Repeating therapy... when do you give up?

[Innordinate]

Just quick question.....

how many times do you repeat various therapies before deciding they just don't work?
When do you stop banging your head against that particular brick wall?

Or do you just keep going and going and hope one will work at some point in time?

Anyone here done the same therapy like 4 times throughout their life? Did it ever work? Never.

I dunno. Looking for a reason to re-do/re-try the same ol' stuff. CBT, ACT, EMDR, psychoanalytical groups..... etc. etc.

Anyone try anything else that did finally work when it seemed everything else failed?

 

[Sideways]

I did CBT so many times over that I can spot a cognitive distortion at a hundred metres, dressed in cammo and hiding behind a tree!

I've done the full ACT course at least 3 times over, which involved a lot less beating my head against the wall than repeating CBT or DBT.

All 3 have been helpful. None sunk in the first time. All have their various limits, but degree of assistance.

And yoga? That took a helluva long time to stop being one of those "Why the hell would I?" therapies.

I haven't ever really "given up" a therapy just because it's become repetitive (accept long-distance running!).

I have been tossed out of therapy groups.
And I have switched therapy techniques when things have felt like they're no longer adding any value.

There have been many (many many many) times when I've felt like quitting therapy (and/or medications) when I've had extremely low mood. Because when my I'm having a major depressive episode, part of that is my brain no longer has the capacity to see value in...pretty much anything. Even really basic stuff, like sleep or food or showering. Let alone stuff that's out-of-its-way trying to help me (that actually becomes pretty abhorrent - the concept of people helping me when I'm depressed gets really noxious).

What I know I do definitely need, during those times of severe low mood? Is the connection with someone who genuinely wants to make sure I'll be back next week. They care, when I don't. And as noxious as it seems at the time? That's one of the things that helps me slowly climb out of the pit.

Almost everything I was doing for myself that I stop doing when my mood goes down, contributes to my mood dropping further. Because it reinforces the helplessness and hopelessness that my brain has been sucked into. That's not personal weakness, that textbook depressive episode.

That isn't me saying to keep going with therapies that are feeling pointless. It's me suggesting switch therapies if it seems pointless.

And don't give up your therapeutic connection, no matter how useless it may seem at the time, when you're down in the pit. Drop things when your brain regains the capacity to decide, "Nah, I'm gonna do this much better thing with my time now...".

Sitting in a room full of depressed people, with a moderator that doesn't seem to register that I'm there, and is spewing content at me that I know by heart already? Yup. Did that for several years. And as shit and pointless as it felt (most everything felt shit and pointless at the time), it was me sitting in a room full of people having my mind repeatedly drawn to the concept that "Things will change".

I needed that annoying, repetitive, exhausting, isolating "sitting in this room because I'm really unwell" reinforcement much more than I realised at the time.

Many different things to consider. Just...don't create a void. Not right now. Take it as a given that it will change for you, even though your brain lacks the capacity to agree with that right now.

 

[whiteraven]

I have been through many, many therapists and a ton of different therapies. Interestingly, after I lost my last one (I actually terminated that godawful relationship after he threw something at me), I was almost a year without and I did so much better than I'd ever done. I don't recommend that, unless one has an amazing support system, but it really was good for me. I stopped depending on a therapist and started finding my own way.

I returned to therapy because the depression was just so bad and I have no support.

 

[somerandomguy]

I went through various aspects of trauma therapy with three or four different therapists. One finally stuck and I've been able to continue it with another couple of therapists.

We change. Our life experiences change. The therapists change. Any one little difference might end up meaning a lot. So I think it's worth repeating as many times as it takes.

 

[Mee]

CBT didn’t work for me close to the time of the ptsd breakdown. The therapist was saying ‘you are catastrophising , how likely is that to happen?’ Which made me feel crazy and in some sort of 1984 weirdness; my experience was it happens often!

I think for me it was partly about timing and I would be prepared to look at it again now : I am not eligible for local provision and not really up for paying for it right now; but I definitely think I’m the future I should give it another crack.

Yoga i think is ongoing. It meets us where we are now; it’s partly about recognition of how we feel and the understanding of the interplay and distinction of physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual ( or philosophical for those with no spiritual bent) not only a correction of them, but an understanding of ourselves. I notice that this check in I do with myself in practice can be particularly difficult for me when my symptoms are ‘more symtomy’ as I struggle to get the difference between emotion/ thinking and to feel my body or define what my purpose feels like or my calling is; its a life work and lifestyle for me, not a ‘therapy’ though it’s theraputic.

Talking therapy feels really repetitive. But I don’t think that matters? That those thoughts and issues keep arising is the problem after all. T is able to give a vantage point of what is discussed versus what is in my head and what comes into the room is changing it’s weight slowly. That’s progress. So even though the repetition feels significant , it’s a repetition of support and safety and reassurance and frankly self prioritisation ( my first word choice was ‘self indulgence) that is a small balance for the repetition of the number of times the ‘bad’ thoughts /symptoms happen, or the incidents for some of us, or the years. So I expect to go for a number of years. If not to this t to a T .

 

[Innordinate]

thanks all

you all made some really good points

i just get tired of this cycle- do therapy, get better, start getting life on track, slam into brick wall, do therapy, on n on.

i know a lot of therapy things
i know how to set smart goals
catch cognitive distortions etc etc

its actually using them consistently where i fail
so re-doing the same therapies..... i dont really believe they're going to help much anymore...... just gonna set me up to feel like i failed again....

at the same time- i got nothing else to do and i hate my life so.... try again because what choice do i have?

seems its fairly common though, to have to re-do stuff for it to click better or work longer....

my p-doc just told me to take at least 3 years and work in my mental health at least twice a week and then do once a week maintenance therapy for the rest of my life

so... guess im doing that. just wanted some success stories maybe.

 

[Mee]

thanks all

you all made some really good points

i just get tired of this cycle- do therapy, get better, start getting life on track, slam into brick wall, do therapy, on n on.

i know a lot of therapy things
i know how to set smart goals
catch cognitive distortions etc etc

its actually using them consistently where i fail
so re-doing the same therapies..... i dont really believe they're going to help much anymore...... just gonna set me up to feel like i failed again....

at the same time- i got nothing else to do and i hate my life so.... try again because what choice do i have?

seems its fairly common though, to have to re-do stuff for it to click better or work longer....

my p-doc just told me to take at least 3 years and work in my mental health at least twice a week and then do once a week maintenance therapy for the rest of my life

so... guess im doing that. just wanted some success stories maybe.

I would be ok having therapy once a week for the rest of my life. It’s a sort of reckoning, when things are going well, something to talk about fears with things going well.

We don’t not brush our teeth because we aren’t needing fillings.

Maybe we will have to accept we are going to be more prove to ‘cavities’ those need really good hygiene others might not need?

 

[Sideways]

seems its fairly common though, to have to re-do stuff for it to click better or work longer

Sometimes because life just suddenly gets harder, and it's a way to get support through those difficult times.

Not "failed at it last time", just "going to immerse myself in supportive recovery-based stuff again".

 

[piratelady]

I firmly believe it’s the relationship with the therapist that makes the biggest difference rather than the type of therapy. I also read somewhere a while back that trauma that happened when we’re young -plain ol’ CBT is less helpful for, by itself. Like we need to work on relationships, trust, attachment, etc. CBT can be helpful but it’s only part of what’s needed. I don’t know if that’s true, just something I’ve read.

Anyway, I do wonder if you get a therapist you really click with if you’ll start seeing the progress you want. I do hope so. If not, keep trying until you find what works. It will be a lot of hard work for you, it won’t make life perfect, but it will be worth it.

 

[MyWillow]

I don’t like the concept of a particular therapeutic approach. PTSD ain’t that simple. I think a good therapist is one who has a bunch of tools in their toolbox and then TEACHES you those tools. My psydoc is my weekly therapist (yup not cheap!) but she has given me tools that empower ME. She is teaching me to care for myself and gives me the space to deal with stuff but without creating a reliance on her. She is patient and kind and funny and I feel increasingly safe with her. But she won’t let me brush things completely aside unless it triggers dissociation. Then she teaches me to ground myself.

 

[Friday]

I think of it like playing sports.

I’ve had a lot of different coaches, and learned a lot of different skills. Most of the time? Each coach added to my skill set, but they were still teaching me the same skillsI’d learned before, but I was learning them differently, now. Either because I was better, and could find tune, or had gotten injured and was coming back, or because I’d learned bad habits, or because I was ready for the advanced course. Exact same skill, taught differently, because it was by a different coach and I was at a different place of being able to learn what they were teaching me.

Still 99% sweat, blood, & tears. And still on me to learn, practice, master, practice more. Because life isn’t a test, or a competition. There’s no “Well I’ll never have to do this, again.” It all comes back around. A thousand different ways, a thousand different times. <<< I KNOW I’m getting symptomatic (sense of foreshortened future) when I start losing this understanding. When I start thinking this is “it” or my “only chance” or that I’ve already missed my chance, or that I’ve already done this therefore shouldn’t have to do it again, or keep doing it. As if life were this static list of things. Rather than an evolving fluid series of repetitions. Like learning to play a sport. Really play it. Get good at it. Outgrow my initial instructors. Learn, relearn, practice, play on. Instead of did it, done. I get very black and white when I’m symptomatic? This or that. Do it or don’t. Now or never. Did it, done. Add that into feeling like there’s no future? Pfft. Game over. Except it’s not. Not really. So I have to push myself to see the fluid evolutions, see the grey, work with what I’ve got moving ...I wanna say forward, but really it’s just sort of blindly pushing... thattaway.

 

[Innordinate]

We don’t not brush our teeth because we aren’t needing fillings.

Like learning to play a sport. Really play it. Get good at it. Outgrow my initial instructors. Learn, relearn, practice, play on. Instead of did it, done.

thanks for the analogies- makes better sense.

just "going to immerse myself in supportive recovery-based stuff again".

yeh- this is kinda what im trying to wrap my head around.... change perspective on it.

t works. It will be a lot of hard work for you, it won’t make life perfect, but it will be worth it.

thanks P

My psydoc is my weekly therapist (yup not cheap!)

my p-doc cant see me weekly

i dont we just had a change in govt. and the new provincial leader is cracking down hard on all health care- so of course, mental health gets short funded first....
not sure if it's that or if my p-doc has given up on trying to help, or she's really just that busy..... i mean i know she is busy but i have seen her twice a week every week before but she told me she cant do that anymore and i cant afford a private psychiatrist... eh