Help! Exposure Work Is Making Me Feel Worse

[timetorecover]

I had a really intense therapy session last week and my therapist did role play when she invited my pretend mum, (a Cushion) into our session. I tried telling this cushion what I wanted to say, how let down I feel. How unaware she is of the abuse I have entailed and also how I feel sorry for her and her messed up life.

Problem was, I just cried and cried, the therapist asked her to leave and she put the cushion out the door.

Wow, what an effect that has had, its nearly 6 days and I have been on what feels like a down hill slope.

I also started my social phobia group a few days ago, which was also really tough. My exposure was to stand up and give a presentation on "Travel".

I predicted that I would not be able to do it and when it came to it I couldn't. I just laughed, stood there like an idiot and then fell into the chair, incapable of talking.

So, I told my mum about this, she laughed lots and called me an idiot and said you better go back there next week and show them the real you!

I found her response backed up my role play experience and has made me relapse.

My anxiety, panic, insomnia and IBS are really playing up. I am vomiting every morning after waking up in a panic and floods of sweat.

I sometimes wish that I never started this therapy. It was ok when I ignored it, well it wasn't ok, but it was better than this...

I want to be told I am not going to feel like this forever, please, someone, tell me this feeling will go!!

 

[bethinhfx]

Well, I can't speak to that type of therapy but I do know that when we are in distress that it is hard to focus on anything else and you may be having a visceral reaction to trauma.

I know I have been having a difficult time and when my issues are triggered or when I am in a lot of distress it just seems to have a mind of its own. I think, for me, that it is important that I have someone sit with me; hold my hand and let me know that its going to be okay. so, " its going to be okay".

I find it important, for me , to take care of myself. I reached out over the weekend to get some help; and the crisis people called today. Sometimes you have to scream to get help. I have been in a lot of pain for a long time and need someone to just hold me and let me know that I am going to be okay. Maybe identify what you really need....a hug; someone to tell you that they love you....sometimes it is, for me, as simple as that!

For me, the surest way I know that something is not going to go on forever is to really be with what is; and make sure I get my needs met--whatever they are. Peace!

<Edited - inserted paragraph breaks>

 

[Eleanor]

((((((timetorecover)))))) my T (the guy one, I have two) gives patients his cell phone in case of "emergencies." He then explains what counts as an "emergency" and describes pretty much exactly what you are going through. Maybe you could call your T for some support?

Actually he does this by telling as story of a client he had early on who did a session and he got her present again, and then he went off on vacation for a week... which she spent on the floor of her bathroom processing old trauma.:( It turned out ok (she did a super job of processing the old stuff and got dramatically better!) but HE felt Just Awful about the whole thing, and still does from what I can tell. Anyhow, the rule is "CALL!" for us.

 

[anthony]

I sometimes wish that I never started this therapy. It was ok when I ignored it, well it wasn't ok, but it was better than this...

I want to be told I am not going to feel like this forever, please, someone, tell me this feeling will go!!

You kind of really answered your own question. Do you continue feeling like crap ongoing, or do you put up with the expected and normal heightened symptoms that therapy invokes, looking towards the long-term affect of continuing your life without feeling like crap on an ongoing basis?

Therapy will heighten symptoms, guaranteed. Look longevity, not short-term. Therapy increases symptoms now, lessens / removes them for your future.

 

[ronin47]

Communicate with your T about what you are experiencing and let him help you with the collateral of recovery as well as the process in of itself. Make a solid plan with him for what to do right after you leave a therapy session. I know that was always the most precarious time for me during the initial phases of my recovery.

What you're going through will pass and afterward it will feel better than ever before. It's like that saying by Thomas Fuller, "The hour is darkest just before the dawn."

The way I describe it to people; emotions are like food. If you eat a piece of rotten food, you must vomit it out. It does not feel good to vomit, but the alternative is the rotten food stays inside you and continually makes you ill.

 

[MyStarryNight]

Therapy will heighten symptoms, guaranteed. Look longevity, not short-term. Therapy increases symptoms now, lessens / removes them for your future.

I think what Anthony said is so important to remember. I mean therapy is not fun or enjoyable. Sometimes I leave sessions feeling a lot better and sometimes all of those old feelings get brought to the surface and they linger for days or even weeks. I think that's the thing though you know I mean trauma therapy is about working through and getting past the effects of trauma and trauma by it's very nature is devastating. Trauma therapy them by extension is naturally going to be rough at times.

 

[MyStarryNight]

Sorry Anthony I was trying to quote you there at the top of my post and it didn't work quite right.

 

[doglover]

This too shall pass.