Online Therapy For That One Thing?

[Dana1010]

I have been steadily revealing more about my past to my therapist. Last session I revealed a lot of details about my family and the general environment of my childhood - well, a lot of details for me anyway. It was embarrassing; I shifted on the couch and turned my head from side to side, not wanting to be seen. I just felt like, "Ugh, what a crappy picture that paints of me."

There is one chapter of my life that I have planned from day one on not disclosing to her. It's in the closet forever as far as I'm concerned, and I'd rather it not even be in there. I just worry that if I jump off the cliff and tell her, there's no going back even if I regret it and it makes me want to stop going. She asked me at the end of the last session to write a list of all the traumas that I've endured throughout my life. It so happens that a good deal of them took place during those few years that I find virtually impossible to talk about. I'm in a quandary now because I feel like I'm botching my therapy by leaving them out.

I've started to think about doing online therapy just for that one chapter and then doing the rest with my face to face T. Have you done something similar? Does anyone have experience with online therapy or a hybrid model?

 

[JEKBreatheandBelieve]

I haven't done any online therapy. I want to say that I had a secret that I vowed never to tell anyone ever. When I started therapy, I told myself that I did not have to tell that one thing. And then one day it just came out. My therapist asked me a question to which this one thing was the answer. I hesitated and then just said it. I am not saying that yours is like mine because I am quite certain it is not. However, once I told this one thing, it was the key to working on everything else. It hasn't been easy, but I would have been worse off had I not said it. I am glad you are considering how to get that one chapter out in the open whether it be with your current therapist or online.

 

[user27357]

I say get it out. It took me a long time to admit even to myself that I was keeping some things a secret so I would say you are ahead of where I was stuck for a long long time.

Looking back, if I could go back and give myself advice about opening up I would laugh at myself and compare hiding something from my therapist to the people you hear about that clean up the house before the maid gets there. They hired a maid to do the dirty laundry and pick up the candy wrappers and empty bear cans, why try to hide the fact that they have candy wrappers and beer cans and dirty laundry from them?

Opening up to my therapist with all of the ugly little parts that I didn't feel comfortable sharing ar first wasn't a breakthrough and it was all met with little surprise frankly. I think it is true that there is nothing new under the sun, therapists see and hear it all and I don't think I could even make up something that would shock or put off a good one. We all have a past, we are all improving or trying too, whats next?

 

[Notsowild]

Has anyone had on line therapy? How does it work? I assume you need Skype? How much does it cost? Just always been curious about it.

 

[Dana1010]

@enough, I totally get the analogy about cleaning up before the maid gets there. It's just that I have no one in my life right now and it's been sort of nice feeling like I'm making a friend in my therapist. It might hurt for that to change and to have her projecting judgments at me and all that - I mean they are human. I've lived with stigma and pariah status since childhood and I feel like I'm always on the run from that.

@Notsowild, I don't think you need Skype for all of it, just email. If you did, I probably wouldn't bother - hiding my face is a big part of it.

 

[joeylittle]

I tried to avoid my few "one thing"s, and failed. All I can say is, from my experience, you will know you are working around something. Your therapist will know. You'll likely feel badly because you are reinforcing your own shame.

I'm still struggling hard with having told all. But I don't think I'd do it differently. It takes a long time to adjust, is all.

 

[Justmehere]

I have several things I have sworn to never tell my T. One of them I told her about. It was hard. It was so worth it.

I know your T feels like a friend but she is more than a friend. She wants to help. It's her job. Chances are, she's heard all kinds of clients say many things and not much would surprise her. Maybe she could judge you but that would be very unethical and out of line for her job.

If you can't tell her now, that's ok. Maybe just let her know that there is something you can't tell her and you need to work on without her right now. In somatic therapy, and most kinds of therapy, the unspoken things are still there in the room.

I have done online therapy. It's a weird thing. It did help me practice talking about something hard, but it didn't help me recover from it. To really recover, it's best to work it out in person. I have shares hard things here and it's helped me find some acceptance and have courage to tell my T more. It's made my therapy much more effective and drawn me closer to my therapist.

 

[Dana1010]

It was so worth it

Could you maybe describe the benefits you experienced and how long it took to feel them? What was the process like?

 

[Chava]

I haven't done online therapy, so will leave those ideas to others, though I'd agree with deeper healing happening in a one-on-one relationship (even if it means them seeing you hiding your face, but "seeing" you).... but I had one thought when reading your assignment to list all your traumas. Could you keep the online thing in the back of your head, or research more, but also leave a blank piece in your list and let your therapist know there is something you simply don't want to list? Then you still don't have to tell her next week (or ever, for that matter, if that's how it would work out), but you aren't completely leaving it out...you can let her know there is more and I'd bet she'd understand you don't even feel okay telling her. It would be a way to "test" how she'd respond to the limited information. Or something as simple as noting that there is more but you just can't list it. ???

 

[kagamine]

I almost did online therapy, it has a definite advantage for somebody who gets uneasy in social situations. But for me, it would have been too easy to hide. I don't usually come right out and say what I'm thinking in therapy, so an important piece is that my t can see my body language and tone of voice.

As for the one other thing, I had a few. For years in therapy as a teenager everything important was "that thing I can't talk about" and eventually I did, when I was ready. Now it's more about details. There's two things I said so far that I didn't want to, but it helped me a lot. It was very validating. What I was most afraid of was of not being believed, that she'd think I was making things up. But that's not what happened and it really helped to build my trust in her and confidence in myself. I felt ashamed talking about it, but we worked through it together.

But the important part was that I was ready, it's okay to wait until you are.

 

[Leah123]

I've been in online therapy with an experienced trauma therapist for about 19 months now. She's excellent, very sincere, caring, dedicated, compassionate, intelligent and committed. She's available a lot which is great, and it is easier to chat (type live online) than to meet in person for starters. As our relationship has progressed, we now do phone sessions which convey more nuance in terms of verbal inflection and I'm careful to try and tell her about my body language and how I'm doing to compensate for the fact that she can't observe as much without a visual.

I highly recommend online therapy to folks who:

Write well

Want flexibility

Want the privacy and comfort of therapy at home (with the caveat that it takes extra effort to transition out of that therapy space since you're not physically changing locations after session)

Trust themselves to stay safe: not decompensate after a tough session so much that they might be suicidal or do serious self-harm (of course, that's still an issue with face to face therapy but the lack of transition time from therapy to work or home can make the ability to SI a little easier for folks inclined to that.)

The therapy costs more for the most part than for folks who have good insurance and pay to see someone in person. I pay $100 per hour, but providers at my service range from $50 to $300 per hour, with most in the $120-$180 range. However, other services offer cheaper subscription type options as low as $30 a month for chat therapy and some offer Skype sessions where one can see the therapist via webcam if they desire.

I believe we each have to decide on the most healing course, but I will add that while I love online therapy, the reason I really love it is because I love my therapist: she's a great fit for me. (Though it is super-convenient.) I wouldn't think the healing would be nearly so deep if I just picked someone I didn't know online to confess to... seems to me the healing is in the relationship, confiding in someone wise that I trust and who cares about me and working through it, but... that is me, and I trust you to do what's best for you. :)

 

[Justmehere]

Could you maybe describe the benefits you experienced and how long it took to feel them? What was the process like?

I told my T a couple of times, I'm skipping over something I'm not ready to share. She didn't push, but she did suggest it would come up at some point. I told her some of my fears about telling her, and she was reassuring about it. Just telling her my fears about telling her - this was really helpful to the rest of therapy. It made me feel even safer and helped us do even bigger work with the somatic experiencing process.

I eventually just awkwardly blurted out what I was avoiding. My T was unphased. I was really surprised she wasn't shaken. I asked her if she thought of me differently, if it changed therapy, if it made me a bad person, if... well, I asked a million questions about all my fears. She addressed them all. She said it was really helpful for her to know what I feared in the relationship with her. She said that it was helpful to know too what I was avoiding, because then we both know to expect that it will come up at times. "And we will process it one step at a time, when you are ready."

Some benefits and relief was almost instant. Some of the benefit and relief is happening over time. It's not like I told her and everything is ok.... It's more like I told her, worked through a little of it, and keep going back to work through a little more. Core relationship fears are now on the surface - this is hard but good. Those fears were always there, but now they are really there - sometimes stronger, but now I have an ally in battling them.

Like for example, one of the things that happened and how I dealt with it as a kid... It stirs up a core fear that I am a bad person now, who will always be in trouble, who deserves it, and everyone that finds out will leave me. I still feel this in therapy. I will be scared she will be mad at me over small things. After doing SE sessions about adult or childhood trauma, I sometimes feel this old fear. I did it wrong, I'm disgusting, and I will be in trouble. These thoughts are rooted in that event as a kid.

My T now is an ally in working though this fear. She almost automatically tells me "oh hey, by the way, we are ok and you did good work today, and you are not in trouble." I feel dumb, but so safe and accepted. My head and soul are changing in a way I have never experienced with talk therapy alone.

As I work through this stuff with my T, I keep finding that my other relationships are getting a lot easier. It's been easier to make friends and be around friends. Dating has changed. It's weird and baffling...

If I had not told her, my body still would be holding on to it, and I would be alone in wrestling with it. That was a very lonely place.