Problems Understanding Cbt - Questions Therapy Can Never Answer

[Sunset]

I don't think people mean things as blame, if that makes sense. But a lot of people, therapists included, come across as basically expecting a certain paradigm. And I feel like I'm offered solutions that are built for people within that paradigm, even though they don't fit what I've experienced. But I also feel like when I try to say that I get more labels put on me and told that my thinking is to blame for why the solutions don't fit, when the trouble is the therapist is assuming that there must have been options that there weren't. See my previous rant about boundaries - practically every therapist has responded to my complaint about ending up in situations where I don't have much control with yet another lecture on boundaries, even though that's not where I see the problem is. And when I've brought it up they've just sort of shrugged and gone back to the same lesson, or tried to diagnose what it is that makes me say that without any sort of exploration to see if I might be right. It may not be meant as blame but it comes across as blame, in the same way that someone telling a woman well if you hadn't walked out by yourself at night you wouldn't have been raped comes across as blaming her.

I guess I'm at the point where I'm thinking I need help, but the help that's offered isn't suitable for me. At this point I really think more therapy would just be a waste of time for no benefit. I think there's real, systemic problems in the way mental health treatment is generally practiced. I think the labeling issue is a big one that keeps things stuck, because it ends up in a lot of situations where if the treatment doesn't work it's because there's something wrong with the patient. I also feel like it often takes too much of a you can do it attitude, in a way that ends up denying that some situations you don't have realistic options, or all the options you have are bad. That's something I've never seen a therapist be willing to address.

I'm really trying to find a solution that works for me, but I just keep finding the same things over and over and over again. Even self-help stuff seems to be focused around the same positive thinking paradigm that isn't working for me. But I'm just not finding anything else.

 

[Tinyflame]

@Sunset I've done CBT but I look at things a different way, reality based. I try to go by my options, as well as respecting other's choices.

Not able to express myself well today, but here is an example. I couldn't reach a relative once by phone or otherwise, but I was on a bus, couldn't alter anything. Situation was bad for them- anger, depression, heavy drinking. High likelihood with the drinking of danger. CBT as one would think of it wouldn't work, thinking 'positive' when the risks/ past experience was self-evident would be denying those things. So instead I applied it as 'give me the strength to face what I find when I get home, & I will *know how to proceed once I find out the facts". (* 'Know' as in not only that I would have the facts, whatever they might be, but that I would have the emotional & physical capacity to manage it & react/act, though I felt like I had neither).

Similarly, people often say with SI go to the Hospital, but for a myriad of reasons (including, but not limited to, financial) that is not an option for me. 'Back to the mat' as said above, since it's my reality.

 

[Sunset]

The way I see it there's two big issues I have

(1) Seeing the difference between genuinely bad situations and situations I'm overreacting to. The trouble here is I feel like a lot of advice I get only applies to the latter. It's a universal calm down but doesn't really give me the ability to tell. So I end up still feeling panicky because I know that the advice I'm getting would actually make me more vulnerable in a lot of situations that I've been in, and I haven't been getting any replacement for dealing with those situations.

(2) Handing things when I genuinely don't have any good choices. Again, I feel like a lot of the advice and therapy I've been gotten has been focused on the idea that there's always a good or at least ok choice, and that situations that really just don't have much of an upside are quite rare. That doesn't match my experience. So I end up feeling super vulnerable because things are still out of control and I've seen life turn from normal to crazy in a heartbeat in times I had nothing to do with it. And I get depressed and feel like there's no reason to work for anything I can't guarantee I can keep.