Cptsd folks, how well do you trust your t?

[Deleted member 35429]

I have a pretty extensive violent/sexual trauma from adolescence and I'm in therapy with an experienced psychologist. I have had 9 other therapists as a young adult and we never spoke of any trauma ever, so the fact that I'm getting in so deep with this guy is astounding to me.

I dissociate in session quite often and I find myself experiencing tremendously deep transference with him and it causes terrible strain. I feel like I am at odds with him at least once a month. I'm constantly reliving different aspects of my trauma with him and getting really upset about the feeling of betrayal.

Does anyone experience this? I don't have a difficult relationship with anyone else. I don't dissociate anywhere else. I do have structural dissociation from the long term trauma I experienced but it only rears its head in therapy. I understand that relational trauma surfaces in therapy but I haven't read of others having this much difficulty. I think they would have quit or found a new T by now.

Overall I am continuously getting better but I swing pretty wildly from needing him and clinging to him to not trusting a word out of his mouth and thinking he's a monster. Is this normal? I was isolated with a very violent psychopath. So I keep thinking this is all transference and I'm just nuts...but then he does something so convincingly terrible that I think I'm being gaslit and maybe I'm not actually nuts but he's a terrible therapist. I just don't know.

 

[Teamwork]

I know for me that I have to ask elsewhere, like your doing after seeing t or reading his answers in email. I trust, don't trust. But I do understand that some of me is ok with him others are not so much and that's where it's conflicting. Also I see him as a foreigner to my world at times. Mostly language. So I look it up and keep trying to figure it out and I don't let it be only him guiding. I have found so much else out there that I can read and consider if I can use or discard or blend with what t is saying. Hope that helps, make sense. It is in us mostly. Good person is foreign, how to accept, relate, trust all part of the journey.

 

[anonymous]

I trust my t more than anyone else in the world, but give it time. We've been through our rough patches.

 

[Deleted member 35429]

I trust my t more than anyone else in the world, but give it time. We've been through our rough patch...

I wish so much I could have that. Do you experience dissociation or parts with him/her? Or outside of therapy? I have parts that come out with him and they do not trust him at all. I am married and my younger parts never come out in my marriage. I'm always an adult at home and work. I trust my husband so deeply. I trust him as much as I trust that the sky is blue and the earth is round. My adult side trusts. But my traumatized parts are so severely damaged. I swear they've been arguing with and agonizing over this T for 18 months. I will keep trying though. I want so badly to have a good relationship with him.

 

[anonymous]

Do you experience dissociation or parts with him/her? Or outside of therapy?

Yes, I experience both. My t somehow earned their trust, I don't know how she did it. My younger parts don't trust my husband either and won't come out around him usually. If your parts aren't all coming out to your t, it's because your protector parts are probably stopping them. It cant be forced, your t has to earn their trust and feel safe and that can take a lot of time.

 

[Mach123]

I trust her 100%. She questioned me about this extensively in the beginning. Why me? Why do you trust me are you sure, you don't know me etc. I granted her my trust without question. I walked in her office and I said "you're it, we're going to do this, we have an appointment together." I meant it. She asked me about it a bunch of times. I would say "It was supposed to happen this way, we couldn't avoid it so why fight it? Let's just do it." We have I'm happy to report. She went on to earn my respect and trust in so many ways. Maybe it was because of what she did or said or maybe it was because I decided to trust her or maybe we just had an appointment together. It's not important anymore. I know for sure. : )

 

[Deleted member 35429]

I trust her 100%. She questioned me about this extensively in the beginning. Why me? Why do you trus...

That's interesting I did the same thing. I walked in, decided before I went in that he was going to hear it all, and after 20 yrs of silence I started telling him everything. I felt complete trust. It took a few months but my protector part stopped trusting him. It was too much too soon I guess. We haven't been able to recover since.

 

[watundah]

I had a lot of resistance, so much for a long time. If you trust him, you have already won a big part of the battle. I used to dissociate a lot in session, too. I didn't see resistance and dissociation outside of her office to that extent, but she explained to me that we could look at her office as a lab. If you think about it, where else do you take such risks, dive so deeply inward and scrape open the wounds of the past? Nowhere! So it makes sense that overwhelm and wonky reactions are going to come up once in a while. It sounds to me like you are doing the hard work, and you are self aware. Hang in there.

 

[mylunareclipse]

I used to think I had no trust issues and thought I could just tell t anything. Then I realized that even though I could tell her anything I couldn't really take in anything from her. I didn't trust she had my best interest in her heart. Actually i still fully don't! I have come to trust mostly that she doesn't want to hurt me, but I don't trust so much that she really cares or she means all the stuff she says.

 

[Tinyflame]

I trust they have my best interests at heart. It's hard to believe they care, but they're not required to, so I don't expect it or concern myself with the absence, other than being concerned I am a burden. But then I feel badly, they have depth why infer they are shallow when they are not, and by nature they are kind and wise and dedicated, therefore maybe my issue/ my fault. I suppose I don't feel worth or possible to care about, but that is ok. And others need or deserve the help more. Without them though I would not be alive today, either. Full stop. But they are my friend, it would never happen with a stranger unless mybe we were both bailing the same lifeboat out irl.

 

[hithere]

I have a pretty extensive violent/sexual trauma from adolescence and I'm in therapy with an experienced ps...

I could have written this WORD FOR WORD!

 

[ILoveLife]

I trust my T around 99% :) The reason I don't trust him 100% is because I don't really trust anyone, and that's my problem to deal with and he's aware of it.

Like others have said here, it's natural to dissociate while talking about what's traumatic to you. It happens to me too. You probably dissociate even thinking about it, outside of therapy but are so used to it that you don't even notice. I like mild dissocciation, keeps my pain levels in check. I think you should let her know you're dissociating and work from there, sometimes it's too intense and if she doesn't know she can't help you.