Poll Do You Have Secrets About Your Trauma That You've Not Divulged To Your Therapist?

[Kimpersonal]

Therapy feels like I'm paying someone to watch me having a bowel movement. Mortifying!

Regardless of how awful the process is, I am waiting now for a space to open up in DBT therapy. I will do what it takes to get control of this monster ... before it eats the rest of my life too!

 

[Red Feather]

I have secrets because my therapist never would understand them. Mostly because the trauma has a lot of religious or spiritual causes, and I was really ashamed to talk about it.

 

[Kimpersonal]

I have secrets because my therapist never would understand them. Mostly because the trauma has a lot of religious or spiritual causes, and I was really ashamed to talk about it.

Oh my dear Nadia! I am in the very same boat as you are in this way ... would it help you to talk with me? Maybe in the chatroom one day? Please do not be ashamed ... kinda hypocritical for me to say that because I feel ashamed also. This is such a sensitive area to discuss with anybody, believe me, I know it!

Let me know if you would like to chat or not, okay? I will be respectful in either response you might give me. Just know you are NOT ALONE!

Wishing you healing. Kim.

 

[Loveneverfails]

For me it isn't that I keep them secret, it's that I feel so ashamed that I find I don't have the courage to talk about it. My T is really gentle and patient, but there are somethings I don't know how to describe. We're making progress and I don't mean to keep anything from him, but it feels like sometimes there's so much to cover that there's no point in trying to tell every detail.

 

[jibber]

I've told her the main bullet points, but there's quite a few of the "smaller" parts that I've not gone over. I haven't told her about extremely difficult events afterwards brought on by some not so great decisions that I suspect might have something to do with the PTSD, but I wouldn't label a horribly unsuitable relationship and painful break-up as a trauma so I don't think that would be included under this poll.

 

[Ghost427]

I haven't ...and won't...disclose the actual instruments used in some of my abuse, though I have disclosed every other detail of the events. Sharing that detail just increases the humiliation and doesn't alter the treatment of it. So that part stays with me.

 

[Deleted member 12723]

I haven't told about the fact that I think I suffer from false memory syndrome concerning some satanic ritual abuse. I am afraid to go there.

I used to believe they were real memories but not anymore. I do not have triggers or ptsd symptoms concerning this. I am very angry about it and am trying to get information about false memory syndrome. Hope this helps you.

 

[piratelady]

There are some thing I didn't tell my therapist because I am just too ashamed and embarrassed and am too afraid of what he would have thought about me. I am hoping to learn how to get past that with new therapist though.

If the trauma is healed... then I would say there is no point telling them, but if its not, then its a secret, and you know what secrets do. If its not a secret, ie. others know, then that is not an affect.

I don't think I follow this? ....the part about it being a secret and what secrets do.

 

[LawPhotos]

I keep secrets... mostly because I try to keep them from myself. If I say them out loud, then they're true... I pretend that if I keep them in, they will go away or are just harmless thoughts...

Wow! That is absolutely me--I've never heard anyone share this same type of avoidance before. I do this with many, many parts of my trauma. There is a lot I have never told anyone. I have a strong tendency to "play" with reality. Whenever I can't cope I just tell myself that whatever is happening isn't real or isn't true. Amazingly enough I actually convince myself somehow! Like you, Lucille, I tell myself that it is just something I've imagined or thought of. If no one knows about it, then I can convince myself it didn't exist, never happened. I do this with the present as well as the past.

It wasn't until therapy that I realized that I believe that if I write something down or tell anyone it lends so much credence to it----it becomes so much more "real". It makes it so much harder for me to pretend it isn't true. Once I've done that I can't ever take it back. As long as it is inside, I can control its existence.

I recently realized that doing this all of my life coupled with my prevalent dissociation causes me to have great difficulty at times with getting confused over what is presently "real".

 

[krikkit]

I don't tell my therapists about past substance abuse. I had been abusing sleeping pills to sleep for 18-20 hours a day so I couldn't get triggered, but I am too afraid they will label me as a junkie or a risk and refuse medicinal treatment. I know that they are familiar with coping mechanisms and that coping in an unhealthy way doesn't make you a bad person ... And I know that I managed to stop and pursue healthy alternatives that actually address my issues and that they won't be angry with me for it ... but I can't get over that fear.

 

[Amy91]

I was pretty close to sharing some of my secrets with my last therapist but then she left the organisation and I haven't been able to fully trust the new one.

It's been said before but some of the secrets haven't even been admitted to myself and saying them out loud admits them to everyone. There are a lot of aspects of the abuse that I am still ashamed of and I don't want other people to know, I don't want to know myself so nobody else should have to.

 

[squirtsmom]

I have left things out from my therapist because I never felt safe enough to divulge all of it. Because when I have about one particular abuse my therapist dumped me off and said never to come back to her so that is why. I have a BIG trust issue with Therapists.