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Do You Tell Your Therapist How Bad You Feel?

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I'm beginning to give up. Don't think I'll ever get across how I feel. Not sure he really wants to hear anyway. Think he wants to hear that it is getting better. Which it is in some ways, but others I feel so terrible inside. I just don't think he will believe it.
 
I tell my therapist the good and the bad.. If I am really slipping backwards, feeling really down, drinking, ect, my therapist will tell me in so many words that I am being a fool. I have fought her tooth and nail on some things like drinking. Eventually, no matter what it is ; being fears, addictions, behaviors, she is usually spot on and I either accept and agree during session or on my own after hitting some sort of bottom. I also do therapy with my long time girlfriend and that makes a huge difference probably to us.

I have already wanted to die as an immediate way out, but I refused to accept it as a solution and would writhe in agony so long as there is hope. I want to succeed for her and us, I don't want to leave her behind with the aftermath knowing how she feels about me, if she feels the same way about me it would be traumatic and devastating to her. I could never do that. It is what I told my therapist.

The passion I said it with, it is what I had to come to terms with in my own mind to fight off that incredible urge to end it on one particular occasion. I have never felt anguish like that before and didn't think that level of pain existed or was possible at least, not to me. Pain, is nothing. Despair though along with it, the thought that there isn't a way conceivable that in that current state, could last until the next day was one of the most horrifying things I have ever endured.

My chest crushing onto my heart, no, my whole body. My mind truly was in pain. Shaking inside and out with uncontrollable outbursts of crying, I could feel thousands of micro-currents in the air brushing against each hair on my face and arms, my breath held. I actually wondered how 'God' could ever do this to a man? Had I not suffered enough feeling a lesser intensity of it all for over 5 months prior? Why wasn't the event itself that started this all this bad?, or how could I even ask myself how terrible it was to feel like I was going to die? My life was a quagmire then as I wondered if I would ever feel better or normal again. Am I causing my own dear girlfriend who has been through the thick of it with me to wonder if she herself could go on?

As if I believed in a god for the first time, though it was short lived naturally. There was no god that spoke or made itself known. But I could not sit, or stand still, or do anything but sweat and smoke 2 packs of cigarettes, there was no 'coping' mechanism for this and was traumatic in its own right. I feared calling anybody, my girlfriend eventually came home and took me to the hospital. I still don't know what it was, but I can say that nothing prepared me for it and it was like I said, worse than watching my dad wither away and die, and might have felt worse that believing I was about to die. Instead of fearing death, I longed for it. It felt like the massive anxiety and panic I had been feeling for months since the onset of post traumatic stress just sat there untreated and continued to build in my chest, and at some point set off an intense and sudden depression. If it weren't for Amanda I just don't know. That is all I can say.
 
I'm beginning to give up. Don't think I'll ever get across how I feel. Not sure he really wants to hear anyway. Think he wants to hear that it is getting better. Which it is in some ways, but others I feel so terrible inside. I just don't think he will believe it.

Might be the wrong therapist - or he might not have enough from you to go on. It's true some we turn to for help do lose interest if we don't seem to be progressing - a human enough reaction to disappointment, but it's not our job to spare them disappointment.

You can only test this suspicion by voicing it & gauging the response, or hanging in there. It's OK to be honest, & OK to move on if he's the wrong guy for you. I know it can seem hopeless, but we do have these few choices........& the despair will come & go. Remember that, & let it go when you can.
 
The chronic suicidality that I lived with all my life seems to have finally, after almost two years, been lifted.

But I did 'go there' with my T. several times. Not willingly...but he asked me when I was so dissociated I responded before I could put up the walls. *ew*

Still is frightening for me to think about. But I am so glad I did tell him. He pressed me for details and when I told him honestly my plans...he looked shocked.

But he did respond with a strong '...and you will CONTINUE to TURN AWAY from that as we go through this!' and oh, there has been so many times I've found myself in the abyss and that well-landed emphatically delivered request to keep trying has helped me. Enraged me. Made me feel trapped at times...but saved me. Damn him. (Not really...but sometimes, I do feel like that has taken away my escape route.)

UGH. Dissociation Scale: 7. Numbed out. Didn't even realize how much this was triggering me.

I'm not even stable enough to begin actual trauma therapy yet. But the CBT is raising 'the bottom' from that abyss of chronic suicidality and actually opening up real space in the middle for tolerance of all the rest. ...and dare I say, occasionally giving me a new 'summit' on the mountain to gain enough of a view to create a deep longing for what's beyond.
 
Yep, I can relate to all that. I strongly believe that the best salvation at those desperate, "any exit from this will do" times is to have done some hard thinking about suicidal ideation, while it's NOT happening - when you can see it as a temporary state from which there will be, at some point, relief (even if that too may be temporary).

EVERYTHING is temporary. Just as there is no permanent relief & safety (much as we crave it), there is no permanent intolerable misery. The trick is to resolve, while coping, that when next not coping, you will not allow yourself to remove yourself from life as a "remedy" for suffering.

We may FEEL desperate to stop whatever we're feeling, by desperate means if necessary. But if we've already committed to NOT taking the most desperate action, we're safer. Feelings change; feelings pass. The urgency we feel to be rid of them can seem overwhelming: we want to DO something to make it stop. The fact is, just waiting it out will bring you to a place where the desperation stops - for a time.

The other life saving tool is noticing. Note consciously that you are in deep distress, get to a safe place if you can, & stop resisting it. Discharge it safely if you can (cry/scream/chop wood). Consciously & diligently notice GOOD feelings too, to allow yourself some sense of balancing sensations. It's all life. And life is not all bad. We have survived so much, & that's a triumph worth noting.
 
Guess I'm joining the chorus on this one & sing along --

no way, never reveal the worst
it just gets ya cursed
locked up like an animal --
growl cuz im an animal
treated like it, so act like it
go out & dig a pit
dont wanna be strapped & medicated
could do it myself for free -- emancipated
freedom
lead em
people like us
dont fuss
they & us
no trust
dont rust
head up at home, head down out there
keep your cover or they'll rob ya bare
stay with us, ta weather your storm
here, you are the norm :tup:

Cheers.
--{@
 
I use drawings and notes to communicate during sessions (still not able to open up verbally) and over the last few sessions my plan to 'dispatch' myself has cropped up. It has even been vocalised by myself in passing but I feel like my T is ignoring if despite it's increasing prevalence in my mind and therefore my art. I don't understand why it's being overlooked and can't yet bring myself to ask, but the whole thing is causing it to stick in my mind more than it would otherwise. It's also holding back on the trust formation between us, kind of "if he can't see it " or "if it's not important to him" then maybe I'm barking up the wrong tree?
Maybe I'm just being stupid, wouldn't be the first time.
 
Um... oh dear, I do this! :oops: Not all the symptoms, anyway. Just like T, lol. And for similar reasons.:(


I thought i was the only one. Omg i'm not that bad after all or am I? Sigh the struggle is real. I feel like I trust her to unload all of my troubles until i get in the room and freeze.
 
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