My Therapist Doesn't Want To Know..

[Leanne1]

I had been in therapy around 8 years ago... Mostly to deal with anxiety, panic, and I was harming myself. I developed a pretty good relationship with my therapist. He taught me about finding the triggers in my present life that had me feel like harming myself. He asked if I had experienced abuse, and I said yes. He named different kinds of abuse, and I answered yes to the kinds I experienced. We talked about the shame I would feel as a result, and how experiencing those things effects me now, and I need to forgive myself and love myself. All of those things were useful and true. We never spoke about the details of what happened to me. Whenever I felt brave enough to start to speak about it, I felt him changing the subject. He would give cues to not talk in detail.

Recently, I have been experiencing constant anxiety. I feel myself slipping away, and the reality of my life feels fuzzy. I am a new mom, so I became concerned about being able to be available and present to my son. I went back to this therapist, and described how at times I can suddenly see events that happened a long time ago, and they feel real, and I can't sleep. I described how all of the details from the past are flooding me suddenly. I mentioned that I have never talked about what happened to me. Not with my parents, no friends, not with him, not with my husband. I asked if that was ok. He said that I shouldn't talk about it with my husband, because that would just hurt him to hear such details. He said that it would be hard for him to hear as well as he has grown to care for me.

I was recommended to a therapist friend of his who deals specifically with people dealing with trauma. I have met with her 5 times now, and am experiencing the same thing. The first time I met with her she had an assessment kind of questionnaire. I answered yes to physical, sexual, emotional abuse. I have had 5 spinal surgeries from childhood through my teens. And I had been raped when I was 19.

She wrote it all down. And now I am doing EMDR therapy with her. I am open to this type of therapy. She explained how it works. She said that she would like to start out slow with me. But I am confused. Pretty much I am being asked to think of bad memories. I have now been to 6 sessions, and I just have to think of things. There is no talking about anything involved.

How this is effecting me is for a different post. I will meet with my new therapist tomorrow. I am going to tell her that I am really only able to think of a memory for a moment, and then the rest of the time I find her questions and all of it really difficult because I don't feel anything... The moment I think of it and remember it is so intense because I pick one memory and try and hold it, and then everything comes all at once. It is a flood of all of it, and I feel like it is all happening again. And then She doesn't even know what I just thought about, and we arent talking about what I just saw. I am just talking about on a scale of 1-10 how intense it was.

Don't get me wrong. I am not wanting to talk about these things, but I am finding that keeping it all to myself all these years is making it take my life away right now... It is so hard to get through my day, and be able to be a good mom for my son. I work very hard at being here during the day, and then at night, like right now I cry for hours, and can't sleep. I can't describe the things I see and experience now. I know some of the people on this site can relate. I admire how you are able to say what you experience so clearly.

I am just so confused. What I am experiencing is that I shouldn't talk about my past.

Writing about this is having me feel quite overwhelmed. I will try and explain why before I stop.

My mom, when she found out that my uncle was abusing me, never asked what he did to me. She didn't want to know the details. It would have been hard for me to tell her, somehow it hurt more that she didn't want to know. Then when I was 19, and went out with a friend, and didn't come home until 11 am the next day, and when I got home I was obviously upset, she didn't ask me what happened. She was just mad I was late, and made her worry. So, can anyone understand why it would hurt to have the same reaction from 2 therapists.

I might quit therapy tomorrow. I actually have felt that things are just so much worse since I started a month or so ago. I can't think about these things on my own. If I am just sitting there thinking of things, and she doesn't know that I am feeling like someone has me tied up, and is hurting me..... How do I manage this on my own? I can't. I have hurt myself in the past, but I have never been suicidal. Last week after a session I ended up so overwhelmed and out of control I held a knife to my throat and imagined cutting my artery. I was wishing I could just stop everything, and no longer exists. That scared me. I ended up with a cut on my neck. I told my therapist this happened, and we did something she called a 'protocol' using emdr. We worked on thoughts I have about harming myself, and how the release you get from this can be like an addiction. So the protocol was to treat people with addictions.

So I thought to myself memories of when I felt like that before. I didn't talk about how I was remembering hiding in the closet when I was 9 so I could cry and no one would hear me, so I started to punch myself to calm down, and it worked. She didn't ask what the memory was. I just had to think about that.

I can't go there and think of these things anymore. What am I doing? I have always thought that I have kept these things secret, and now I find that it is good that I have, because people don't want to know....

Oh man... I am in such a mess!!! I don't know if I can even go tomorrow.

 

[zaniara]

I'm sorry it's so bad right now. I wonder a bit about your EMDR.. I've been doing EMDR quite a lot, and there is some room to talk about the memories too. And when she stops the bilateral stimulation she should ask you 'what comes before you'(or something similar). Does she not ask that?

I have needed to, but not wanted to, talk about the abuse/traumas, and have been given room to do so. Not that there have been a lot of talking though- mainly because it's so difficult. And extremely rarely have I said any details, it have been unnecessary too. I think my therapist get the picture anyway.

Talking about traumas too much can re-traumatize, so sometimes a therapist might stop you from talking. (when my therapist did it the first time I also thought he didn't wanted to hear, but I asked and he explained the reason for stopping me.) But it sounds odd if she does not give you ANY room for talking. Maybe a different therapist might be more helpful. But do try to be honest with her first. Maybe she can change her approach.

 

[Leanne1]

Your right. I will talk with her tomorrow. I am remembering that a difficult moment last week was when I realized that my experience was Nd is that no one cares about me. I don't think I need to talk about details, and I think you could be right that it would be to much. I think she does get what I might be working with from her questions. I am just sooo sensitive right now. I feel like it is all such an emergency having slipped so far back so quickly. I feel like I need to stop it, and it seems to be getting worse.

Someone mentioned in a different post that sometimes it gets worse when u first start getting therapy, then it can get easier. I will try and give it time.

Truthfully to answer your question, I don'tremember if she asks anything after. It is hard for me to be present and not feel spaced out afterward. I usually end up repeating her questions back to try and understand what she is saying.

I am encouraged that you have found a way to deal with memories and not talk them through. So mAYbe it's ok. I'll just try and start talking about what those memories do to me, and maybe she can help me be able to come back after experiencing them.

 

[EvenStrongerNow]

So sorry you are going through all of this. I can relate.

You said at one point in your post that you are going to see a new T tomorrow and then later in another paragraph, you said that you might quit T tomorrow? I'm confused. Are you seeing 2 different Ts?

Have you explained to your T what is happening to you during the session and in between sessions?

When I read your post, it also sounds to me like because of the experience you had with your Mom not wanting to hear about your experience, you are now seeing your T as your mom and thinking that she doesn't want to hear either? Just a thought. Something to think on.

 

[Pencil]

and have been given room to do so.

This is the point - it is not about talking or not talking, but the Freedom and Space to talk if you need to.

 

[Deleted member 1860]

Actually I'd be shocked if someone went to trauma therapy and things didn't get worse at some point. This stuff is really hard! Hang in there, it gets better at some point, but only if you work through it!

 

[Leanne1]

Strongernow, I had a therapist 8 years ago. I have a new therapist now that I have been seeing for a little over a month.

I am going to really try and talk to her about what has been happening for me during and after therapy. I suppose you could be right and it could be me experiencing my therapist as my mom, not wanting to hear what is going on with me.

Thinking about going today I feel really nervous. I like what you said pencil,

This is the point - it is not about talking or not talking, but the Freedom and Space to talk if you need to.

 

[Mercy]

My mom, when she found out that my uncle was abusing me, never asked what he did to me. She didn't want to know the details. It would have been hard for me to tell her, somehow it hurt more that she didn't want to know.


How deeply your mother must have hurt when she was holding up denial. You didn't get any warmth and healing from your mother at that time. I'm guessing she didn't do much of the tender loving either, just a guess.

The need for secrecy was established by your mother by not taking action against your Uncle.
If a person is traumatised and is received caringly, many people do not develop PTSD. At the time of an emergency, the Red Cross provides people for the survivors to talk with, a nice hot cup of tea and a turkey sandwich. Turkey provides triptophan(sp?) which is a brain hormone that can shelter a person from their full depth of pain. Those that are received coldly do develope PTSD.

What your mother did was enormous betrayal and rejection by not talking and not listening to you about what happened. Denial of your reality wounds deeply. When you were traumatised, the only response you could make, according to the pressure to keep the family lies, was to keep quiet, very quiet.
:arghh;:inpain::(:wacky:

Maybe, it is time for you to break your silence about what happened to you. You could have a trauma diary here on the forum so that at least you can get it out of you a bit at a time. You will be confirming the truth of your abuse, be able to express your feelings and reactions. I have found having a diary very useful. I don't feel any pressure to write every day. Sometimes I go for months between posts. I earned to listen myself over the years. It is a good thing. Sometimes, I'd be writing through my tears. At least, there is an advantage to using a computer. The tears did not make the ink on paper run........
:rolleyes:

 

[Leanne1]

Mercy, yes. I think it was the keeping quiet that has created a lot of what I am struggling with right now, especially in therapy. I am really, really good at appearing ok when I am not.

I will try one day to journal. Not now though. I am going to try and learn more about grounding myself. I read some about that and think it could be helpful if I let myself remember things from my past. I can do it briefly, and then I kind of just check out.
Your story about the Red Cross made me remember When I was in my early twenties, when my house was broken into while I was home alone.Victim assistance volunteers came before the police left. They made me tea, and talked about my job, and liking my fish in my fish tank. I can remember listening to them from a very far away place and wondering how they could talk as they were, about such meaningless things. But in retrospect, there kindness and care, and making sure I had a friend come over, and not drive my car etc. did make a huge difference to me. They didn't make me a turkey sandwich:( but I felt their care. It helped me to start coming back into myself and be able to communicate and relate and realize it was over. Pretty amazing people to do this.

I think it could have helped a lot if my mom showed any concern.

Last week at the end of the session with my therapist she was doing emdr and the next question was , " what is a need that the 9 year old part of myself needed. I said " for someone to care about her" when she wanted me to go into this feeling I had to stop. It caused such a rush of images. I think that's a pretty big issue for me.

Wish me luck today:geek:

 

[Leanne1]

Just wanting to clarify: I don't mean to say that the victim assistance volunteers "talked about meaningless things" it was just that from the place I was, which was very far away, I couldn't make seance of their words, or what they were talking about. When the police were trying to get my information I didn't remember my phone number, address, the names of who lived upstairs from me, etc. I barely remembered my own name. So there conversation about details about my job and stuff was helpful in bringing me back, but in the moment, very strange.

 

[BloomInWinter]

It sounds like your therapist is doing some basic graduated exposure therapy to help you both learn where your window of tolerance is. By using something called "imaginal exposure," our defensive structures are gently pushed against to trigger our distress but at a much slower, safer pace. This gives our therapist time to show us how to use skills to manage our distress levels.

That's awful that your Mother didn't want to know the details. It sounds like you are assuming the therapist has the same motivation as your Mother. It is highly unlikely that titering the dosage of your exposure would be motivated by a desire to avoid the topic. A therapist is obligated to go at a pace that will not flood us survivors into disrupting our overall functioning outside the therapy room.

This is typical initial stage therapy. It's not that they don't want you to talk about it. It's that they want you to talk about it when they are sure you've got the skills, support, and resources needed to successfully process your traumas while being able to keep functioning in your current life.

They know we want to spill it, but I learned the hard way that it can be very re-traumatizing to spill it out before the groundwork has been laid to manage all the stored emotions, images, and body sensations stirred up.

Good for you for looking at the feeling behind the thought. That's exactly how the process is supposed to work. You stopped when you needed to. Hang in there. It does get less distressing and easier as time goes on.

 

[zaniara]

Hope it went well.