May Try Ect

[anthony]

Sorry, but if your requirement is for a therapy to work within 3 or so sessions, or one to two months, when apparently you're stating you're pretty severe and untreatable, then you're setting yourself up to fail. Treating trauma takes months to years to do, not a few sessions or a few weeks. That is you, not the therapy models.

You're committing to a 26 week program, but stating if you don't see results within the first month or two, then you're out of there. You may not see the fruition of results until around the 3 - 6 month mark, at which point things should start to fall into place for you.

 

[BloomInWinter]

If you're not willing to commit whatever time it takes to healing, what's the alternative?

Your rational, measurable demands & benchmarks for therapy are built upon a frame of using an intellectualization defense to avoid the emotions. The thing is, PTSD and it's pervasive symptoms are not rational. It's not like one can study, take a test at the end, and it's pass or fail.

Every good step forward begins with facing the emotions we're having. It really is that simple, yet terrible painful.

If you were diagnosed with cancer, would you present all your doctors with the same expectations/demands you have in the list for requirements for PTSD therapy? Would you tell the professionals, "I will only have these symptoms, for this long, or I'm walking. If I'm not cured by this date, you're all worthless quacks. My cancer will only affect these seven things. I don't care if those hippy-dippy ice bags are supposed to prevent radiation burns, I won't use them because I already know they won't work for me. If I have a setback, I'll quit and warn everyone about the hippy-dippy treatment. I know you recommend that for all your patients, but you're wrong and here is why" ?

If not, then why would you take such an approach with a traumatic injury?

Rigidity is a big barrier towards any mental health strategy. We cannot think our way out of traumatic injuries. It would be wonderful if we could. Building a strong therapeutic alliance requires a leap of faith and letting go of our ideas about a finish line. It's a class totally about our true selves, and finding out what makes us tick.

It's not a spa where we can expect only feel-good instant relief therapies. Facing our BS involves some pain. Especially when we discover that we don't know everything, and that we may have been terribly wrong about some of our beliefs.

There's a saying in 12 Step groups which we give to new people coming in who have present us with a laundry list of unreasonable expectations when they haven't yet received any info. "You are free to reject anything and everything you hear here. Your misery will gladly be refunded." This means we're glad to give the info, but don't waste our time trying to convince us we're wrong. We've got our own healing to focus on and it's not healthy for us to give more time to those who aren't interested in our experience, strength, and hope.

Every time you make negative comments in response to those willing to offer you a few precious minutes of our limited time on this earth, you drive people away.

Your don't need to take suggestions, but there's no need to make invalidating, negative comments about the suggestions you don't care about. Saying nothing and moving on to those you deem worthy is a more productive path to healing, not to mention far more polite.

 

[digger]

If I don't see results from Somatic Experiencing or DBT with a month or two I will no longer choose to be of this world.

I'm guessing there's a reason the DBT course runs for 26 weeks and not just 4 - 8 weeks......would you not consider committing to seeing something through to it's end this time to see if it makes a difference?

 

[Lost Pup]

I find it troubling that on a site that claims to be for helping others that some here show little to no compassion and instead choose to insult those who are really struggling.

AL, it makes me sad to read what I personally think is a very ineffective response from you. I say that because the poster I think you are referring to took the words out of my own mouth and I was impressed but also grateful that someone had taken the time to say what needed be said. Compassion is not about being told what we want to hear, or about saccharine kindness, etc. It's much more about being willing to engage honestly and openly with others, which is just what @Hashi did.

Do you understand that taking the time to write you a genuine response and having you then go on to talk about all the therapies that have not worked, etc. is actually exhausting for others? Or that anyone who is here, engaging with you, really has a reason to be here? I know I want to help myself but I also want to help others, in whatever small way I can, and so my own responses to you are alot more earnest and considered than you might realize. I am sure this is true of others also.

Regardless of what you actually *say*, I never stop getting the impression you are trying to prove that you are simply beyond repair. Whenever I engage with you I get the sense you are trying to go through all these different therapies so you can say they did not work and I get the sense that you are trying to do each one just long enough that you can discard it but just short enough that you never really risk exposing yourself or being vulnerable. Then at the end of the day you are left as someone just as wounded as when you began only now better able to deflect the suggestions of therapists and others and thus never risk genuinely connecting with others.

I think you've said this is not what you think is going on. Which is too bad, because I think alot of what you are looking for in therapy would begin to become available to you if you started looking at what is going on in this dynamic, in your interactions with others on the board.

Personally, I feel like the exact stuff that DBT will be able to help you to address is, in the interim, is the exact same stuff that is arising and re-arising in your interactions here. I really hope that you will give that group the time it needs to work. I like you and am glad you are here, but I find it exhausting to watch you shoot yourself in the foot repeatedly, here.

 

[Abstract]

You are sure to hate DBT in the first few months and in fact probably for longer. I can guarantee it. If you are in a group the cognitive blockages you have are going to be called out again and again, and again and again you are going to be asked to do the work yourself at home to take care of your inner well being and look at others and the world differently. That is going to be very difficult.

There will also be grounding techniques which you reject and mindfulness which although has a mass of science and proof backing it up, the concept originated in the east which will be one more reason you can reject it. There is a rich source of material for you to reject here in general if you choose to.

I also truly believe it is the one thing that could save your life and allow you to gain back the ability to deal with the trauma. If you are able to grow enough to use it. As Pup said, again and again the way your interactions go on here perfectly demonstrates that DBT would be very helpful for you. Please know that that is just an observation and not a criticism.

You can either travel your usual path: start - look for deficits - judge the treatment by your present state of mind - reject the treatment when difficulties arise - go back to the untreatable stance.

Or you can fully commit to the duration of the course - keep an open mind to the possibilities that could open up for you - accept that there will be many months of discomfort, pain and even despair along the way - look at each fallout and problem as a learning opportunity and one you share with your treatment leader and together find a way around/past - look at this as an opportunity to change and to take responsibility for change and for allowing help to happen.

I don't believe that 26 weeks is going to do it. Those whom I have met who have gained and had similar difficulties have needed way more than that. Techniques need to be done repeatedly over and over and one has to practice over and over again.

If you don't look at this differently and approach this differently you will always end up in the same place. I hope that isn't the case. You deserve healing. We all do. We have to make sure we are not our own worst enemies.