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

[anthony]

A very simple, yet long, question... You may wish to state your reasons why you still have secrets from them, or not... the choice is yours.

I am curious to poll this, as the people I have helped over the years all still had secrets from their therapists, and took me to usually really piss them off in order to get at those secrets and get them out. Seen as though 95% of therapists are too afraid to piss their clients off, I do wonder just how many hold secrets about their trauma from their therapist/s to date!

 

[OKRADLAK]

Great poll. Yes, I do because I am afraid. I am afraid of both therapists and ramifications of talking.

It is not unbased fear. I did talk once, thinking it was safe, and almost lost my life as a result. So it is hard, really hard, to trust. It is a double trust issue now for me. One, that it is safe to do it, and Two that the therapist is also safe.

But I have a new T. that I really think I can trust now and I have recently told her things I have not told a single soul for almost 8 years and not even wrote about, thought about, or uttered a single word about!:)

It felt good, but wow, did it make me nightmare for a while. But it is improvement!

 

[Zemi]

I still have things I haven't shared with mine and part of that is a timing thing with it only being a few months so far.

I have to say though that mine is in that 5% of therapists that isn't afraid of pissing people off. He pushes me which sometimes I hate but ultimately I'm thankful for; and consequently I've told him far far more than I ever imagined I would including a lot I thought I'd never tell anyone and he was right that it did help! Amazing to me how things I'd thought were one way, he has begun showing me aren't the case; and if I'd kept not sharing I'd have remained holding tightly on to those lies.

 

[ronin47]

Nope. I've pretty much let every cat out of the bag. Once I found a therapist who knew how to walk that fine line between pushing the boundaries and making me feel unsafe, I divulged more in the first two months than I had in the whole year I worked with the T before him.

 

[Sqweak]

Yes, I have definitely kept things from my T for two reasons. For me I'm not sure how they might react and I know that professionally therapist are supposed to be as unbiased as possible but at the end of the day Therapist are as human as anyone else. I would also hate to open up so soon about something I’ve been hiding for so long in a once a week session; and you only have 55 min to talk about something you've buried down for 10-20 years? That just doesn't make any sense to me; those 55min go really fast, lol.

 

[Srain]

I'm working to get them all out. I left them out before, I won't make that mistake again if I can help it.

Rain

 

[Abrasky]

I have told my previous psychologist everything, but I haven't told my current psychologist one thing. My husband knows everything. The psychologist and my husband are the only two people that know everything. They think I'm alright still so it's not the worst secret.

I probably didn't tell because I was feeling it might make her reluctant to help me go forward with my therapy. She was such a good therapist I didn't want to not go forward.

 

[Brontie]

Yes. I held back on so much. I didn’t want her to think I was crazy. And besides, what I did tell her sounded crazy enough. I thought about it long and hard and wondered if it would help to tell her everything. But I often saw a different psych-doc from time to time and there just didn’t seem any point. My note file had become quite thick over the years so I often referred them to my file when the same questions were being asked over and over. It was like they never really got to know me, just my file. There just didn’t seem any point in providing them with more details that they would scribble about and then forget.



For example. I told her I didn’t want to see her anymore on my last appointment. She agreed to leave things as they are and gave me an appointment for three months time “Just to see how things are going.” I got an appointment through the mail yesterday for the 1st of June. !!!! Do they really listen to what we are saying?!!

 

[KP the nut]

I have told him everything about the trauma which triggered PTSD. BUT I have not told him all my childhood trauma including why I deserve such crap in my life.

 

[cat]

KP - I know its so hard to tell all but it will help you to understand your reactions to your last trauma & with your recovery if your T can make some connections between your childhood, personality & the present.
Your T is not in a position to judge you whatever you tell him, that would not be helpful too either him or you.

In telling all (well all but one thing....) my T it has helped me to stop blaming myself for the things that have happened in the past, we were children KP & deserved to be treated better!

 

[Innordinate]

Little bit off with my answer probably because I've been in different therapies with different therapists for about 13 years off and on.
So, really, only had the same therapist and been commited to doing this crap for a year so yes...still things he doesn't know, some haven't come up yet, some because nobody will ever know.

 

[Muzikluvr]

My T doesn't seem to want to know everything. I started out by telling him. He's gotten to the point where he winces when he thinks I am about to say that I was raped by someone. I have started to censor myself. I definitely don't use profanity anymore, even when I'm angry. And, I don't give details of assaults, I skirt that part now.

He left it up to me to see him every week, he seemed to think every other week or less often would be okay. He doesn't even make sure that I have appts two weeks out anymore, although he's been full before and I've had to miss a week. I don't insist on it, because I think I'm talking to the wrong T anyway. But, there aren't ANY PTSD T's in my area. I requested one who knew about PTSD and this is the one I got. We never discuss it, and he excludes himself when he talks about therapists who deal with CSA. I think I appear normal to him and he doesn't think I have any real problems.