[AnxiousGirl]

I'm 19 and I've been seeing a therapist for 7 months. I was diagnosed with GAD. Naturally, I'm an extremely shy person and it takes me a very long time to feel comfortable with someone. But i can't take it much longer, all of these feelings I'm holding in are driving me crazy. I see her once a week and whenever she asks how i am I just say I'm fine, and if she asks if theres anything I want to talk about I say not really. Then I leave each session feeling horrible because I said nothing to get me to feel better. I emailed her last week about most of the stuff and were going to talk about it but theres still SO much I'm not saying. I know I could trust her, she's great and patient with me but even I'm getting annoyed so I'm sure she is too.

What should I do??

[sherbet]

It's great you feel you can trust this therapist! Don't worry about her getting annoyed, I'm sure you're not the first to avoid discussing difficult things.

It sounds like you were able to email her about some of the things you need to talk about. See how that goes. Maybe you can send her a few lines about the topics you want to discuss before each meeting…aside from helping you get it out there without having to say it out loud, it'll structure your sessions and give your therapist an idea of how much there is to cover. Or you can write a few things down before coming into a session--I always accomplished more in sessions I was better prepared for. If you're someone who's more comfortable writing than talking then I think you should focus on emailing her before the meetings or bringing in notes for yourself.

My therapist also gave me an exercise one week where she wanted me to observe how I was feeling, what prompted the feeling, and what the situation made me think of. It was very helpful to not have to answer a vague "how are you doing" question but actually take a look at how I managed my feelings in specific instances throughout the week and see what kind of situations were making me upset. It was a somewhat roundabout, but very effective, way of actually seeing what was going on.

Good luck!