Triggered By Meeting With Former Therapist

[theshadowoftheliving]

Maybe? I'm conflicted about how much I want to pursue it. I know that I need to be in treatment - that much is clear - but I also need to be a functioning adult at this point, hold down a job, etc etc. so I'm terrified to talk about things that might make my symptoms even worse. You know, you know, the age old problem of PTSD and preferring to dissociate difficult feelings than facing them head on …

 

[joeylittle]

Something that has made a lot of the harder parts of therapy possible for me has been actually scheduling them kind of like "intensives", and either taking time off work or knowing that I can really take it easy at work. I know not everyone has this luxury, but if you can plan it into your life so you've got the space to do the therapy work, it's a better and less stressful structure. Because things will get tougher when you start, and you clearly know that. But also, they will need to be addressed. Once I even scheduled a break for 6 months away just because that was the soonest I could do it, and I limped through those 6 months - but it helped knowing I had treatment coming up.

 

[theshadowoftheliving]

Food for thought, for sure. Thank you. We'll see what happens … my insurance is also so shitty that I'm nervous to try to deal with it/utilize it … but I might have to just fight that battle and make it happen …

 

[penia]

Why did he not discuss his thoughts with you 15 years ago, instead of now? It seems he could have helped whatever happened these 15 years, instead of you beginning to go through whatever it is you will go through now. He sounds like a jerk.

 

[theshadowoftheliving]

I think that he didn't discuss these thoughts with me then for several reasons, the primary one being that I was so suicidal that the focus was (and should have been) on keeping me stable and alive. I truly believe that having to process the trauma on top of that would have killed me. Once I left the program that he worked in (as I was no longer a minor) we couldn't work together anymore, so I moved onto a new therapist and lost contact with him.

I don't think he was a jerk, @penia. I think he was trying to keep me alive.