How to talk to therapist

[hopefully optimistic]

Hey everyone-first time poster, a few month lingerer. I started therapy (for the first time ever) back in February-met with that therapist 4 times and decided it wasn’t working. Met a new therapist in April and have been seeing her weekly since then (except for a couple of times we’ve had 2-3 weeks between appointments).

Anyway, I get it takes a long time to build up trust, etc. However, I am fairly comfortable emailing her about some things that have happened in my past. Talking about things face to face? I start to panic and then just sing random song lyrics in my head...basically getting nowhere. She is fine with me emailing, but last week said we didn’t need to as frequently-which made me wonder if that means I’m emailing too much...of course, right after that sentence she said “but if it helps, you can continue and I will be here for you.” Part of me freaked out and decided I was taking up too much of her time and I never responded. I have seen her since then, and neither of us mentioned it. Anyway, I likely wrote all of this to say-my therapist doesn’t know all of my history because I have a hard time telling it. And something came up recently that has me sort of freaking out, with nobody to go to with it. Is now when I figure out how to let her in on more of my past? I’m not sure I’m ready, but not sure how to figure this out myself, either.

 

[piratelady]

I have a hard time talking in-person as well. It really is helpful though, once you get passed those first few times. A couple things worked for me:

1. Sending an email with the information, but then that sets our topics for the appointment. Basically, my therapist knows where to start and can guide the conversation, asking questions that I can answer a little more easily.

2. The advice I was given here that has been especially helpful was to sort of skirt around the issue and then work your way in, if that makes sense.

I hope this helps.

 

[Wendell_R]

I write little notes on a 3x5 card I take into the office with me. I like the idea of emailing information, as long as you don't put so much in the email that you feel burdened to disclose more than you can tolerate in a session.

 

[hithere]

I would say yes now is a good time to fill her in on some of your history. you can say at some point i would like to discuss details but here is the general topic or general idea.

 

[EveHarrington]

Can you email her and let her know what's happening? Ask her if in session you can work on staying present.

 

[hopefully optimistic]

Can you email her and let her know what's happening? Ask her if in session you can work on staying present.

I just emailed her-thank you. I hate letting people know when I’m having a rough day and guess that was holding me back.

 

[hopefully optimistic]

So, after emailing my therapist, she did email me back. And now I feel like I need space and distance from her-like I have said too much and just want to run. Is this normal? To freak out about someone knowing too much?

 

[piratelady]

I just did that last week! :hug: I sent a huge email disclosing what I consider my worst trauma to my therapist and had the same reaction. I still went to the appointment and he handled it well. Don’t get me wrong, the appointment was hard, but none of the bad things I imagined happened.

 

[hopefully optimistic]

Thank you piratelady! I actually tried to reschedule my appointment earlier this week and then told her I could make it as scheduled. Then said during the appointment I just didn’t want to be there. ??‍??‍ It seems ridiculous how terrified I am.

 

[grit]

HI Hopefully Optimistic,

As I was reading your post, I had an ahaha moment. I wondered why therapist never bring things up. It is the most frustrating thing ever.
But today of all things and your sentence "Part of me freaked out and decided I was taking up too much of her time and I never responded. I have seen her since then, and neither of us mentioned it ." gave me a breakthrough.

This is , obviously, my opinion, but I think they do that because they know or feel that you must bring it up in order to endure the fear of rejection, humiliation and whatever other feelings that this may bring up. They do not want to give you a third wheel bicycle. It is like our parents supposed to do this when we were children but since we miss that opportunity, the therapist does not want to repeat it for us since of course we are also not children and have a very sophisticated cognition. That cognition got us this far, right.

My point is I feel you should take the risk of that humiliation (which is more or less your perception since trust me the therapist is not going to do what happened to you before) and you may realize that wow! the humiliation or the rejection or the embarrassment or the injury is not as you thought THIS TIME AROUND.
It is my belief this is how therapist keep track of progress. you bring up something via email but you never follow up and they may poke you here and there until you are ready to blurt out yes this happened to me and boom you are at different level of healing.

I do understand we are all in different level of healing and I get it you may not be ready to take such a risk, but maybe note for yourself that you wrote that email and you never brought it up in person. Journal it and see how long it takes you to bring it up or by being probed by the therapist, you start to bring it up.

I wish all the luck in your journey.

 

[Wendell_R]

I think you are making progress (even if it's terrifying)! You made a disclosure, you went to the originally scheduled appointment, and you were honest about what you were feeling instead of pretending. Wanting to run is really normal. Learning to stand there when you want to run is a huge step that takes some time & work.

 

[Stephani8o]

I wrote mine down but even then I wouldn't always say it. It took a looong time to trust enough to talk openly. I'm still working on it. One funny moment was when I pulled out my journal one session and she immediately jumped on it. She saw it and asked if there was something I wanted to share. I use my journal to get through the tough stuff.