Ready to quit doing trauma therapy

[Punky143]

I can't focus on the work in therapy and do everything else expected of me. Such as: work full time, be the wife my husband requires, be the mom I need to be, I have little to no friends left because I trust no one and I have no time left at work and work is a huge trigger. Overwhelmed, and very little patience for anyone or anything. I already have $ issues and I just can't do this. Anyone else??

 

[FauxLiz]

@Punky143 my circumstances are not all that different from yours. I work a full-time job (avg 40-50 hrs/wk), I am a single mom with one in high school and one in college 800 miles away. I don't have the husband you have but I also don't have the husband that you have to share the load, my ex lives over 1200 miles away and only sees his kids at most 4 weeks a year. My work life is abysmal with stress, constant threats to my employment and fluctuations in income.

I have been telling myself that I should quit my T for months now, the cost, the time, the energy needed to go all seem to be more than I have in me. Then I realize that if I don't take care of myself, how on earth can I try to take care of anyone else? Talk to your T about what is going on, hopefully they can help you identify coping strategies and ways to help you whether you stay in therapy or not.

 

[Russell2017]

I can't focus on the work in therapy and do everything else expected of me. Such as: work full time, b...

Same thing for months about demands and job and money while trying to work on self. You are not given a fair fighting chance and no end in sight.

 

[Leighlee87]

I've learned that if I'm so overwhelmed that I can't function in daily life, it's something that really needs to be brought up in therapy. Things can be slowed down, you can have several easy sessions, and you can work on coping strategies. I was told early on that if I struggled like that to speak up about it. It's helped a lot, promise.

 

[Punky143]

Same thing for months about demands and job and money while trying to work on self. You are not gi...

That's how I feel too, not being given the chance to work on it. At 38, I'm tired of dealing with my past so I thought I'd deal with it since I've had additional traumas in the last 2 long years. But, how? If anything, its made me more depreseed, angry, obsessed with things I can't control etc. Everything and everyone is a trigger so I'm always in the fight flight mode. I've mentioned it to my T and despite her saying she understands, nothing has been done. In the meantime, my poor husband who I've screamed at telling him to just leave me and wishing I was dead. I hate the person I've turned into but I don't know how to do any of this...

 

[joeylittle]

@Punky143 - what about inpatient?

 

[Punky143]

The hospital tends to only put me backwards and adds an entirely different group of people and over medicated. Been 2x in the past and unless my provider suggests it/tells me, I'm staying out. Our state only has 2 psych hospitals and to get in takes upwards of a week spent in the ER waiting for a bed. I have PTSD from the last time I was in for an unrelated surgery. Something needs to change because its only getting worse and I'm scared because of what the angry parts tell the rest..

 

[joeylittle]

Something needs to change because its only getting worse and I'm scared because of what the angry parts tell the rest..

My opinion - take it or leave it - is you need to put more energy into getting your BPD under control. Skills training. I observe you posting often about your fear of alters becoming dominant, and other statements about how you are losing control of yourself in various ways.

If you are, in fact, losing control - you need to be proactive about getting more aggressive care. But if you are shifting into 'I'm in crisis' mode as part of the BPD symptom set, the way to attack that is head-on with DBT.

I'm not writing this in order to escalate you in any way - I'm just pointing out the pattern.

 

[Punky143]

My opinion - take it or leave it - is you need to put more energy into getting your BPD under contro...

Its not only BPD. Its the DID and constant switching. Its text messages from my husband at 6:30am telling me how he's trying and failing at everything and how I'm disguisted by him since I don't do it with him consistently. Then says he'd rather be gone. Yea, great way to start the day for someone like me as I head into a triggering work environment. Right now, I hate everything and myself.

 

[joeylittle]

The BPD is the one thing you can work on that is completely tangible, does not require delving into trauma material, and most importantly - working on it will help you stabilize.

Without those skills - everything will continue to feel extreme and your stress will be acute.

DID takes time. Trauma work takes time.

A course of DBT takes only 6-9 months to complete and offers nearly unlimited phone support from a therapist.

Why wouldn't you seriously try it? What's the barrier?

 

[Punky143]

The BPD is the one thing you can work on that is completely tangible, does not require delving into...

I've been through DBT twice and my brain is still like this. I'm frustrated and everything else

 

[lostforgottensoul]

I've been through DBT twice and my brain is still like this.

What about just buying the DBT workbook and go through it yourself. That way you can pace it and you can also skip around, which is what I do.

I have BPD too and I agree that until I stabilzed it, I couldn't work on anything else. When I was so far up and down, in the extreme, I couldn't work on anything else.

One thing that REALLY stabilzed me was Seriquel XR (extended release). DBT was helping but not enough. Medication alone wouldn't of done it either. But both together really worked to stablize me as much as possible. Seriquel XR really dumbed down my emotions so anger and real high emotions weren't so high and low emotions not so low. It really evened them out as much as possible.

Another thing that REALLY worked was training my dog. I am training him to be my service dog but you don't have to do that. If you have a dog, just simply train it. You are practicing mindfulness when you are training. Keeping emotions in check. Learning patience and really so many things. Just a quick something that helped.