Teawitheggs
Not Active
After reading Pete Walker’s cPTSD book, twice, and almost 4 decades of trying to sort things out on my own, I want to find a trauma therapist. I’ve seen two counsellors briefly in the last 3 yrs who both left their practices after I’d had a few sessions with them. They were both kind, and I liked them as people, but neither seemed equipped to work with me (both gasped and were expressively horrified by just the most surface-y details of incidents I’ve experienced).
They were both female, and I am very uncomfortable with females in general (I’m female also), and I don’t know if this is something I should learn to tolerate or if it would be more helpful at least in the beginning of working with a therapist, to choose a male therapist so that I am more comfortable sharing and taking conversational/therapeutic direction from them. I feel totally lost and stressed by typical female-style communication.
I don’t hate women at all, and I am feminine in expression. I am just totally bewildered by women in general, no doubt because my mother was extremely abandoning, negligent and (less extremely) cruel. I had my very first conversation with my mother two yrs ago and it was fine, but I don’t know how to talk to women, and from my own experience, there is a way to talk to/communicate with women that is very different than to men.
Also, to be clear, it is not a sexual thing. I’ve been badly abused by men and have general trust problems with everyone.
I saw a (male) psychiatrist who told me that I should not push myself or listen to advice to “get out of my comfort zone.” He said that what I need more than anything is to seek comfort, since no part of me feels safe or experiences comfort. He said to pay attention to my body and if it’s telling me to run, freeze, or fawn (I have no fight response so far), then to leave that situation/person immediately and without explaining or defending, to just end it by any safe means possible.
I am just beginning. I started using a weighted blanket and it’s so relieving and comforting (after the initial week of panicking and having to slowly bring it up from just my feet and now I pull it up all the way and it’s comforting). I’m new to seeking and finding comfort in anything. Is it best to find a comfortable therapist? Or one who triggers me?
They were both female, and I am very uncomfortable with females in general (I’m female also), and I don’t know if this is something I should learn to tolerate or if it would be more helpful at least in the beginning of working with a therapist, to choose a male therapist so that I am more comfortable sharing and taking conversational/therapeutic direction from them. I feel totally lost and stressed by typical female-style communication.
I don’t hate women at all, and I am feminine in expression. I am just totally bewildered by women in general, no doubt because my mother was extremely abandoning, negligent and (less extremely) cruel. I had my very first conversation with my mother two yrs ago and it was fine, but I don’t know how to talk to women, and from my own experience, there is a way to talk to/communicate with women that is very different than to men.
Also, to be clear, it is not a sexual thing. I’ve been badly abused by men and have general trust problems with everyone.
I saw a (male) psychiatrist who told me that I should not push myself or listen to advice to “get out of my comfort zone.” He said that what I need more than anything is to seek comfort, since no part of me feels safe or experiences comfort. He said to pay attention to my body and if it’s telling me to run, freeze, or fawn (I have no fight response so far), then to leave that situation/person immediately and without explaining or defending, to just end it by any safe means possible.
I am just beginning. I started using a weighted blanket and it’s so relieving and comforting (after the initial week of panicking and having to slowly bring it up from just my feet and now I pull it up all the way and it’s comforting). I’m new to seeking and finding comfort in anything. Is it best to find a comfortable therapist? Or one who triggers me?