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Old Oct 23, 2017, 07:57 PM
ruh roh's Avatar
ruh roh ruh roh is offline
Run of the Mill Snowflake
 
Member Since: May 2015
Location: here and there
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Quote:
Originally Posted by awkwardlyyours View Post
I am really sorry you had to hear this.

I don't mean to make matters worse but it sounds to me like your therapist has hit (what I think I brought up earlier) a sort of 'stuck' place in helping you sort out this stuff -- it sounds like she's just gotten rather frustrated.

In terms of pure tactical stuff, is there a way that you can just not talk about this stuff for a little bit and focus on other things (just to give yourself some breathing room)?

(At the risk of getting really basic) Have you ever tried telling her to not talk / not give any sort of response but to simply listen to you? And, you hold forth and say exactly what's on your mind?

When I've felt that a therapist's response was significantly lacking, what I did (and your personality I bet is likely much different from mine in this regard, so take it for what it's worth) was to give excruciating detail on what occurred -- what I said, how they responded, what I said in return and so on, replete with their facial expressions / other gestures etc -- and tell them exactly how it felt for me to go through it. I totally get how it's a douchebag-gy thing to do but otherwise, I'd get frustrated that they'd keep saying that all was fine on their end and it's just in my imagination that things were wrong -- so being really really really (idiotically) specific helped.

Of course, with current T, it also made matters a whole lot worse for a while because she's well, ridiculously sensitive (and / or I'm way too abrasive for my own good) but even there, it helped her to finally figure out exactly what I had a problem with -- rather than sort of floating around in what seemed like generalities and allowed her to get away with saying pretty much anything and calling it fine.

For what it's worth, I have had both current T and former T suggest that if I was unhappy with them (when I was in the midst of raging at them), I could go see other therapists (when I actually did, ahhh.....their response was sooo different, ya know?).
Thanks for this. Yeah, I need to not bring this up for a good long while, or ever again. I am the same as you when it comes to doing a re-enactment of how/when things went wrong. In this case, she says that she hears how this is for me and is sorry I can't hear that she understands. But when she suggests someone who advertises as a sexologist, complete with all the diverse sex themes she works on, I have to accept that I will not be understood on this. You gave me a heads up that this would be the case. It's hard to take in, though.
Hugs from:
awkwardlyyours