Therapy - What Implications Do What Is Said In Therapy Have?

[Elphaba]

I am a terrible liar. Sometimes it sucks to be a terrible liar. It means that when the T asks me something that I'd rather not to admit to, I get silent, silent, silent ... and then it comes out because I don't know what else to say and I feel that saying " I don't want to talk about it" is probably just as revealing.

Last time it was about self harm. I don't talk about this. I don't even do it very often. But when get angry and upset enough, I will. I get so angry and upset that everything becomes foggy and then afterwards I have bruises or burn marks on my body. I didn't say all of this. But I admitted to sometimes burning myself when I get mad enough and it took me a long time to say it.

When the session was over the T thanked me for having ts confidence to share this - and added something about "with the implications that has".

Now I wonder. What implications?! Something similar was said when I confessed to once having tried to OD on sleeping meds - though that was many years ago and I don't want to do that again.

T also wanted to ensure that I wasn't considering suicide. I said I wasn't.

The gravity of it all scares me.

 

[kers]

I don't know what your T meant by that--but asking him next time will help give you some peace of mind. Gotta keep the communication flowing. I do know exactly what you describe, deciding to talk because not talking is just as revealing. And I have struggled with self-harm, too, and telling is incredibly difficult. But sharing the pain can lighten the burden, and eventually you will be able to talk instead of hurting yourself to express those emotions. Your T sounds caring and concerned--let yourself get the reassurance you need that therapy is a safe place to share even the worst stuff.

 

[Iam]

kers is right Elphaba, ask your T what he/she meant next session. I would gather that the implications of trusting your T enough to share with him or her is that you will be able to do even more constructive work with this trust as a base. I always ask my T if he has said something that I am confused or concerned about. Wish I could do it at the time he says it but it doesn't usually occur to me until after the session. Maybe that is good as it gives me time to process and really figure out what it is that I am concerned about. It also gives me time formulate how I will ask the question and any further questions depending on what his answer is to the first LOL!.

It sounds like you made progress in your last session Elphaba. GOOD FOR YOU!!!!

Oh BTW my new EMDR specialist thank me yesterday for trusting her enough to share my feelings (I actually got teary and it's only the 2nd time I've met with her.) I thought it was strange and had no idea what to say......I do appreciate that she understood & acknowledged how difficult it is for me to be open.

 

[Elphaba]

thanks both, yikes, you are probably right. I have to do the awful thing of actually asking...

I hope it was some progress. It doesn't feel like it right now. I started going to therapy, thinking "it won't be long, I am not that messed up" and now I hear myself say these things, over and over again, that proves me wrong.

Iam, it IS hard to be open. And EMDR is very tough! I am glad it is helping you.

 

[kers]

started going to therapy, thinking "it won't be long, I am not that messed up" and now I hear myself say these things, over and over again, that proves me wrong.

Oh, Elphaba honey, me, too! I figured I'd pop into therapy and be "okay" in, like, six months. Seriously, it took me six months to open my mouth and say something real and true. This is a pain in the ass, an ordeal more challenging than just about anything in the world. It's like we're lost in the jungle and trying to hack our ways out with pocket knives.

But you are working. You are thinking about what happens in that therapy room, you are being honest there, and you are willing to do scary things like ask your T to clarify. These things are the path out of the jungle. You're doing just fine.

 

[Elphaba]

It is kind of reassuring, and at the same time not, to hear you say "me too". It tells me that's not "just me" but that it sucks. I just feel things get more and more complex the more therapy sessions I attend. Sometimes I think the best form for therapy is just having someone to call up and talk, but people like that do not grow on trees!

I have cancelled my next therapy session. I feel like I am on thin ice and there is nearly to weeks until the next one.
Very frayed at the moment.

 

[anni]

I should preface this by saying yes, of course therapy works, is very valuable and I'm very lucky to have mine. But. :)

One of this first things to give me pause when I was thinking about perhaps pursuing psych as a career was being given this bit of information. It was in a discussion on the various schools of thought, and approaches in therapy. There were statistics, where the humanistic approach had a ( rats forget exactly but know I wrote it in another post ) 75 % success rate, the Freudian and Skinnarian approaches were both (predicatably IMO ) in the 28th percent, I think, and just having a good, solid someone-to-talk-to had the same success rate as the humanistic approach. This was not pertaining to PSTSD, I THINK it was a study on depression, but you get the drift.

Therapy is the best bottom-line for PTSD, really. I've been pretty fortunate in not having dread before sessions-am far more likely to be shredded afterwards. I'm a great avoider, though, and if there's something I know he's going to make me work on will do my best to get out of it. Knowing there's a point of success on the other side of whatever is making me not wish to go really is what gets me there, so dutifully tend to mostly do that. I say mostly because the avoidance still wins sometimes.

Come here and talk, if you can. Maybe it will help soften the frayed nerves until your next session. There's always the puppy, too, for the down-times!

 

[Elphaba]

My friend said to me that I if I don't want to go therapy, I should just not go, and instead give the space up to someone else. He has a point. But there is a difference between thinking I need it and wanting it.

I haven't really dreaded therapy as such, but it has often felt like a bit of a wasted time. I have had this crap in my head for years, and I dwell on it. I feels it takes a while for the T to catch up, the first conclusions or suggestions delivered to me are things I have thought of myself. Then it may start to move, several sessions later.

Now, I start feeling drained after the sessions, or that so many thoughts surface after one session and then there is a while to wait. I really could do with not having cancelled my session today because partly my head is buzzing from last time - and partly I feel more anxious than I have done in a very, very long time. I also realise in hindsight that I am better than I thought at not telling the truth. I am a terrible liar - but I hold things back. Ok, I had to admit that being very angry can cause me to self harm. I did not say that disappearing into this state where I am not in the past and not in the present - I just feel foggy and distant - I also self harm, if only to bring me back to reality.

This is the first time I have actually felt that I needed to see a T. In my book it is not a sign of things going the right way?

 

[anni]

I don't know, it's tough to sometimes get a correct read on oneself sometimes. On one hand, we know ourselves best-what makes us tick, what our own reactions REALLY mean, what we are capable of. On the other hand, we're also terribly capable of fooling ourselves PLUS looking at things through mud-colored glasses. This whole self-worth thing precludes the vaguest idea that absolutely ANYHING could be 'good', by way of the first, knee-jerk reaction, you know? It might be an indication that things are actually going in the right direction, that you feel you wish to see your T in this time of being so shredded. Who knows? Your head might be fighting itself 'to the surface' to the point of insisting there's SOMETHING that requires attention/comfort/healing/direction, and knows despite what you're feeling on the surface that your T can help you make whatever leap ( or teeny tiny step ) that might be. I'm always, always second-guessing my own head, and then being shown something in there had the right end of the stick all along, if that makes any sense.

I SO do not mean to frustrate you if this isn't what it feels like at all, and am only mentioning the whole dynamic because have so often been made aware of this tendency on our own part to sometimes guide us to some sort of resolution despite our reluctance to accept the implied postitivity, you know?

 

[Elphaba]

Thanks Anni, you speak sense as always :)

My mood is swinging a lot these days which I suppose makes me a little inconsistent. I go from feeling frayed and anxious, to feeling pretty normal - and when I feel normal, the anxiousness seems silly and a world away. If I go to therapy on a day of the latter - it shows. I think then it is harder to "get" to me. The barriers comes up. While when really anxious, I am not able to put them up and i feel anyone could see through me anyway.

Well. I have an appointment in about a week's time. Hopefully I will be able to bring all my recent thoughts with me, though usually I don't.