Hello, while I was in college I found therapy to be a very useful tool. It was nice to be able to talk about me and only me and work on whatever goals I had, and I just enjoyed seeing that friendly face each week.
Since then, I have not been able to find a therapist where I feel progress is being made. My last therapist was a trainee in a masters program, getting her hours, and she is the first and only therapist who made me outright mad about some things. I am going to be seeing her boss from now on, and if he doesn't work out, I will have to start paying for my own therapy which may or may not be possible at this time. First of all, the reasons I didn't like the therapist trainee:
I felt like all I ever did was talk. That was fine in school but now I wanted answers and all I ever did was tell her how my week went and I just don't think that approach is for me. I now know that is rogerian or "talk" therapy. The lead therapist works from all the approaches (Cognitive Behavioral (CBT)
Family Systems Therapy Family/Marital Therapy Gestalt Humanistic Adlerian
Rogerian)
The old therapist couldn't understand or accept some decisions I had made for myself. I live with my brother father and niece and have a goal of moving out and getting married down the road. I am not ready to do that and am not in a hurry to, she somehow thinks I will let them use me up until there is no me left and that my dreams are being put on hold. I see it that we are a family and are in this together and also that we are in the middle of what I call a crisis and it isn't life as usual right now. She says I keep saying but and that no one can help me until I am ready so I started thinking, in all fairness she wanted goals and I gave her goals and no I am not ready to work on those goals because things happened that are taking precedence. I am completely ready to work on my life. I think the problem is I originally would talk about my family (lack of help, indifference, etc) which made them the villains. Also even though she tried to be professional, I could see her scoffing at my religion and the lead therapist is a Christian so I think that will give us more common ground. Now my depression has flared up big time and I am supposed to have goals for therapy and I don't know what those would be and yes, there are times when I just want to talk out what is in my head but I suppose I have a picture in my head of what you see on tv of these big aha moments where you find out things about yourself. Why you are the way you are and how to change and become a better person etc. I definitely want the focus on me and not my family, though the biggest problem in my life right now is getting rid of bedbugs which involves a lot of housework and it isn't being divided fairly, and I get exhausted and all, so I do bash my family a lot for being uninvolved so I guess I can't really complain, but I want therapy to make me feel better and it isn't. I recognize therapy can't change people in my life unless they are in therapy also and they aren't. I just feel like I am wasting their time and mine sometimes, I don't know how to get down to the point. Now as I read this it sounds so befuddled and weird and I don't even remember where I was headed but the point I think is how do I start out with the therapist to give us both a fighting chance of working well together, I think he wants me to have goals to work toward. Obviously getting stable again is one of them (I was stable about 3 weeks ago and idk what happened but situational, a medication I reacted badly to, and wham I was suicidal for the first time and checked myself in a psych hospital for my own protection for 3 days.) I do want to talk about if I might have been misdiagnosed and am really bipolar 2 and how that affects things, mostly I just want to cope with the next 3 months (getting rid of the bedbugs and surviving the exhausting work of moving out of our apartment when it gets renovated in March) as well as just making it through each day, trying to cope as best as I can with the symptoms of depression and chronic pain, and still get everything done. As far as I can see I have to have a short goal because that is such a big deal I can't see past it right now. I committed to working out 3 times a week and trying to work on my diet, that hasn't been as successful as I would like so we could talk about how to cook meals that don't stress me out maybe, so I am not eating as much fast food. I am just trying to get a sense of how therapy should be working for me to get the most out of it because I feel like I am being impossible to please and maybe I just need educating and enough knowledge to spell out my needs to him. Anyway, kind of tired now but I would love input on what I have said if it makes any kind of sense. (little does that comes out of my brain lately.)