General What If Seeing The Therapist Is A Trigger All On Its Own?

[Mrs. T]

Should I be posting this in a different section?

Had a chat with H last night. I need to ask him outright but I'm putting together some of the convo about therapy and what that lead him to explain to me. It seems that the act of going to a therapist to talk is a trigger. He hates talking about himself and can so easily feel like he's in trouble. He explained that when he feels he is in trouble, he associates it with pain, as he was so badly beaten as a child.

So now what??

 

[ProudWife99]

I hate talking to therapists myself. It isn't anything against them, I've just always been a private person. If someone asked me how I was, I would lie so I could avoid telling them anything personal about me, at all. That was a symptom (and still is) of my PTSD. I had to begin to work through that. It was extremely uncomfortable, but if it was comfortable to deal with those issues we wouldn't have problems in the first place. Sorry I'm not much help, but I can relate.

 

[Mrs. T]

Thanks. This is helpful. H does lie at times just to avoid sharing any personal information. He used to lie way more frequently, but now he just sometimes lies and later wonders why he said what he did and why he couldn't have just said the truth.

So, how did you work through it?

 

[amethist]

Just let him keep plugging away at it Mrs T, a little bit at a time.

Maybe if he writes it down instead of saying it, it may help him get over the obstacle. Others have done this and they said it helped break the ice with some things they were holding back.

Just an idea that may help.

 

[Mrs. T]

Thanks. I going to suggest this. Although I know he gets impatient with writing unless it is business related. But this may be the less difficult option.

 

[ProudWife99]

So, how did you work through it?

I'm by no means perfect, but I had to begin to face the emotions that made me lie in the first place. For instance, if someone at work would ask me how I was doing I wouldn't just say "Fine" I would say "I am so good. My husband and I had a wonderful weekend, we bought a new couch." In all reality, I spent the weekend trying to hold it together and fighting with my husband. I figured if I lied enough it might actually come true.

I've learned how destructive that can be, but mostly how much better it feels to share with people. To do this, I had to learn how to let my guard down. It took (and continues to take) lots of time with counselors. I just wanted to get better bad enough I was ready to face the difficult emotions.

 

[JohnJohn]

My wife has a very important career and she feels an imense stigma at perhaps having emotional trauma. She keeps telling me and acting as though it has no bearing on her feelings. She even told me she was unhappy with me thinking that she is suffering from her first husband's violence. (Even though she tells me I remind her of him, he "use to say that," and even her having a panic attack after seeing a guy that looked like him.)

I believe she knows deep down it is a factor, as do many of our loved ones. It just may hurt them more if they acknowledge they are even more out of control against their own thoughts. There is an imense stigma if your emotions control your behavior, so who would want to admit that to anyone, much less to ourselves.

Therapy does not mean that we are broken or damaged, we just need help and guidance to empower ourselves to regain control.

T, I hope your loved one takes a path in that direction. No matter how sufferers want to spin the problem, help is still help. It maybe a circuitous and indirect path, but the finish line is the same.

Good luck and keep at it. Positive persistence is beneficial to you and ultimately loved ones.

 

[Tinyflame]

I think he'd have to like and trust the T as a person.

I don't know, I have the same problem with medical Dr's. A lot depends on how 'they' are (if you can actually get there).

 

[Pale Warrior]

As Junebug says, he will have to find the "right" person to relate to.

For my husband it took someone with their own disability. He trusted this person to understand what he was facing. Prior to this we had had two other offers of therapy and he rejected them both, I had to respect his decisions as he was at least trying to get some help but at the same time remind him that this wasn't an infinite process, that he would have to find someone and try to open up. It was his responsibility to us as a couple and that I was not going to spend the rest of my life with him as he was. That was not a threat, it was a fact.

I did aply pressure, I had to. I had to save our marriage, or at least do as much as I could in a loving and honest way to get him into the healing process. If he hadn't engaged in therapy I know we would be divorced by now.

He tried medication and rejected it, so I introduced alternative therapies to ease his journey and despite his complete scepticism, he found they relieved his symptoms and he accepted them as important parts of OUR healing.

Best of luck Mrs T, don't give up but don't let it be you who does all the giving and compromising, he needs to take part in this too - for both of you. x

 

[SeekingSerenity]

As Amethist said, just a little bit at a time. As he gets more comfortable with the T he will tell more, and then it will be better. Just have faith, and take it slow. Give him all the love and encouragement you can. It can't be easy for him, and knowing he has you in his corner, will help him tremendously.

 

[j doe]

Thanks for the good advice on here, everyone.

My girlfriend who has PTSD from childhood sexual abuse will do just about anything but get therapy, which is the one thing she really needs, and maybe this is why.

Will it do any good to explain what will/will not probably happen if she doesn't start getting regular therapy, or will this just make her fear it more? For us, if she does not start dealing with unresolved feelings from the "trauma" at the core of the PTSD, I will have to leave because there will be no hope for any change from a very distant and stagnant relationship for the past eight years.

She will do just about anything "on her own" to work on outward symptoms, but not therapy for the causes. If there was hope for change, it might be different.

If I leave, she will stop caring about herself and go back to unhealthy behaviors (drinking) that she had when I met her (but now has mostly under control). She will eventually encounter a "trigger" that she is unprepared to handle in a healthy way and I do not even want to think about what could happen then.

Will explaining that not dealing with the causes of the flashbacks and triggers will never allow her to have full control over her own life do any good? I know this is "fear" based, but she doesn't trust "reward" based explanations, so what other choices are there? "Waiting to see what happens" is already being done, but patience is only good when it hasn't been eight years and the other person is willing and motivated to get help.

At this point, though, waiting for nothing is not the answer.

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[jibber]

For me therapy is most certainly a trigger, but that's the whole point of it, and I need it. I'm the type of person who will not talk or think about my problems and I'll suppress it until I snap and have a breakdown. Even before the PTSD, if I was struggling with something, there's no way I would reach out to someone until I broke down right in front of them and had no choice. That's why I go to therapy. I can't break down and process what happened in my day to day life. It took me over a year to finally seek help, and on my first session, my therapist barely finished asking why I was there before I burst into tears.

I'm doing EMDR which has been very helpful, but it's exhausting, emotionally draining, and it does bring things back, that's the whole idea of it. For the rest of the day after one of my sessions, I'm a zombie. I can very rarely get any work done, I have very little interest in socializing, and most often I end up at home on my own reading or zoning out in front of the TV. The next day however, I usually start to think about what happened in therapy, and sometimes even that can be a trigger. But every time I feel like I resolve a tiny little bit more, or even just discover another part of it that I hadn't truly realized was affecting me.

I have two supporters. At first, no matter how difficult the therapy session was, no matter how much it affected me or made things difficult, I would always lie and tell them "Therapy is going great, I'm feeling much stronger! Everything is much better now." I'm sure they didn't really believe me, but they know me too well to try and push. Now I realize that that's just another way of avoiding, so now I say "It's hard. I feel awful after, but I know it's going to help." My therapy sessions involve reliving and making myself think of the most terrifying aspects of my trauma, so it is a trigger. But it's also allowing me an outlet where I CAN do that. It allows me to have more good days because I know I have a regular time and place to work through my issues. So it's awful, but in a helpful way. I don't know if that helps answer your question at all, but I hope it did a little.