Feeling Humiliated And Embarrassed In Therapy

[Deleted member 35429]

I've been seeing my therapist for 10 months for trauma related to sexual violence as a young adolescent.

I started with him during a very severe bout of PTSD and I wasn't able to remember our sessions much due to dissociation. After a couple months of that I started to experience very strong transference where I would nearly hallucinate him changing and becoming a predator. I was constantly feeling afraid and felt betrayed and alone in therapy. I would dissociate within minutes of walking in. My heart rate was always sky high and I'd sit there sweating through the whole session.

Months of that hell went on and now suddenly I see him as just an old man, and I'm SO embarrassed for how I've been behaving, and worse, all the details I've shared with him. It's downright humiliating. I even told him about a perp using his hand trying to break my hymen. What was I thinking sharing details in person like this.

I feel, once again, like I can never go back there. I can't count on all my fingers and toes how many times I went into his office feeling sure it was the last session. In the past I felt like I couldn't go back because he was untrustworthy but now I just can't stand knowing what he knows about me. I can't stand to have him even look at me.

Can anyone relate to this?

 

[ShodokanJenn]

I really relate to this. I have shared things with my T that I am so very ashamed of, and given detailed accounts of the abuse. I can't look him in the eyes a lot of times. And I have sometimes been so ashamed that I have cancelled appointments.

 

[lostforgottensoul]

Can anyone relate to this?

Sort of. I know the feeling of not wanting to go because of what he knows. I hide my face a lot in therapy. Walking in and lower my head right away...i just can't look at him.

He moves and bends often to meet my gaze when he wants me to really hear him. I look away fast. Poor guy. Im sure I make his job very hard.

At first, when I first went to therapy, well before he knew anything, I was coming onto him all through session every week. He made an approprate boundry but not in a way that would make me feel horrible. I did it because I thought I was supposed to and even more because two free counselors acted on my lesser come ons. I thought that that was supposed to go on in therapy, as odd as that is now.

And for a long time I was very anxious as like something bad was happening there when there wasn't. Not that he was an abuser really but sort of a hightened state like that.

The way it is now I wouldn't trade for the world. Though I rarely look at him when we are talking about my past and only when we are talking about stuff like work or whatever, our relationship is one almost like friends. Not quite as casual but almost. And it is a trust that I have never had for anyone before. I am confident that I will tell my therapist anything and everything at this point. And i see him almost as a stand in father. He says that's normal transference while we are working out my trauma.

Anyway, I would say that therapist's see this often. My therpaist seemed to know exactly what to do in each situation that led to today in order to move our working relationship and trust building foward. So it is common and natural and they generally see it a lot and there usually isn't anything to be embarrased over. But I do understand it.

 

[mamachick]

You never need to feel ashamed. Your therapist has heard it all before and it might be beneficial to email or write how you are feeling and force yourself to tell him so that he knows. Although he may have picked up on it anyway, addressing what you are feeling in the present is part of the healing, rather than turning away.

You are very brave and I hope you are able to see that in yourself.