Horrible Session (sorry For The Rant)

[Arebas]

I've just had one of those sessions where you come in thinking you're in the perfect frame of mind to really make something worthy but leave thinking it's time to fire the therapist.

I had prepared a text about how it was my birthday and I hate it cause I have no one to celebrate it with and my family doesn't care about it either. Never has. From complaining that it's a very inconvenient day to forgetting about it completely. The guy I'm sleeping with was in town and he chose to go shopping instead to come say Hi to me.

So I'm three lines in, I start dissociating. I can feel I'm losing it so I stop and tell my T. I take a deep breath and instead of just giving me a minute and letting me start over, she starts asking questions. I had asked her to push me a few sessions ago so I think she was trying to follow my instructions. But she starts asking how it feels to feel unimportant and what do I do and if I was bothered by what the guy did. I wasn't bothered, I just don't matter to him, that's the way things are. Why should I expect him to want to visit me just because it's my birthday? No one else cares. I was having a bad day, I didn't even really want to see him when he told me he was coming to town.

But she goes on and on. And eventually asks "but did you at any time tell him that you wanted him to visit you?" No i didn't. I didn't even want to see him, I just wished he would have wanted to see me. I said "come see me if you want" and he didn't reply so I assumed he didn't want to. "But you could have told him to reply to your text, to give an answer".

By then Guilt is all I can feel cause clearly, that must imply that if feeling like I don't matter hurts, it's my fault cause I don't tell people I want them to want me. I'm clearly doing something wrong there.
I tell her this and she says it's not about guilt and goes on a long rant about how my way of thinking is logical but there are other ways to make people mind me. So... basically she's saying that if people never mind me it's cause I let it happen, or right away provoke it myself.

Guilt keeps escalating. I stop listening. I stop caring. I just want her to finish with all her blah blah blah cause all she wants to do is teach me a way to make my family treat me differently. Which I guess is a good thing, except, my family is f*cked up. And I don't want to make any effort to make them care. I'm always making an effort to make everything work in the family. I'm done with that.

The session goes by. She asks how I'm feeling and I told her that I feel awful. I just wanted a bit of comfort cause it hurts to know no one cares and instead I got a lesson on why it's my responsibility to make people aware of my needs. Not saying that's not useful but I could have used a bit of compassion instead of a scolding. Talking about making people aware of my needs...

She said she didn't mean to scold me but that when I say I am not important, she, as a human being, feels compelled to tell me that is not true. And that it hurts her to see someone with such potential convince herself that she doesn't matter. And then she said "and remember that the times I've just listened and not told you what i think you've sent me an email late at night saying you resent that I didn't tell you anything".

I - the I in her office - never writes those emails. The hurt and broken part of me that's awake and crying at 3 am is who write those. That really hurt. It hurt so bad that I told her that it wasn't fair to use that against me.

So she accomplished exactly the opposite of what she wanted to do cause I left her office feeling like I am a resentful and ungrateful person who blames everyone for the things she never learned to do, is to blame for not fixing them and instead of listening the one person who tries to help, fights with her.

And I'm doubting the whole point of therapy. There's no comfort for me - ever. I can't cry so she just wants me to fix things. All the time. I'm so exhausted.

 

[mrsmegan]

Ugh, I am so sorry. I HATE when sessions just turn into a trainwreck....it is awful.

Try to be easy on yourself and give yourself some time/space to process where you want to go from here - i.e. how you want your next session to go, what you may need to say, etc.

((HUGS)) if you accept....

 

[7Cs]

Happy Birthday :)

I'm sorry your session turned out so badly. I wish Ts were better at reading us, especially those of us who dissociate and have multiple needs so to speak. It sounds like you went in ready to take this issue head on but then it triggered you into dissociation and likely into a mindset where you just needed compassion. Maybe your T read your initial intent correctly but missed when it changed to the latter.

I think it's reasonable to expect people to show that they care without prompting.
It may be distorted thinking on my part but for some reason, if I have to ask for it - a hug, an apology, flowers from my sweetie, whatever - then those things no longer mean anything when I get them.


I remember my T got frustrated with me once because I went to one session and said I needed more structure and more of a push but I had told her the last session that I wanted to kind of free associate and go at my own pace. I started bawling and had my 1st complete breakdown in therapy. She said it was good because she hadn't realized before how much my trauma had effected me. grrrrr.

 

[Friday]

I get in these spaces where I don't tell anyone how I'm feeling because I KNOW that if I tell someone I'm feeling horrible, anything they tell me I'm just going to use as a weapon against myself to make myself feel worse. I've got mad skills in that department :p

To me that's what this reads like. She was trying to tell/show you it's not your fault, so you took that and used it to make it more your fault.

For me, when I get in these places no amount of rationality will help. Later? For sure. But for right now I just need to concentrate on what will make me feel better. Got anything in your bag of tricks, in that vein? Something that feels good, or you enjoy? Something distracting as hell, or deliciously selfish, or just flat out feel-better? Silly, serious, what have you. But very much self care. Also back to basics (food, sleep, exercise, etc.). Anything to make today a better birthday, or a better day. Including sleeping it off if necessary, or staying up all night to have Icecream affogato at sunrise. Whatever your heart desires, giving yourself permission granted.

 

[Rumors]

What Friday said... Take a step back and let some rationale time consider the story. When you feel bad, it is not usually the time to make black and white decisions. It's kind of like going to the grocery store hungry...it never turns out well.
Happy birthday! Do something nice for yourself today!

 

[Arebas]

Ugh, I am so sorry. I HATE when sessions just turn into a trainwreck....it is awful

Thank you for the support. And the hugs.
I'm trying to convince myself to stop thinking about it cause I'm distorting it and making things worse. I've told myself I'm showing up for next session no matter what so I don't have to add the stress of making decisions. But this is hard.

 

[Arebas]

I'm sorry your session turned out so badly. I wish Ts were better at reading us, especia...

i wish she had a better way to guess what I'm feeling that looking at my face or my body. I smile constantly and she's told me that throws her off but I'm not even aware that I'm smiling. I feel awful but still I smile. It's maddening. I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels like if you have to ask for a gesture of affection, then it's not good enough. I'm glad your experience with your T brought you something good. I hate it when I realise I'm contradicting myself. It really makes me doubt everything I do, feel, think and am.

 

[Arebas]

I get in these spaces where I don't tell anyone how I'm feeling because I KNOW that if I tell someone I'...

Thank you for this, it made so much sense! I took a bath and I'm in bed (it's past midnight here) and I was dreading going to sleep but maybe it's just me pushing the guilt to the limits. Maybe I'm not hopeless, I don't have to quit therapy, I don't have to make definitive choices and form absolute ideas about this session. Maybe I can see it differently tomorrow and I'd feel less doomed.

 

[Arebas]

What Friday said... Take a step back and let some rationale time consider the story. When you feel bad,...

Thank you for the support too. It really helps having someone to talk to and who'll listen. I'll follow your advice, no choices now. Sleep and let things flow and see what happens tomorrow.

 

[Freedomfighter]

I've just had one of those sessions where you come in thinking you're in the perfect frame of mind to re...

Your conversation with the T just sounds strange.....is that what most sessions are like with this T? It seems weird to me that a T would probe with questions, always thought that listening is one of the most important skills.

I guess if I were a therapist, but will never be, I would want to listen to a patient first, then perhaps repeating a little of what they said, then perhaps probing exactly what gave the patient trouble, but what your T did there was pretty much labeling. I could be wrong, but it just seems weird that a T would give you phrases that described you while actually you were describing the behavior of others that stressed you out.

Just saying, something seems to be off with that T. Of course that is only my personal opinion, I am most certainly not anyone that has any kind of knowledge about a therapist's knowledge, would never claim that I know enough to even get close to their expertise.
Aaaand, if you have a friend that does not pay attention to you on the days they would normally pay attention to, well that ain't no friend, just saying. Of course if know that person only briefly or only talk occasionally it may be different.

When I was really young, in my teens, I was friends with a young guy and we often went out to party. But he had mental problems, which ones I am not sure, and there were days there could have been whole herds of friends wishing him a happy birthday he would not have left his home. Pretty certain he had mental problems though, not the norm, hihi.

 

[Arebas]

Your conversation with the T just sounds strange.....is that what most sessions are like with th...

Not most of the sessions. I think sometimes she does does some kind of self-evaluation and the next session she always tries to be super-efficient or something. I've noticed this happens about once every two months or so. We have this weird session where she just talks and talks and tries to feel useful to me. She explains things I already know or tries to direct me into thinking if maybe there's something I can change or do differently... It doesn't really matter what we are discussing in that session, she'll use it to "push me forward" so to speak. At least that's the impression I get afterwards.

I think I need to add that to the list of things I need to talk about. I'm tired of all this "talking about therapy" instead of just doing the f*cking therapy.