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imapatient · May 17, 2009, 02:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sunrise

I guess I have the same thoughts. Why is this a good topic for group therapy? And have you discussed and processed it at length in individual therapy? It sounds like such an intensely personal and difficult topic that if it were me, it would require a lot of work in individual therapy before I could share it with group.

I've been dealing with this in individual therapy for 23 years as one of 3 major, concrete issues at the heart of my mental being—one of the others is a related issue—the Nuclear one. Years and years and innumerable hours have been spent dealing with it with different therapists. The verbal abuse related to a personal trait that is still present, so the abuse can be triggered everyday if I let it by seeking out present-day material to re-confirm this stuff that my mom verbally abused me about.

For KTGirl, the set-up is this: There are maybe 20 people in day treatment at a time (it varies) with some going 5 days/week, 3 days, 2 days, etc. When there are enough people, on a given day, they split up the process part into 2 groups. Otherwise you can get a 15 person group where no one gets adequate time. So groups range from 5-8/9 with varying membership by day.

My individual T encouraged me to talk about it in group to share it with other "regular" people for the first time to get some of it out of my head and get feedback from others. It is very personal, but in some ways it isn't that deep in itself, just my feelings about it and the context. It's about some verbal abuse I experienced as a kid specific to me that is not something anyone else could've experienced but for a tiny, tiny amount of people--1 in tens of thousands. It stems from this personal trait and the abuse born of a severely mentally ill mother. And a very, very unlikely experience of abuse at that, so we're not talking about incest or anything. I'm being vague, as I was in an earlier message alluding to this stuff to avoid getting into going over the details.

The main rationale for talking about it more directly is that the thoughts I've been having about it and my desire to seek verbal abuse replicating it are a current thing and more intense than ever. I know things that have been triggering me.

So, the big motivations were 1. To be forthcoming about my desire to self-harm (and the little bit that I’ve done recently) whereas I had been only completely vague 2. To get a check form other people on what I’m feeling and 3. To share the stuff (not all of it) with others in a safe environment since I’ve kept it inside me—it’s been a way of keeping others at a distance and the hope from T that getting some feedback and hopefully support from “regular people” would be beneficial and help me let my guard down overall. A thought from him is that in general many of them are dealing with serious issues, including self-harm or desires to do it, have a history of abuse, etc. Share it with others who have similar things in their lives past/present before sharing with others in my life who don’t have more understanding of abuse and experience with it.

I’ve never spoken to my family about it (my mom died 18 years ago), no friends, no romantic partners—it and the similar-but-Nuclear Issue are things that perhaps get in the way of intimacy and would less-so if I could get beyond the issues more than I have; in a way they’ve been paralyzing, particularly in seeking and having romantic relationships. Dealing with them more fully and in different ways than I have been for years—in groups, etc., will hopefully lessen the degree to which I feel weighed down by them. I’ve existed in isolation about some things and he thinks—and I agree—that I will be better off if I don’t let them get in my way so much of relationships by talking about them more and getting other’s views, etc.

I have to say that all of the above seems like boiler-plate therapy, individual and group, and material and ways of dealing with things, so some of the reactions here are puzzling, too. I’m trying to keep it abstract now to avoid getting into the details more so but it's the basic model of seeking help via different treatment settings and modes in different ways is what’s done. The stuff I talked about wasn’t something out-of-this-world triggering, common, and notoriously abusive like rape or incest. It's hard for me to talk about it since I've only ever done so with a T, and part of why I spoke about it was the "safe environment" dynamic to make it easier for me to talk about it with non-pros--family, etc.

The group reacted the way they did for whatever reasons in that moment. That’s the way it was. That’s a comment on them individually and as a group, whatever led them to react the way they did. A friend in the program told me that when she started the program there were a lot of people who didn’t speak up. Drove her crazy. She thought the program was going to be useless with that type of people and/or program being that way. But as others cycled in, the dynamics changed. Who’s there now and their m.o. might explain things a bit; maybe if one person had stepped forward and spoke up others would’ve followed suit. Maybe not. I had an expectation that wasn’t met. To whatever extent I maybe misread the situation or those there aren’t as talkative, or the makeup created a weird vibe; in part I think the lack of a “leader” type amongst the group made things more passive. The T in the group is less interactive than the other T, but her lack of speaking up was a bit odd, but less so than if the other T were the one there.

I’m still a bit baffled, but it was what it was. It was an “assignment” from T, and not a new one, but one I’ve resisted for years and I thought I’d take the step he thought could be helpful—me, too, given that I was now heavily into a therapy treatment program centered in great part around peer-support/interactions. As good an arena as any if to bring it up with non-pros.

As my friend said, sometimes you have a mix of people that aren’t very expressive or helpful. That’s what I mean by lame. I’m now one of the most senior people in the program, so I’m used to having other and more senior people taking the reins more so. With them gone, I’m seeing that the groups are less helpful right now—less experienced people in all ways, some much younger people, etc.

T is baffled, too, but he wasn’t there so he has no direct perspective and knows my view only. We talked about it but I won’t get into it more than that. It was what it was.