait for her. That would force me to slow down and distract me with watching her courageous attempts to keep up. Maybe a warm bath, if you're in to that kind of thing? What has worked for you in the past? (And, NO, he's not "totally right" if he tries to say the problem is you're not "good enough" as a client! :))

 

[Jane.l]

@scout86 I think you might have to keep reminding me of that - I have a default setting of everything must be my fault and I somehow manage to work back through stuff and find evidence for why that's correct :speechless:

Yes walking might help at least get rid of some of the energy - I kind of feel that I could do a Forrest Gump and just keep on going before I walked this off .

I hope I am not quite this hyper when I see the new T Friday - he will be thinking - what the heck is she doing here she's practically bursting with happiness :wideeyed:

 

[scout86]

I think you might have to keep reminding me of that

Not a problem! I totally get it. There are lots of times when I need to be reminded the same way. (What are friends for? Even cyber friends! :))

I wouldn't worry about the new T thinking you're bursting with happiness. There IS a difference between "totally wired" and "happy". If they are any good at their job, they'll see it for what it is. What it IS is a reaction to stress. "Happiness" has more of a serene energy about it. This is your brain trying to figure out what to do with all the energy from all the stress.

Take care of yourself! (Time to hit the road for the day here.)

 

[Jane.l]

Thanks @scout86 you are a star :happy:

 

[Jane.l]

And here comes the down - not good - I have paid this guy thousands of pounds not to f**k me up - on a professional level I don't know how he can level this - on a personal level I am gutted that I ever let him in - this brave thing thing that I have done - all the horrible dirty stuff he knows about me - it's so damaging - I can't believe I let my guard down but I really thought he was so different - and it's so different from my principles - my belief in trusting is well and truly fuc**d

 

[scout86]

I'll admit that I'm practicing here, but I believe I detect some black & white thinking in that last post.

I'm not sure he DID f**k you up, for a start. You said he helped you a lot early on, right? And it seems like you've learned stuff while working with him? Just kind of hit a plateau/road block & then he chose a kind of poor way to handle that?

Now, I know how hard it is to let your guard down. I can't quite share your pain because I haven't been brave enough to TALK about anything real concrete with my T (yet?). But, if I didn't get how hard it is, I'd have done a lot more talking in therapy and spent way less time trying to change the subject and/or minimize stuff. You did that! And it WAS brave!! And, how did it come back to bite you? OK, he's a disappointment. But the world didn't actually come to an end because you revealed stuff to him, did it? It's just something that you could bring yourself to DO that! It's a victory all by itself.

On the other hand, when it comes down to it, these people have lots of clients. Your story or mine probably isn't going to stay on their radar screens real long. It's just another story to them.

(I'd just like to mention that one of these days I suspect I'll be on the other side of this conversation, because I have a lot of the same issues.)

You're pretty much a star yourself, whether you believe it or not @Jane.l

 

[greenleaf]

@Jane.I -- the response you express is familiar to me and probably a lot of other folks here. It's hard to get out of that space sometimes... Can you perhaps help yourself by imagining that your situation had just happened to someone else here, and they are reacting against themselves for trusting a partly-problematic (though partly good) T? What would you tell someone else here in a similar situation to help them take care of themselves gently? You could try to tell that to yourself. We often treat ourselves very differently than others. I think also maybe this was the only way we knew to keep ourselves safe from untrustworthy people, a long time ago.

Please be gentle to yourself, learning how to trust and who to trust with what (it's not all-or-nothing, like @scout86 says, too), takes practice -- we all get better at it over time, and it's hard.

 

[ghotiff]

Maybe reframing would help. He didn't f**k you up. He f**ked up handling the plateau you reached with him.

I some ways this is great because you have grown so much that you have outgrown him. Be proud of yourself for that.

 

[Jane.l]

@scout86 I know my 'history' isn't his fault, so from that perspective he's not f'ing me up but what is, is that he promised me he would never abandon me, that he would keep going no matter what - even if I couldn't pay him ( when I wasn't sure how my divorce would turn out) that he would stick with me, there was nothing I could say or do that we couldn't work through - that he wasn't going to be one more person in the long long list that 'let me down ' and how seriously he took the responsibility of my trust and blah blah blah - we talked so much about this stuff and I feel like I was deceived and the whole thing of the person not being who or what you thought they were does freak me out - a connection with some of the childhood stuff . He promised he wouldn't hurt me and I am hurting maybe that is my fault. I know I am just another client but it's really hard to tell someone who is meant to care ( in email) that you are having suicidal feelings and their reply to be ( in email) to pull away .

@greenleaf yes it's very true - it's much easier to have compassion for others - and I agree that trust doesn't usually have to be all or nothing but I really had to totally 'go' for this to get out things I had never spoken about - talking is a massive battle for me - it took every bit of courage I could find - it took all the faith I had left that it would be ok to trust, to give someone the power to hurt you, to be vulnerable is a very difficult thing for most of us here - I guess I feel rejected - in my head it runs something like - trust me I am safe, let me in your head, show me your pain - ok yep that's a mess - go away I don't want to know .

@ghotiff yes he did f up handling it but actually I don't really feel we had got to a plateau - yes we were going round in circles trying to get me stable and back to being able to talk but we still have several boxes that we've 'opened' and not put the lids back on - there is a lot of 'clearing up ' to do - I don't feel I have outgrown him - I just feel I must have pushed him away too hard - probably by trying to keep him too close .

 

[ghotiff]

Maybe you didn't plateau but his skills and techniques needed to take you to the next level did.

I remember once a defining moment for me was realizing that when I didn't know why someone didn't do what I expected (it was a work thing but it had upset me) I could choose to assume the positive why ie" that they trusted me to manage it" rather than the negative why ie "because that didn't care enough to help when they had promised". I realised that it was better for me to assume the positive version as their reasons didn't change what happened, only how I felt about it.