Opening up to my therapist

[mamabearW]

I’ve known my therapist for roughly three years. Two consecutively, then I took a year break and have recently started up again. Through all our sessions it seems to have been a lot of rambling from me, we talk about problems in my day to day life but I have yet to bring up my PTSD. She knows about my eating disorder(I don’t think she knows I’m currently struggling), and about my prior drug addiction but that’s it. Within the past few months my PTSD has been getting quite bad and I want to open up about it but it’s always extremely difficult for me to talk about anything serious. It’s like I want to talk, I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. My appointment is tomorrow and I’ve debated typing what I want to say in my phone and either letting her read it or trying to read it myself. I don’t want this to seem like it’s not genuine though.
I feel I’ve wasted so much time with therapists by not opening up about my traumas and PTSD and this is the only way I can think to come clean. Would this be considered acceptable?

 

[TruthSeeker]

Everyone is different. When it is bad, I type it and email it ahead...sometimes I print it ahead of time and just take it in and hand it over and it is quiet for a minute while we read. You can draw it....if you are artsy......mine asked me to draw some things....a good convo starter.....and if you don't get the courage up to talk about it w all the gory details at first....you pat yourself on the back because you found a way to communicate with your T about real stuff. Good luck.

 

[piratelady]

I emailed the things I couldn’t say aloud ahead of time. Then my therapist would ask questions that I could answer and it made it a lot easier.

I started divulging just high level stuff at first. Like, I hadn’t told my therapist initially that I self-harm. So I put that in an email to test the waters. When it came to my trauma, I would start with just what happened, but eventually worked up to emailing the details of one of the incidents.

 

[Friday]

. I don’t want this to seem like it’s not genuine though.

It would only be disingenuous if you lied. So don’t lie. Voila.


... I know, right? Super simple solution, but PTSD Avoidance is a slippery sonnuvabitch and if you overthink this crap it wriggles out of any kind of opening it can twitch through.

 

[Tinyflame]

I sometimes wonder if it's just better to dump it all out, and get on with it (life). But of course it's complicated. It feels like a wall so high you can't see the top. But then, it's still a decision, as is trust, accepting influence, dropping walls, etc. (All covered by explanations or justifications that it's not important, it's burdensome, it's (I'm) a pain in the as*, I'm not worth it making something out of nothing, etc etc.)

 

[Missycat]

I struggled and actually sometimes still do to say something or tell my story. I emailed my T ahead of session and then she would ask me questions, i found it easier to answer questions than to open up the conversation about trauma stuff. Do you feel you could tell your T how hard it is and then between you both you can look at alternative methods.

 

[Rumors]

I have been in therapy for 8 years and at times I still struggle desperately with opening up. I hate asking for help, I recoil when I do, and I find that I regret often that I said anything when I finally do tell. Some of it is content driven, meaning that the content is a hot subject for me and one that I am struggling with. I have a deep self loathing while I go through this and it would almost be easier if my therapist would just get mad at me or sick of me and fire me. Instead, I am always met with patience and an organized style of thinking that makes it darn near impossible for me to quit or give up on myself. No one ever in my life ...ever...has ever invested the time, energy, and belief in me...ever. It perplexes me and I don't know that I am deserving of that.

 

[mamabearW]

Thank you everybody for your replies, it means a lot. I ended up reading what I had wrote and she was so happy I finally opened up and said she hasn’t wanted to push me. She said she’s more than fine with me emailing, texting, or just reading in session but she will never push me. I didn’t open up about much besides for the fact that I have PTSD and what’s happening. I may open up a bit next time but I also feel like I’ve opened up a can of worms I wasn’t ready for, as I feel 100x worse now, but I’m assuming it’s normal. Unfortunately she’s out of the office this coming week so our next appointment isn’t for two weeks. Until then I am writing things in my phone.
Until then does anybody happen to have tips on what to do to help with dissociation and flashbacks? They were frequent before but now that I’ve opened up about it it seems like they happen more often than not.