What Is Treatment Resistant?

[Tinyflame]

I can't read all of these yet must leave, but I just found an article (posted it in Meds) that said stimulants for ADHD working for depressive symptoms of ptsd. I know every symptom is worse when I can't sleep, which is often, & I can rarely if ever sleep past 4 or 5 hours, but all I know is I need coffee & nicotine (vape) to sleep @desiderata310 , (& no low blood sugar- they said margrine keeps it up for Diabetics, & also reduces anxiety/ increases dopamine production- provides a precursor, & is needed in response to adrenal fatigue/ lowers stress. Though surely there must be something better than margarine!) . Without the coffee & nicotine though I'm up all night, guaranteed. The theory is, brain stimulants can focus thoughts enough to reduce the number of thoughts to say 1 or 2, & in doing so therefore lead to sleep (not in article, but basically improve focus by reducing salience of distractions). Seems conter-intuitive, but I think they may be right.

 

[Deleted member 33880]

Hi Desi
I have been working hard on my traumas for seven years now .In the early years, nothing was helping. I look back and I was too traumatised and blocked for me to experience the level of distress I was in. Various therapies were about 'opening me up' but when I opened up, I went under massively. So that could be termed treatment resistant. Fortunately I know things that help. I knew that a couple of yoga poses a day, some relaxation stuff, some singing, dancing when I could, alerting my friends to how bad I was and how much I needed their support - tai chi, reading, box sets - sewing - and gentle swimming - all these lift my mood. I also find being outside in a glorious countryside helps. So my T kept making me talk and then I would go under. EMDR made me go under. Eventually I talked through most of my traumas and felt secure and loved by my T and had a better small group of supportive friends and now I can do various modalities without always going backwards.

 

[GMW]

I think the one thing nobody has asked or mentioned is - how long have you been in therapy for? It would be unfair and unwise to label yourself as resistant if you've only been in therapy for x months. I've been in therapy for 4 months and so far all my therapist has managed is an ambivalent connection with her (one minute I think she's the loveliest thing since a freshly baked slice of fruit bread with melting butter on, the next that feeling terrifies me and I run and think she's more scary than the monster in my wardrobe). I have had numerous traumas, sexual abusers as both an adult and child, abusive neglectful mum, a dad who was there then absent then there then absent again for my entire childhood etc. I've also been to about 14 different therapists (not including my latest). It's not going to be a *snap* overnight change. It will take YEARS. Not months. So if you've only been in therapy for a short time (less than a year) I would say, just take it easy and go gently, change for people like us takes a long time, but that doesn't mean it won't happen. There's also the possibility that if this is your first therapist, they could well be the WRONG therapist and THAT is what is causing problems. It's taken me many "wrong" therapists to be able to recognise and stop sabotaging the "right" therapist. OR another possibility is that it's the STYLE of therapy which is the issue - EMDT is supposed to be very frightening work (never had it done, I would find it too hard) and for me, even if my therapist DID offer it, I would have to come to a place of total trust with her to let her try. If after 4 months I'm still not there, I have come to the conclusion it's just not right for me. I don't really understand how anyone with massive trauma could walk into a therapist's office, never having met them before and allow them to do that. Not for me, not at all! I need to connect and warm to my therapist before I can even CRY with her, let alone do flashback inducing work! Yikes! You're very brave for trying! I couldn't!

What I'm saying is... it might not be you. It could be a time issue, a therapist issue or a model of therapy issue. There are more variables at play here than just you. So please stop beating yourself up before you know.

Go easy on yourself, you deserve the luxury of time.

 

[desiderata310]

January will mark 3 years:unsure:

 

[GMW]

Still not sure you should be so hard on yourself - maybe it's the therapy model in use? I'd talk to your therapist and see what they say (keep bringing it up if you have already).

I'd also ask yourself are you working on the stuff outside therapy too? It's not enough to go in, have an hour's worth of therapy and walk out. You need to be reflecting and unpicking things yourself and applying your new insight to your life outside therapy. This is quite a tricky thing to understand so I'll give you a for instance...

For example: This week in therapy my therapist told me "you spend a long time before answering my questions - are you censoring what you say?" "Yes!" "Why?" In the end, it came down to control - I write her letters a lot in order to better control what I say, I rehearse what I say to her before I say it, I plan what I will talk about. She told me I was wasting an awful lot of energy on this and this might be why I get so exhausted and bogged down by everything therapy related. She didn't make any suggestions, but I realised she was right. So this week I am making a conscious effort to not try and control anything - let things happen as they will and next week I will go in and try to just say the first thing that comes to my head. Gradually that will spill out onto the "real world" as I gain confidence by practising this in my safe place (therapy).

I'm not saying you're not doing this (applying insightful therapeutic revelations to conscious decision making) but it's worth considering how engaged you are. Do you use therapy as somewhere to just to go and talk for a while? Or do you do that and then use the insights to affect change?

If you think you are engaged (and after 3 years it is likely you probably are) then I would look at other models of therapy. My therapist is CBT and psycho-dynamic trained (probably trained in other areas too but those are the ones I know for sure about) but that doesn't mean she can't use other models if those don't suit me (psycho-d seems to at the moment) just means she might have to change the therapy plan with me a bit and follow the advice of her supervisor more closely.

I wouldn't write yourself off as "treatment resistant". I have an incurable mental illness (BPD and PTSD) and while I have no idea how therapy will affect those things and what a positive future looks like with those things still in, I am hopeful that whatever it looks like has got to be better than where I am at now even though I will always have them.

You might not ever be 100% "healed" but you do have the chance for a significant improvement. You do have hope for a better future. You just might not have found what will get you there yet.