Not Really OK

[canucklady]

When I get to T, I can't tell her how I am feeling, I just freeze. She asks me how she can be useful, that makes me freeze more. She asks me to go to safe place, I can't seem to calm down long enough. I want to tell her about my nightmares and flashbacks, yet when I get there I tell her everything is ok. What is wrong with me? Am just wasting her time, she is going to get rid of me soon.

 

[kers]

canucklady, how long have you been seeing this therapist? I know for me, it took a long period of freezing like that before I finally got comfortable enough to really open up. I didn't feel safe, and what helped me to feel safe enough to talk was that my therapist kept reaching out and trying different things to help me feel okay. When I got fed up with sitting in silence, he asked me questions. When that felt too threatening, he backed off and talked while I listened. When I did share, and got scared and stopped talking, he had us discuss things like movies and sports until I felt okay again. Doing that little dance, over and over again, is how I built trust.

Maybe you could express your fears that she will reject you? That might be as good a place to start with building trust in her. Hearing her say that she won't dump you might help establish some security.

 

[canucklady]

I have been with this psychiatrist for 2 years. I have told her about my fears that she will end therapy and she said that she is patient and will work at my pace. I guess part of me doesn't believe that. It is so much easier to write things out than say them out loud. Why is that? Trust is another issue have difficulty with, but it is hard to build trust when I don't even share what am thinking. It is like I get into room and my mind goes blank. The words just don't come out. There is a part that is blocking me. Does that even make senes?

 

[Perspective11]

I can relate to this so much, especially the last few weeks. My previous counselor quit working there, and even though I was able to have my new counselor in our meetings - it still has made it so I don't say much in my meetings with her. I close up and dissociate more than I have before. Last week she made a comment at the end of our meeting that she would be happy to one day have a meeting and me not say "I'm ok" or "I'll be fine" at the end of the meeting when she and I both know that I won't be. My doctor hates when I say those two things. Regarding writing things out being easier than saying them outloud - I can also relate to a lot. It feels safer to write than to say things - saying things makes it more "real" and building trust is difficult. Even though I told my previous counselor everything, I still emailed her and we discussed my emails in our meetings. It is difficult to get help if you aren't able to be trust or be honest with your counselor... trust takes time and being willing to open up to someone when you are ready to. Writing things out and at least being able to talk about those things in your meetings might be helpful.

 

[canucklady]

Yes, the trust thing again. I think I trust her, yet I still freeze when I walk in the door. I am sure my T would be shocked if one day I told her how I was really feeling instead of saying "I am ok". :)

I have tried writing things out, and still find it hard to even give notes to her. Not sure what is stopping me. Then get so mad at mysefl at end of session because didn't say what I wanted to and have to start all over again the following week. Plus want so much for all this to be over and done with.

 

[canucklady]

Total Exhaustion After Session

I am feeling so tired after session, this happens when it is difficult session and I end up crying. I forced myself to tell her about some details of nightmares/flashback.

I then make it home somehow and have to sleep for a few hours.

I am still sleepy, but trying to stay focused, dont want my sleep schedule screwed up more that it already is.

Does this happen to others here?

 

[Perspective11]

This happens to me - usually after a meeting that involves going into some bigger issues... and sometimes where I have briefly talked about anything in particular.

Usually I black out on my way home and just get completely tired when I get home... there's a few times that I have called my previous counselor to talk to her on my way home that I don't remember because of being so exhausted.

 

[Leftist]

I had my second session with my counsellor yesterday. In my first, I gave her the full outline of what had happened to me - I was bullied in my workplace and received little support at home, leading to a complete breakdown... After that session I felt better than I had for years - a feeling that lasted a few days. When the feeling ended, I crashed heavily.

I have received counselling therapy quite a lot over the years and found I am able to talk quite openly, able to explore feelings and even revisit them, all to great effect. I have even received counselling in the last couple of years. It proved useful, but in the end I realised I was not being treated for what was wrong with me. I was being treated for depression, but not PTSD.

Yesterday, my therapist used EMDR for the first time. I was open to it, had read around the subject, had satisfied myself that it was legitimate and potentially efficacious. When it began, I felt a kind of reluctance - which I reported to the therapist. Nonetheless, we persisted.

She asked me to focus on the moment I first realised I was being got at. As I was trying to allow the feelings to flow what I had in my head was a reluctance to accept the legitimacy of it all. At first, I thought it was just the treatment, then I realised it was everything - it was, in fact, a major ingredient at the time I first perceived my situation. It continues to be a major force in my head - maybe a major block to me getting better. It is as if it is the block that stops me from feeling my own feelings.

I guess it has something to with shame - I'm ashamed that I allowed someone to bully me. I'm ashamed that I didn't stand up for myself when my wife refused to accept that all I could do was walk off the job.

I guess it has something to with pride.

And if all that was true then, what is different now? Now that I am not working... Now that my 10 year old son struggles with that... And with the fact that I don't live with him any more? And when I go to see him and his sister, which is often, in his mothers home I am made to feel like a ghost by their mother... Or, if she sees me, it is to give me a hard time about something...

But, it is a huge realisation that - however much I can express my feelings now, I couldn't then - when the bullying had started: it was one of the things the bully used to control me. And ultimately, somewhere, tied up in that little package of self-loathing lies a key that I have to believe will open a door to a future for me - a future that I simply cannot see right now