Hi Seeking_Peace...

I was (and am!) in a similar place. I can't even get my head around some of my "stuff", and am in no way ready to say it out loud. I also found it scary and offensive that people would put very blunt questions on a form.

I had a T, years ago, that had been highly recommended for dealing with trauma stuff. I was working hard to keep myself present while waiting for him before the first session... and then I saw the intake form, with all these questions ("just check off every awful thing that has happened to you!"). And that was it. It pretty much ruined intake for me... I was pretty badly dissociated/spacey and not able to talk much at all.

He ended up being a bad fit for me for a lot of reasons, so that didn't work out.

But as for the form, I just left most of it blank. Like you, I felt like if I just skipped one specific question, the answer would be obvious. So, I simply declined to fill out anything in that section.

I guess I wanted to share that, so that you wouldn't feel alone, or like you're the only one to do that! I bet it's not that uncommon, I saw some statistics at one point that people who use those forms generally expect people to lie on them (?!). I'd just not do it, personally.

If T asks about it, I'd say - "I'm not really comfortable discussing that at this point." Personally, I find that if a T can't respect that, they're probably a bit too pushy for me (I feel "pushed" very easily), and not going to be a good fit, so I'd take that as a sign to keep looking!

Also... this may sound awful, but I think for something like that, if you get pushed, it's ok to lie in intake. I'm sorry, I know everyone's going to disagree, but I feel like... if you're going to push me into a corner, and you don't know me well enough to help mitigate the after effects (and no T does after one session), then I'm going to keep myself safe by not going there.

My current T did not ask any of these questions on his intake form, it was very basic (name/phone/address/emergency contact/insurance). But in the session, he asked... because of something I said that wasn't making sense to him. So in context, the question made sense... but I had prepared myself and let it slide across the front of my brain without letting it rattle me, and said, "Nope!". He actually asked a second time later, because again, my reaction to something was clearly not making sense, and again I said, "nope!".

But, pretty quickly thereafter, I found a way to let him know (that did NOT involve me talking about it). This was after I had the feeling that I could trust him to listen to me and respect my boundaries on this, and it was all in writing, but at that point, I wanted him to know so that he could understand how things fit together (and so he'd stop looking for the missing puzzle piece!). It's been a good thing... he's the first T Ive told (!) and he's been very respectful of it, and it helps knowing that he knows, so that he can better understand why some things freak me out!

Hope this helps... when do you go to see this T? Remember, you get to pick your T... so if he's too pushy for you, and you don't feel like your boundaries are being respected, you should absolutely keep looking. Especially with trauma stuff, I think, having a T that can respect your boundaries is REALLY important.

*** Good luck ***