Giving Up Therapy And Falling To Pieces.

[Abstract]

There is no hand book when it comes to the hows and what's of therapy and there is no reason you should have known it all. No reason to feel isolated at all. Lots of people on here are muddling through therapy and how to do it and when. You have only had a tiny amount! You deserve to give yourself a break. People "somehow know" what they know from hard and usually long experience.

It would not be weak to go back. No one there will think you are either. PTSD is not a common cold that we can get over with a few nights sleep and some aspirin. ;) Sometimes we only know from doing and we gain a lot of insight.

If you have a car and had engine trouble you wouldn't feel a failure or judge yourself for getting help from a mechanic. Yes with PTSD we have to be doing a lot of work ourselves but this is hard stuff and it is normal and helpful to get professional help.

If you look back no one at all has said you were an "idiot" or "stupid". It's very easy for us to project our own self judgements onto others.

I totally understand how counter intuitive it is to be in therapy for some of us. There may be differences to how that looks but the common ground of just not feeling OK puts a lot of strain on it all. I would also look at how disconnected you were from your emotions before you left and see if that happens more often for you in other contexts.

 

[Justmehere]

Oh, I am so so sorry you are hurting so much!

I was told that if I needed to go back, it might have to be with someone different. I would feel so weak doing that too, like I've failed and am useless without someone.

I don't think you have failed at all. Maybe you would need to find a different therapist because you have graduated to a new level of therapy work. Maybe it would work with someone new, someone to go deeper with, someone with a fresh perspective and perhaps the skill to go places in different ways than this therapist. Not all therapists can do that work, and it doesn't have anything to do with us... I know this is so hard to believe in the moment. I did therapy with one therapist for awhile, and it was great... and then it stopped working... and I stopped therapy. Later on, I fell apart. I totally fell apart. I thought I failed. I found a new therapist and I have discovered with her that I didn't fail, I was ready to go deeper and I was letting myself need her, which is a sign of growth. The previous therapist just didn't do that kind of work I needed. It was a great first phase of treatment. Maybe you are just ready to go to the next phase.

And maybe you can return back to this therapist and both of you will be ready.

I have learned to do life on my own, much like you, but I don't think we are really supposed to do life entirely all on our own. It takes much courage and strength to reach out. I think you are actually taking big steps towards healing by letting yourself feel this and letting yourself need someone.

Just some thoughts

 

[Overcast]

When I have hit walls in therapy in the past it has been because I was at a plateau and not experiencing as much symptoms or I needed a break or I needed a new perspective from a different type therapy. Be gentle and kind to yourself and examine what you need and want from therapy and go from there.

 

[Meadowsweet]

You have only had a tiny amount!

I've been with this therapist for over a year, plus about 10 weeks with the therapist before that. That seems like quite a lot.

I know people didn't say I was stupid, but to say they were confused about why I gave up therapy, and that if I'd finished talking about that, I should have talked about something else, is pretty suggestive that I've missed something that is apparently obvious (and confusing to those in the know). But after a nights sleep, that's not the culture in the UK. If you're paying for treatment a therapist might be happy to chat about achievements and goals, but when therapy is free and limited, I would feel like I was taking advantage of my opportunity, knowing that there are others in greater need than me stuck on waiting lists for months and years.

I don't know what to do, I think I'll have to leave it a few days until I can think straight now.

Thank you all for your input.

 

[Hashi]

@Meadowsweet, I have been wondering if part of this was feeling pressure over how you use your therapy time. I could well imagine that. In fact, I would say that can also be the case when not having free therapy - struggling to pay for my therapy privately I was conscious of wanting to justify every minute.

I can sympathise with that - whatever it's arising from - and I think there isn't an easy answer. It's really tough to have yet another complication added to the difficulties of therapy. But you deserve therapy as much as everyone else. You're important too.

I stopped seeing my somatic therapist too soon because I thought I was ready when I wasn't. We had a lovely goodbye and I headed off into the sunset. Within two weeks I was realising what a mistake it was and how much I needed to see him. It took me another three weeks before I could face contacting the centre to make an appointment and start again. I felt really stupid.

The thing is, I had been feeling better. I just hadn't realised that it wasn't a deep enough or permanent enough feeling better. I needed to leave in order to get the perspective on that. When I went back, my therapist wasn't blameful or frustrated with what I'd done (which was what I'd been expecting). He was interested in what I'd learnt from it - the increased awareness that I'd got as a result.

None of us know how to do therapy except for what we learn as we go along. I think we all take plenty of wrong turnings as we find our way, it's just that one person's wrong turnings might be different from another person's.

I do think the new awareness is much more important than the earlier misjudgement. It seems to be how therapy works that mishaps are an important part of the process.

 

[Hashi]

By the way, I think it might be more than switching to talking about achievements and goals. I would see it as talking about skills, strategies and plans.

 

[The Albatross]

Hashi is right, it is about skills, motivation (or lack there of) to initiate changes with guidance and accountability while in therapy... once acquired and practiced, there is more inclination to take those experiences and work on them, hone them independently. It is important to be able to cultivate some reliability and basic skill sets to carry through with when there is a down cycle or stress. It is a transition of mind set, away from our problems and toward living a generally satisfying life in such a way that we don't break back down.

 

[Abstract]

I would feel like I was taking advantage of my opportunity, knowing that there are others in greater need than me stuck on waiting lists for months and years.

I do understand this feeling. When I was in a charity and brought these thoughts up, my therapist was overly harsh or strict with me about in response. It was difficult. The truth is that we need to be able to leave others to make their own decisions. If your t and the organisation felt that you were no longer a priority and that someone else needed it more then you wouldn't be offered more therapy. Things don't have to be in absolute crisis for us to deserve help. I think another part of this is our deeply entrenched lack of worth. For a lot of us our habit of always being more tuned into others needs than our own.

My t also basically said it was an excuse. A projection of discomfort of being in an environment like that onto other things. That was hard to be on the receiving end of and not entirely true but there was probably some truth in it. In fact I went into a flashback.

We have to able to let others make their own decisions.

Going back to not knowing - like Hashi said it is entirely normal. We live and learn. Not all can be figured out before an event or action.

I just wanted to say too that often there is a lot to talk about trauma that is not about processing the details themselves. There is often a lot we need to deal with when it comes to how it has changed our world view or perspectives. How it effects our ability to have relationships.

I didn't realise it was year. :-O A year isn't much at all though. It is little when it comes to this stuff. And the first lot was basically useless wan't it?

 

[Deleted member 1860]

Can I ask you if you've processed your trauma? I mean that processing is a lot more than simply talking about it session after session. Processing allows us to put the trauma in the past where it belongs, as in you're no longer re-living it and you can think objectively and rationally about your trauma. If you're at this point, then I agree that it's time to stop talking about the past.

I went to a new therapist and after I told her I had PTSD she kept on wanting me to talk about my trauma. I guess she didn't understand that there are those of us who have processed the trauma but still need to work on other issues pertaining to the present instead of the past. It wasn't a good fit and I ended things with her.

There is a lot more that you can do in therapy that is present-focused. CBT is a type of therapy that focuses on the present and gives you skills to use in the here and now. There are other types of therapy that do much the same.

There is actually a danger in talking about the past too much. There is a theory that you can re-enforce these negative neural pathways in your mind so that you're more prone to thinking & dwelling on the bad stuff. I've found this to be true in myself.

 

[Meadowsweet]

I have been wondering if part of this was feeling pressure over how you use your therapy time. I could well imagine that.

Yes, I'm very grateful for having had the opportunity to have therapy. I also feel guilt for not coping and for needing emotional support (that's the way I've grown up) and accepting help does knock my self esteem. So I do think I need to leave therapy earlier than others perhaps do, because I need to be able to do it alone in order to trust myself and gain some confidence.

I had been feeling better. I just hadn't realised that it wasn't a deep enough or permanent enough feeling better. I needed to leave in order to get the perspective on that.

new awareness is much more important than the earlier misjudgement.

Thank you for these, it is always a comfort to know that I'm not a freak, and other people have made mistakes too.

Can I ask you if you've processed your trauma? I mean that processing is a lot more than simply talking about it session after session. Processing allows us to put the trauma in the past where it belongs, as in you're no longer re-living it and you can think objectively and rationally about your trauma.

I think so. Sometimes it feels like there's two steps of trauma - there is the trauma itself, and then there's the realisation that no one is there to turn to afterwards. I feel that I've processed the traumas in my life, I can see that they did wrong, not me, and I understand why it was painful/frightening and why I dissociate etc.

But I find it harder to cope with the fact that nobody cares. I wouldn't expect a therapist to care (other than professionally), but it's that lack of care, rather than direct trauma thoughts that are flooring me at the moment.

 

[Abstract]

Can you discuss details of your trauma without being destabilised and are you able to react to them as just another unhappy memory or are there still intense emotions that surface?

 

[Deleted member 1860]

It sounds like maybe you need support for the here and now. Are you open to going back to therapy? Maybe a new therapist would be best as you want to shift the focus of therapy. I think the shift from focusing on healing (that is, past trauma) to rebuilding our lives can be tough. That's sort of where I am right now. There are a lot of unknowns about the future.

Can you work on reconnecting/connecting with others so that you aren't so alone? I'm fortunate to have my family, but I'm starting over in the friend and relationship departments. I know it's not easy.