Desperate For Advice Please

[A little lost]

I have just started counselling for some stuff that has gone on throughout my life. It has totally messed my life up and I hit a point where I need to deal with it all to be able to try to live normally.
I've been on a waiting list for counselling for 7months. Now it has arrived, I have found that I just can't bring myself to say the things that have gone on to my counsellor. I see it all in my head when I start to speak but I just cannot say the words...why???? I have to talk about it but I just don't know to get the words out...it is horrible and I just want to run as soon as I try to say it. I have to do this.....but I don't know how to...and I can't write it down either. I have to talk about it, it has destroyed my life and it has to be said before I can move past it. Please....can anyone offer some advice as to how I get past this blockage of not being able to describe the nasty stuff? I am mentally beating myself up for not being able to say it, I'm a fully grown adult, so why can't I say the words? I feel so pathetic and am 5 sessions into the 12 I am allowed, yet I still can't say it. Please...does anyone know how I do this..or is it that I've finally gone mad?

 

[Deadman]

You haven't gone mad. It sometimes takes a while to screw up the courage to say the things we want to. Like you I've sometimes found myself unable to make the words come out. It was like the words became physical entities and stuck in my throat. Just work at it. You'll get there :)

 

[shatter eyes]

In my own journey I found reading Paula Black helpful remembering she saying tears are the elixir for our pains, and that we can explore ourselves once again with child curiosity as we strengths of an adult.

I was also told that by keeping things inside we do not allow room for miracles and healing; we need to share. Even if it is writing it out and burning the letters as an act of release.

The road ahead is unknown and we as humans find comfort in holding on to what we know. This forum has been a safe place for me and I hope you path to wellness has already begun.

 

[shatter eyes]

Losing words can also be what my therapist calls nervous system hijack where the blood flow is redirected to the basic brain instead of the evolved intellectual language processors.

I still lose words from time to time and am starting to retrain myself.

 

[Esterio]

I have just started counselling for some stuff that has gone on throughout my life. It has total...

Hi there A little lost, Welcome to this forum. You have come to a place where there are people who have been right where you find yourself now. You are not alone in this anymore. Therapy is very difficult it brings up all kinds of issues you have had hidden away. I am not having the same trouble as you are. My T has a hard time to end the 90 minute sessions. Things are ready to come out of me now after decades of silence. Do you like and trust your counsellor. I think you have to feel comfortable and safe when you are in their office or you are not going to talk about personal trauma. It is hard stick with it. Do you have a diagnoses. Again welcome I hope you find the answers you need.
Peace be safe

 

[Friday]

Have you talked to your therapist about not being able to talk about what you need & want to? So that they a) are aware of it, & b) can be an ally in helping you overcome it?

 

[Carmen J. Brown]

I have just started counselling for some stuff that has gone on throughout my life. It has total...

You are not crazy. I'm sure many people on here can relate to your story. It's hard to talk about the things that f*cked us up. (I actually have had this problem too. Where I try to talk about something traumatic to a friend or counselor and I just feel like I can't say the words. It sucks and I'm sorry you are going through this.) are you Abel to tell your counselor that you can see the stuff in your head but you just can't say it? Or another thing you could try is writing things down and then showing it to your counselor if that's easier. And don't beat yourself up about this. (Self hate never got anyone anywhere and many people on here including me can testify to that.)

 

[walter mitty]

I know you said writting is hard, but I had to start there. Even then it was just a few words to help T get started somewhere close to where we needed to be, clues more than a full explaination. Might help your T devise some grounding and calming exercises that will help you feel safe to peel another layer off the onion.

 

[shatter eyes]

I have just started counselling for some stuff that has gone on throughout my life. It has total...

I cannot help but feel your fear of running out of sessions for help.
I became what they call homicidal suicidal when my sessions were stripped away. I fell into darkness and from this forum along with others I was given some energy to try again.

This time I reached out and scraped my savings together to pay for treatment. I told myself I would never reach retirement age or even the next day without help. I really did not want to hurt anyone or myself. Therapy is a life line. There are community resources and support groups available. When we have some little energy we can seek out more lines.
Dont drown alone.

Strangely, I snapped yesterday after losing my words and now my words have returned. Even my music sounds a bit bassier.

Dont let anyone or the system scare you from getting the care you deserve.

 

[A little lost]

Hi there A little lost, Welcome to this forum. You have come to a place where there are people who have...

Hi Esterio, Thanks for the welcome.
I'll try to answer your questions, sorry if it come out a bit muddled. I don't have a current diagnosis apart from Social Anxiety Disorder but about a decade ago I was told I had PTSD after something that happened to me. However , the Dr I had at that time refused to refer me for any help after the police decided I was making things up and dragged me through a court case for "false representation" ...whatever that means. That was the one and only time I've ever told anyone anything at all. That was an isolated thing that happened and a person who found me phoned the police, I had no choice about them being called. Otherwise it would have been handled like the other stuff, using what I call the CCS rule. Clean up, Cover up, and Shut up. That one thing was separate to the other stuff which I've NEVER spoken about and now find I can't even say.
I don't have a choice about who my counsellor is, I had to go to a women's charity to get on a list. It's taken 7 months for a volunteer counsellor to have a vacancy. I don't have money to pay for a private therapist, therefore I just have to have the counsellor allocated. I'm not too sure she's my kind of person or that I totally trust her but I just have to take her help or carry on living as I am with the nightmares, flashbacks, fear and isolation.

Have you talked to your therapist about not being able to talk about what you need & want to? So that th...

Hi Friday,
I have told her that I just can't say the words ...and I've even drawn a line of timeline so she has some idea of how much stuff there is. I've managed to talk about the early bits which weren't too serious ( compared to later stuff) and I've kept pointing to a couple of bits telling her that I just don't know how I can talk about them. It's just all so nasty, embarrassing and seriously humiliating. She just keeps telling me that she will believe me and I have to say it otherwise I won't be able get over it to start healing. I nearly threw up telling her the early stuff and I was trembling uncontrollably...if that hit me that hard to say, how the heck do I say the worse things? It knocks me sick everytime I try to say anything about it directly.

I think my biggest problem is that it runs like a 3D movie in my head, but one I can still hear and sense. I think if I try to describe it, I'm scared she'll be imagining it and I can't let anyone see that it is just so nasty!! Does that make sense?? I don't know how to do any of this. I feel so stupid not big able to say it...my sessions are 50 minutes long and I only have seven sessions left....what happens if I still can't say it at the end? I'm going to be stuck like this forever.
The timing for all this sucks too...my sister died just after I got on the list for counselling. So whilst I'm still grieving and dealing with probate and the legal stuff around her suspicious death, I'm trying to deal with counselling too. The charity wouldn't postpone it and you can't apply to be on the counselling list again if you haven't taken the help when it was offered, with no exceptions due to the high demand.

Thank you everyone for being so nice and trying to help me figure out how to do this.

 

[Freedomfighter]

I have just started counselling for some stuff that has gone on throughout my life. It has total...

Have you shared these views with your counselor? To just let your counselor know what is going on? You will need help beyond 12 sessions, but do not be afraid to also explore all of this on your own.

You may find it beneficial to keep a journal of sorts too. Many things will often only make sense years after, treating PTSD goes way beyond counseling in my opinion.

Anyone who really wants to be a friend or partner to a PTSD victim will have to bring a lot more to the table than regular people. Anyone who really wants to be with someone with PTSD has to learn that it is really a lifelong commitment, and that goes way beyond sessions as a counselor, it goes into life assistance, learning assistance, developmental assistance, like I said: view it as something that will bring you closer to what you need from other people. What counseling can do is only so much, but what a PTSD victim needs and should concentrate on is the person(s) they want to spend their life with who have to be able to support a PTSD person in many different ways.

Understanding is the biggest factor, even some counselors don't bring that to the table....

Look at PTSD as a life long experience and as a life long challenge: you will need a lot more from other people than most can give. Only someone that is extraordinary in understanding and assisting you with this illness will make the cut.

You see what I am saying? Counseling is only a very little part of it. Where counseling stops is then where real partnership will come in.

As you go along in your life you will understand that counselors are very valuable, but then the next step is to only allow real people that really care about you along for your journey.

 

[kilted]

What you're experiencing is normal. Unfortunately our subconscious blocks us from saying stuff we want to say , but fear the consequences of saying.

This leads to what therapists call the doorhandle comment, when a client says something that changes the whole picture....... as they leave either the session, or therapy itself.

Sounds like you're in the NHS.... there are also low cost /free counselling services in most towns. These sometimes offer more sessions.... but this depends on the service.

One way forward would be to print out what you've written here and give it to your therapist..... that opens the conversation.... so you can talk about the block rather than feeling anxious about having to say the thing itself.