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Originally Posted by WindsThatBlow
How to jump back in?
So disclaimer – I’m not great at being open and have a lot of apprehension to posting. I’ve had pretty awful experiences forum wise in the past so I just ask you bear with me. I figured I’d start with that so if you find my message too vague, you can perhaps understand a little bit where I’m coming from.
I’m in a position now where I’ve not been in therapy for a while. It helped me more or less for a time when it was something I could afford, but it wasn’t in a traditional setting. My circumstances now allow me to not worry about the monetary aspect of therapy, but I would be confined to a traditional type therapy session and/or telehealth. Long story short – I’m trying to reconcile with myself is going into therapy really worth the effort?
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Is this due to covid restrictions? How limited are your options exactly? Even within 'traditional' therapy sessions there's a great variance depending on the T's approach and personality.
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I know it’s mainly questions I have to answer for myself, but I struggle between – “I don’t know what I need to get better, and I’m not sure I want to start all over with someone new” to “You clearly aren’t getting along without intervention. It’s been quite a few years with no progress.”. I feel ashamed of where my life is, and my inability to move forward on my own – not to mention I’m not even insightful enough to know how. I just see a million reasons and turn offs that could happen and it’s really making this a difficult experience for me.
For those of you in therapy, what helped you seek help and maintain your therapist? I guess without a clear indication of what is wrong, just symptoms to my problem present – I feel like I’m not going to get anywhere with it. Again, I don’t want to start all over and there is too much the compacts, compiles and collapses on itself to not integrate every aspect of my life. I mean, everyone knows no one sole thing created your situation… anyway, it’s just more than I really feel like is worth dealing with at times – but I’m not making any progress unless I do.
Any suggestions on how to approach perhaps going back to therapy? Thanks in advance for your responses and please keep them civil. I am fully aware I am the only person who can make the decision to go back, I’m just curious if anyone else has struggled to. I’m looking to relate and be understood, not be judged and told it’s my problem – I already know.
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This sounds kind of familiar I think (not sure I fully understand you). I struggle to really make use of therapy, at least in the sense of becoming more functional and less overwhelmed by everything, but I obviously can't solve whatever the problem is on my own. And I have a lot of shame, and that's partly, or even mainly what gets in the way of therapy, I think. Now I have a therapist that I can apparently work with - everything is too slow to be sure, but at least I'm starting to feel kind of maybe ok with being slow.
I do not know what to say. I think you'll want to find someone more interactive, more into problem solving, maybe one of the skill based approaches for a start? Those might not solve your actual problem, but might give you some tools and insight, to figure out where to start with deeper work. Just stay away from anyone being ignorant of their limitations. You'll likely to bump into those liitations at some point and get blamed for being resistant or otherwise troublesome.
I had one of those 'blank slate' ones for a while, with sometimes entire sessions spent in slicence and no progress whatsoever.
I had counselors that were kind of clueless and not particularly helpful, although still nice to talk with (apart from the times they were particularly unhelpful).
What kind of helped was group therapy - at least to the extent that it normalised the whole concept of therapy and working on myself and stuff. Could learn from the others, just observing. Don't think it'd be much help with where I am now. Sounds like it might not be an option for you.
Psychodrama helped, because it could reach parts of me that talk therapy couldn't, so at least I know it's not just my 'resistance' that's causing problems but that the available tools are not a good fit for my problem. Again, probably not an option for you, just for perspective.
Messed up individual therapy (psychodynamic) helped in roundabout ways, but also did a lot of damage (reached parts that needed reaching, just not in a way that was therapeutic). What kept me in that one was over-attachment to my xT. Current one (psychodynamic, but mixes in other modalities), I desperately needed support after the messed up one. Now that the immediate crisis is over, but everthing still mostly sucks, I just fel like either I come up with a way to make life bearable, or I should start working on an exit plan. But that's kind of scary for a number of reasons, so first I want to make sure I really did try everything I could. Plus, I can almost believe that I can get somewhere useful with this therapist.