Quitting therapy

[Deleted member 36028]

I am still uncertain about whether I want to use next session to state i want to leave therapy, mainly because I don't think I will be able to bring myself to confront my therapist in that way.

I have had many therapist over the years and all of them I have struggle to open up to. Often quitting after a few sessions. I did stay with one for 5 years but tbh i think that was in part because we didn't really go anywhere and so i felt safe. I don't want to consider that time a complete waste, but i question any real progress i made, especially seeing as now I am massively depressed and extreamley avoidant.
I moved towns and so found a new therapist, They seemed to have the experience i need and i imagine they are a good therapist for many people. But I am highly avoidant and the only times I have been able to stay present is when I am talking about run of the mill stuff about my past. I can't talk about my present because I am ashamed of how behind I am, alone I feel etc and I can't talk about the extreams of my past because well I just can't/ This all goes as far a not even being able to state what i had for breakfast that day or what I did t work or what i did with people I know. I am just full of shame. It has been about 3 months and this hasn't lapsed and so I am starting to feeling I just can't connect with this person, but then I have never really connected with any therapist.
I dissociate alot in session, which makes progress slow anyway, but at the moment I am having pretty bad suicidal thoughts and intrustive thoughts and emoitonal flashbacks, none of which I feel able to talk about in therapy.
So what is the point of therapy? If I can't open up and talk about this basic stuff. I am isolating myself alot as well. I am basically struggling alot at the moment.
I don't know how to bring any of this up in session let alone talk about quitting. How do you recover when you are allergic of the remedy?

 

[Teasel]

I can relate. Normal therapy has been so difficult for me and I've achieved very little in it. With the last one I explained my difficulties and asked if I could be able to email some stuff before each session to talk about. It helped.

 

[Sideways]

Ordinarily, when a person isn't getting anything at all out of therapy? There's good reason to quit going.

I am isolating myself alot as well. I am basically struggling alot at the moment.

This is an excellent reason to keep going. I may he projecting a bit here, but fronting up to therapy when I'm really into the need to isolate? Is incredibly important. I go through long periods where going to therapy is the only real human contact I have in a week.

That itself? Is a reason to keep going. It's a supportive enough environment for you that you can physically spend time in this person's presence, at a time when you're struggling and really just want to isolate from the whole world. Your therapist included.

Shutting the world out is something I find relatively easy. But clawing my way back from that, when the worst of things has past and I want to start functioning again, even potentially doing something that's meaningful to me? Is so incredibly difficult once I've isolated myself.

So if for no other reason than this appointment each week keeps you in contact with another human, and keeps your brain operating at the capacity to do that? Then it's an incredibly important 45 minutes of the week for you.

Our brains don't just go down in mood and things when we isolate, they start shutting down processes that we are no longer using. Including processes that help us tolerate and interact with other humans. That becomes something your brain will need to relearn if you completely isolate. And that's a big, awful thing to go through. Especially alone.

If you can't talk to your T? But you feel like there's things you want to be working on? Try other methods of communicating. Lots of people email their T ahead of an appointment to get the issues out there, and their T aware of them, in advance.

Personally I find that makes fronting up to my T even harder, so I go for the tried and true method of writing stuff down. Journal style, bullet points, doesn't really matter. Sometimes I have the courage to read those things aloud myself, other times I just hand over the writing.

For people with a history of complex trauma? It's really common to find it difficult to talk to their T about the deeper issues. Part of that is the avoidance symptoms associated with having PTSD (ie. that's part of the illness itself making it hard - the illness that you can get treatment for).

Part of that is also usually wound up in issues like difficulty trusting people, and issues around the shame we carry around that we need help to let go of. Working through that stuff? Takes time.

With a T that specialises in trauma? They are likely to understand that it may be quite a long time before you're comfortable talking about anything more than the superficial stuff. And many trauma Ts will allow you to continue doing that, for as long as it takes you individually to build the rapport and trust required to open up further.

If you feel ready to do harder work though? It's simply a case of finding a way to communicate that to your T, along with what you want to work on.

This is a really tough time of year. Deciding to quit therapy altogether during the silly season is something I think a lot of us probably consider (me included, most years around this time!). If you can, try and ride it out until you feel more stable, and consider communicating to your T about exactly these issues. Reading something I've written on this forum is something I do regularly to my T - it's not intentional, but this is a safer place for me to open up, and once I address an issue here? Sometimes that helps me decide that I want to, and am ready to, talk to my T about it directly.

 

[whiteraven]

I struggle with therapy, as well, and have considered quitting recently (like, to the point where I emailed him and told him I wasn't going back). He said the same thing @Sideways said: that even if I can't talk about anything "important," he was concerned that quitting would eliminate any support I had. He's right. I don't know what the answer is to not being able to say much, except that there are other ways to communicate besides talking. You can draw, for example. You don't have to be an artist at all. I used to use a visual journal - it offered prompts and I had my own journal/sketchbook I picked out to draw in. It was super helpful. We email a lot - that helps get stuff out there I can't otherwise communicate.

Another thing that might be helpful is to work through a very structured therapy. There are several types that use workbooks and worksheets that can help you focus.