Frustrated wih therapy and being pathologized

[ms spock]

Anyway, keep thrashing away at this. I think you're making progress and that can be terrifying. But your can handle it.

this...

 

[Justmehere]

I'm realizing how much I resist care and help.

Whatever needs to happen with therapy, I'll keep running into this: being "helped" scares the daylights out of me.

My therapist does a lot of work to stay connected to my body, and it's been super duper helpful in the past. But even now, when I think of how kind people are here, on this forum, and I really sit with that... the same fear that comes up in therapy pops up here.

If I got to find a new therapist, this will come up. Again.

She may know me enough and not react to transference (which is a little of what this fear is) well enough to be able to walk me through this.

But I'll really have to somehow communicate how I'm feeling so dismissed... and not be dismissed on feeling dismissed...

 

[hithere]

I wrote a couple letters to my therapist about how I felt dismissed... It hurt the therapist's feelings because they were trying. I can see that. My therapist kept saying "i can't read your mind" Still it was this painful thing...eventually my therapist got frustrated and quit trying... that had it's own pain. some reason i hung in there and so did the therapist... it took way longer than ever wish and it cost so much money... ugggghhh. however, i turned a corner and I can feel it in my real life relationships... so... it's just like chipping away a little bit at a time and many over top emotional reactions from me and a lot of SI... unfortunately, but I can relate to what you've written. Eventually I think something will turn for you if your therapist can handle it

 

[Justmehere]

Ok. I got brave. Well, sort of. I emailed my therapist (which she adamantly encourages, knowing she won't respond, but we will talk about it in session.) I told her ALL the things. I told her I think I could be trying to sabatoge and push her away before making a big step towards recovery. I told her that most of the time, she really gets me, without buying into my BS. But I sometimes feel like she is being dismissive, when she is probably not at all, but I'd like her help to sort that out more.

Her forte is working through traumatic transference, and she has a knack for not reacting to it, but for being able to help me work it through. So I hope this all makes sense to her and doesn't phase her. This is how we would normally talk about anything that comes up about how I feel about therapy itself.

I mostly wrote about how much I want to feel connected to her and especially others in my life more, and not get scared and run, and how this is showing up in other places in my life too. I wrote about how much it hurts on the inside to shut down and run. Because it does really hurt. And I can't seem to get better any faster than I am. But I'm trying.

 

[hithere]

Let us know how it works out. If the transference thing is her forte then I doubt she will get frustrated like my therapist did. My therapist just "didn't understand" what was going on with me

 

[Justmehere]

@hithere - It's encouraging to know you have struggled with it too, and yet things got better. Even if your therapist didn't get it. But yeah, hella painful to get through. :hug: I'm hoping my therapist gets this.

 

[EveHarrington]

What’s weird to me is this “new” term “counterphobic”..... Ok, so it used to be “facing your fears!”.....HURRAH! Such a good thing! And then the psychology world decided to push the term “counterphobic”..... What in the world were they thinking?!?! Nothing with the word “phobic” is ever a good thing, right? People go to special therapy/classes just to drop that term from their personal descriptor, right? So you throw this term “counterphobic” (which, btw, isn’t even in my phones dictionary, lol), and OF COURSE we see it as a bad thing! So psychology world, if you’re listening, just tell us we are awesome for facing our fears head on. Stop using new terminology for concepts that are as old as dirt, especially when the term has a negative connotation. Good god it’s as if we need therapy to recover from therapy! Layman’s terms are good....

 

[ILoveLife]

Congrats on emailing your T :) That took courage.

 

[Justmehere]

I have a feeling that my therapist will quit when I see her today. Is it accurate? Probably not. I’m not feeling afraid of abandonment exactly (maybe I’m just too numb or tired to feel that) but rather afraid of finding someone new.

I really hope we can talk things through.

I’m sort of in a place of “what will be will be.”

 

[Friday]

Ok. I got brave. Well, sort of. I emailed my therapist (which she adamantly encourages, knowing she won't respond, but we will talk about it in session.) I told her ALL the things.

Good on, you! :D

Honesty, & all cards on the table, & hell yes!

 

[Justmehere]

Quick update:

My therapist was totally unphased by my email and concerns about her and therapy. She cheerfully said, "let's work on it!"

Bah. This woman is afraid of nothing I can throw at her. (so far.)

We talked through some of my concerns. Because of time constraints, we couldn’t get to it all. For some of what I brought up, she said I made a good point. We got frank about diagnostic stuff, what is and isn’t there, and what is and isn’t a problem. I misunderstood what she was trying to say in a handful of ways. Example: she didn’t mean counterphobic as a good or bad thing. But rather as something that can become good or bad. She says that as long as I stay away from trauma reenactments, it will help my recovery. She also dove into how my fears of being pathologized connect to past trauma of as a child for being beaten for unable to stop crying and having the abuser scream “what is wrong with you?”

She really doesn’t let me avoid a n y t h i n g. That skill set, and her ability to not take my stuff personally, really does help.

This past week, I’ve been super symptomatic, so at one point, we put all this away, and we did some work on how to pull myself out of some tough symptoms showing up in a new way. She explained more of the path ahead - pretty frankly - the knowns and all the unknowns. It was hard but reassuring to see how much she was thinking things through, and does know her stuff.

She’s on vacation now... so I won’t see her for a bit. I'm not very sure about things, but I feel like we left it in a good place. For now, this is enough for me to taking the next step forward in processing trauma with her when she gets back. I'm not as sure about the next 10 steps, but I don't need to be right now.

Thank you deeply to everyone here who helped me think this through and talk it out with her. :)

 

[hithere]

That is very good news. the little vaca will probably help you gain some strength too to continue.