Cannot Talk About My Trauma In Therapy

[Brokensoul88]

I had my fourth session with a psychotherapist yesterday and I just shut down. The first few have been kind of getting to know each other but yesterday she was more probing, encouraging me to 'open the box' I have kept locked tightly shut. I am not the kind of person who talks about intimate things with people so it's already hard but she comes out & says the R work casually & I flinch. I don't want go waste this but all the sitting in silence whilst she hopes I am going to open up just feels hopeless. I know I have made the step to do this, a commitment to talking about what happened but I came out thinking "What the f**k am I doing here if I can't even verbalise or bear to say certain words?" It just feels like another week wasted and another week until I can try to do something about it. I wish the sessions were perhaps closer together but it's not possible. I bought a house on my own last week & I am here decorating and feel like this is all pointless, not just the therapy but doing up the house, it's just me, alone with all of these new bills 'moving forward' and new worries whilst the past tries to swallow me whole.

 

[ms spock]

Four weeks of therapy is really early to be talking about trauma.

What type of grounding and centering have you done? What daily management techniques are you using? Are you eating? Are you exercising? Are you sleeping? Are you managing your symptoms?

I can't imagine that people get to the position of trusting a therapist enough to start talking about intimate things so early on.

I don't know what your trauma is, so if it is a one off thing then that is different, but for Complex Trauma it can take months or years.

It seems that your expectations are completely unrealistic, from my understanding of the process, but it might be that you have a unique and different situation.

 

[Justmehere]

It took me several years of attempts in therpay before I could talk about that R word. It's really hard to do.

Instead of sitting in silence, your therapist should talk about what helps you feel safer, less safe, how to manage anxiety (including the fear of talking.)

The fact that they are not leading the conversation to do that concerns me.

Studies show that the number one factor in successful therpay is not the ability to speak of the trauma, but the relationship with the therapist - something the therapist should be working on with you.

Is this therapist a specialist in trauma with training specifically for trauma?

It is absolutely not hopeless. You do have a bright future ahead of you. Many people never have the courage to even walk into therpay, let alone keep sticking it out. Recovering from trauma and being able to talk about it takes a lot of time and learning of skills to manage all the feelings that come up. Be kind to yourself - you have so much to be proud of.

 

[Mosaic]

Most of my sessions, we didn't talk about the trauma at all. Every time she said the R word she knew how uncomfortable it made me and would avoid saying it and often would avoid it.
I remember she specifically said that the aim of the sessions isn't so much to delve in the past (although there were sessions we would have to) but we mainly were going to talk about how the past was affecting me now rather than the event itself.
She prepared me that at some point we would have one session where I told her what happened, two at most and I had to bring a grounding object with me.

Talking about the trauma should not happen until you're ready and should not be pushed on you too much. I think that you need to establish that you can't just open your mouth and let everything out, it doesn't work like that no matter how much she wants you to.

I found it very hard and had to completely detach from my emotions, my therapist suggested writing it down and letting her read it but that didn't sound much better.

Remember that she is a professional but that doesn't mean her style of approach is the one that will benefit you best. Talk to her about it, some different courses of action you can take.

 

[NoWhereKnowWhere]

Yeah I didn't have a great time with my therapy. NHS? I bet it is you're probably only going to have a finite amount if sessions your T knows that and is probably hurrying things along before your ready, to try to get to the root and help.

It took me about 6 sessions before I even said that I had been r word. Although to think he knew there was a trauma and that I had PTSD before I said about the trauma.

Moving too fast and triggering you all the time is not good practice. I felt forced to talk about it before I was ready and it really didn't help infact it made my symptoms unmanageable and I ended up in hospital.

Don't be forced control over that story is so important and you need to be ready otherwise it can be retraumatsing. If the NHS had more funding you might be with your T for a year or more without even mentioning the r word. Speaking with your T about coping stratagies and anything else isn't going to harm you infact it will help. If you're not ready it's ok your not going to fail therapy because of it. But if you're triggered and upset every damn week it will make you worse. Therapy needs to be a safe place, and when you're ready your T can give you a little nudge in the right direction to talk about it, but not before.

 

[Intrepid]

I've had to go through the back door to get to my traumatic memories. I had to ask questions like
-Why am I so angry at my therapist? at myself? at the world?
-How do I feel right now?
-What happened that I made the same dumb mistake again?
-Who, really, was there, and what were they to me?
-When did that start?
-Where did my therapist get such a crazy idea?
Just saying that trauma never gives up its secrets when you try to go through the front door. The front door is often nailed shut and covered up with wreckage.

 

[Brokensoul88]

I don't think I'm giving my T enough credit, she is very patient and it's through a charity that I am getting help. NHS could not provide specific help only CBT & a few counselling sessions which I didn't see the point in. I had some sessions with one charity which a support worker, we mostly talked about the shitty days I was having with work, I gave her a written transcript of what happened to me but we never got into it. Now I am with a Psychotherapist who volunteers for the charity I have a total of 20 sessions. I just feel like I need to make this count this time around because I have an opportunity with someone who is medically trained. She does try to fill the looong silences but I kind of just nod because I am trying to work out in my head how I can word my response to the original question without feeling discomfort or disgust. Ms Spock, we haven't had an in depth conversation about grounding etc, I think she is trying to see where the boundaries are so that she can address whatever comes first. I eat to feel control because it's that or cutting myself, I have put on 6 stone in the last year trying to keep it under control. I had time off last year & lost a few stone but going back to work prompted me to go the other way to deal with seeing people talking to customers etc. Sleep is just about manageable, I jump awake a lot but I get enough. I came off all of my meds about 2 months ago because I knew that being dosed up to the eyeballs was not going to help when the sessions started because I think I need to feel it, not push it away. In my mind I figure that is the only way I will get past it but I basically cry a lot of the time now not about what happened but about stupid things like adverts on the TV. I've never been able to cry specifically about what happened. Wow turned into an essay

 

[NoWhereKnowWhere]

You're trying you have to give yourself credit for that.

 

[Justmehere]

:hug: @Brokensoul88

If your therapist isn't talking to you about grounding and mindfulness, then learn as much as you can about it on your own. There are tons of free resources online for both of those skills. Practice them even when things are easy. The more you do them the more effective they become, and the more you will be able to handle all the feelings that are coming up that are causeing you to shut down in therapy.

Tell your therapist what you are telling us here. The more you can even talk around something, the easier it is for a therapist to help someone talk and share more.

Most of all, be kind to yourself. This is not just an excerise in being nice, but an essential part of recovery itself. Find something at least neutral that you can believe about yourself in this moment.

This is really hard work you are doing and while it feels like you are spinning your wheels, you are increasing in your courage to reach out. That alone is healing from trauma that tends to teach us to be silent. Even typing "the r word" is a big step.

 

[shimmerz]

I tried to push through therapy. My T wouldn't let me. He kept telling me to slow down. I think if you find that something throws you that much in therapy you should stay clear of it, regardless of any time limitations to your therapy. It is not good to be 'more broken' with no therapy support imo.

 

[Suzetig]

20 sessions isn't all that much when dealing with trauma but is enough time to do some good work. It may be that you don't talk about the detail of what happened to you but instead are able to look at its impact on you today and how you manage it. It's your therapy and you can decide how you use the time. In saying that, even the very stuck, almost silent sessions gave me a lot to think about and looking back I can see how they helped build my relationship with my therapist. Do you have an idea of what you want at the end of this therapy?

To give you a sense of timing etc, it was about 6 months before I told my therapist a very rough idea of what had happened to me and another 3 months before we spoke about it again at all. 20 sessions wouldn't have given me time to get into my stuff but would have let me build coping strategies and do some helpful work around my feelings about myself. If you do want to talk in detail about your trauma, it may be a matter of writing it out and reading it to her or just gathering the courage to speak. Knowing what's holding you back might help you know what you need?

It's a really hard process though so be kind to yourself for even trying.

 

[Stickler]

Because it's really hard to access therapy in the UK due to a dearth of therapists, I suspect you're going to need to do a lot of the prep work, the grounding and stabilizing stuff, on your own.

I recommend this DBT workbook:
Dead Link Removed

I own it myself, it's got good stuff in it.

...I observe from afar that mental health support groups in the UK seems to be a bit scarce on the ground? (However, that may be my fiancee's craniorectal insertion issues, which he suffers from on the the subject of getting support.)
If you can find a free support group that you qualify for, going is recommended.