I'm not sure if therapy is making me worse, so much as calling for confrontation of harsh realities that elaborate defenses set aside in my mind for my whole life so that I "looked" pretty much like my peers, functioning well in most areas. . My T gives cool metaphors for this process, and I understand what it is to have CPTSD now, though I never heard of the term 18 months ago.

I'm scared. My foundation is weaker than it looked like for most of my life, and there's something about therapy that is taking away the capacity to compartmentalize and get everything done, give full attention to BF and dogs. Nightmares, not sleeping, unrelenting sadness, SI, - these are new but have taken over at least fifty percent of my experience, while I struggle to act normal and keep engaged with my relationship, friends, clients, family. For the first time, I understand how someone who looks great on the outside ends up giving up the fight, bc it is exhausting to feel so bifurcated.

My T came through big for me last week when I had a bunch of 18 hour work days, couldn't sleep, and my BF is very concerned that I should stop going to therapy( which I didn't tell T bc it seems like triangling or manipulative). I cried the beginning to the end of the session, and he was like- I am going to help you, its going to be okay by the end of session, and he really did patch me together and lend me some kind of strength. I felt like someone gave me a shot of novocaine in my brain, instead of the dentist doing it to a tooth, and I got everything done.

My T does care( I think), but he cares within his strict parameters . He cares two 50 minutes periods a week, and there is a chance he thinks about the case formulation if you know what I mean. It is weird because working with a T for 18 months is less than the number of hours in 1 week. Something in me struggles to understand if we know each other or not . I understand what the therapeutic relationship is not, but not what it is. I wish he would check on me, or just lifeguard the situation. I feel like there is an unraveling going on, when I have so much to do it scares me( need to be at work by 8am today). Talking about dark horrible things for two hours a week, then rejoining the happy daily world is kind of like a culture shock that repeats over and over.

It is a strange experience to tell a stranger all these secrets, then not speak again. I do well with relationships, better than my DX predicts, until they are very emotionally intimate . With T, it is a struggle to see him as safe, even though he is. He just came through big, but here I sit feelings like he is irresponsible in a way that is unfair, that he is tearing down the bearing walls of my pyschoogy, and then going off to have a picnic with his family on the beach in Bali, while I try and keep balance. I don't feel entitled to his extra time, and I have never asked for an extra session; it is more that I feel dazed like a bird that hit the window panes after not sleeping and nightmares, and I want to keep my life outside of therapy functioning and he is no where. Bc trauma in this case is relational, he says we need to have a corrective relationship. I do feel that trust sometimes, and sometimes lose it unfairly. My T is caring, but I struggle to stay constant and vulnerable, and lose my sense of him as being on my team for no real reason.

I might not be able to handle therapy, I wish I understood it better. Many of the T's on the forum seem warmer to extra contact, but mine is both very devoted to the craft/frame and also a older parent of young kids and really staunch on work/ life balance tilted toward his kids. There's no "more time" or more contact- it wouldn't make sense with his life , his philosophy or world view. I am afraid I am going to end up in a hospital or go down hill if this continues, and I feel like my life is slipping away or my composure is. I want to stop going, but I am so attached to this person I do or don't know(?). I don't understand the relationship.