Normal to hold back on therapist?

I hold back stuff from my therapist. I feel ashamed and dumb for some things that I do or have done and dont tell my therapist. I've always had problems with confrontation and acceptance and I guess maybe I feel like she'll judge me. Do any of you all have this problem or anything similiar to it? I just feel like I should be telling her everything and then I don't and when I want to I feel like I can't since time has passed and that it may look worse.

Also there are things I want to say onhere but I'm scared to. That maybe I'll get judged or something. I know I'm probably being delusional. Arggh

It took me FOREVER to say or do anything that would make me think i would be judged by my T.....needless to say I think all of us hold back. You just need to build a bond with the t. one day it will all come rushing out. and it is a relief. then you work on building yourself up again. it so early here i wonder if this even made sense.

btw thank you for helping me so much. it meant a lot

t/c
Colleen

I've finally told my therapist everything about me. It took a while but then she gave me an assignment that involved telling her things about me. In the beginning I left alot out because I was afraid she'd judge me. Also she's quite religious, I didn't want to freak her out. She'd have to go straight to church afterwards and pray for me!
Somethings I wouldn't and won't tell at times and that pertains to when I had my anorexia for fear she would go straight to my pdoc, which she did. And then my pdoc started seeing me more regularly and weighing me. I felt I couldn't trust my T then, so I would keep my mouth shut about what I ate and how I felt.

I do the same thing. And, this week, I decided to just "come clean" and tell the counselor everything. However, once I was there, I couldn't talk again, as usual. I think my counselor is losing patience with me as a result. I've been seeing her for about 2 months now. This week, she asked how my week was. And I even lied about that. Said it was "OK". Or maybe I said i didn't know. She also told me she wanted to be honest and it was OK to tell the truth..and then she asked if I feel comfortable with her, or something along those lines...I told her I didn't think I'd be comfortable with anyone.

I don't know what any of this means or why it even matters, really. But, you are definitely not the only one who doesn't talk...

last year ago I was taking more geodon then was prescribed for hypomania and told my tdoc about it...she insisted that I tell my pdoc, I did not want to for fear that she would change my meds or hospitalize me...She said either you tell her or I will.
I stopped seeing her shortly after that.
Now I hold back from my pdoc, I don't tell her of my hypomanias, don't want to change my meds so I put on my "normal" face for her seeing her once every 4 months. I am bipolar 1.
I stopped taking ambien in May and tried to sleep "normally", well was hypomanic most of the summer, so when I saw her asked to stop the ambien and start klonipin she agreed, she did not know that I had already stopped the ambien.
I know that I am a bad patient, I have to be able to figure things out for myself....I have to live this life and have it make sense, I don't want to be drugged, I have felt more like me this past summer...which is what I want.
Just have to keep the hypomania at bay.
bizi

I recently have begun to tell my T's alot of stuff. I just say it. Thats what they are there for. It turns out ok. If they do something that makes me feel like I cant trust them I tell them and we work on it. It hard to get help from a T if u hide things. I would say soemthing and then i say can u handle this type of honesty and they can. They just want what is best for you. It took me about 7 months before I got to this point. I actually get suprised how they react its not the way I think it would be. Its usually very positive.

I think it is normal to hold back. I do. I have been seeing a therapist for almost three years and I haven't told her everything. I am afraid of being judged. I like her. She is religious. I don't want her to think less of me. I am afraid. I have been diagnosed with ptsd and major depression, anxiety. I once asked her if she thought that I had bi-polar and she said no, but I am not entirely truthful so she doesn't have all the information she needs to make a correct diagnosis. My own fault.
Some things that I hold back on are my promiscuity, my current relationship and my reactions, just how low my self esteem really is.
I don't tell her that there are everyday things that I should be doing, but they hardly ever get done because I avoid them somehow and focus on stupid small things, watch t.v. or surf the internet instead, or talk on the phone sometimes for hours.

In September, I felt great!! Awesome. Like there wasn't anything that I couldn't do! I was invincible. I started jogging to school with my toddler in a stroller and my third grader on a bike. I jogged almost every day for 6 weeks. I became obsessed with exercise. if it rained i did a dvd exercise. I didn't need as much sleep. My house was spotless. I even got up in the middle of the night to go for a jog on several occasions. Everything was going to be fine. I just knew it and I had great plans.

I told my therapist at a few weeks ago, that I did not need her anymore. I was doing great.

Now here it is the end of October. I haven't jogged in two weeks and it is an effort to do laundry and dishes. I am depressed and tired, and irritable and sometimes I can't live without my boyfriend and other times I want nothing to do with him. I am having financial problems and am deciding I need to go back to work, but I can't seem to focus on the internet job sites or resumes. I can't seem to focus on things that truly need to be done. I stay on line too late. I wake up early with my mind racing with all the things tht I have yet to do and should have done yesterday.

I am a mess and thinking of contacting my therapist. I am sorry you feel you can't talk to yours, but I understand. Sorry this is sooooo long, but I hope it helps.

((meggie)), i hope you feel better soon. have you considered going back to therapy? maybe you can find someone else that you feel more comfortable with.

crazytinkerbell,
i too have withheld information from therapists in the past. i try my best to be honest with this pdoc because i want to address all of my issues. though it is still hard to fess up to things that i do. but i am comfortable with him and i find it easier to be honest with him and he has never judged me for the things that i've mentioned and he always gives me suggestions on how to deal with whatever i am going through at the moment. i find that is the best way to reap the rewards of therapy. but i agree it is very difficult to be comletely honest with therapists.

I have been thinking about what you've posted for a few days now. I think I don't so much "hold back" as they never really see me in my "true state". That is, I go in and do the "pretend-to-act-like-normal-people" thing. Acting. That only lasts as long as you really don't have a good day and lose that ability- then they see through it.

As far as just plain not telling them how you feel, I guess it takes time to get comfortable with someone- or not. When I feel like I NEED to tell them things because I am scaring MYSELF, then I do. But when I think they will just scare THEM, I don't. Then there are the times, I apparently, scare them and I have no idea.

In the end, if you hold things back, you'll just have to deal with it yourself anyway. My problem actually is filling out the mood chart- its the old homework thing: I get homeworkitis and just don't do it.

I would never judge you Tinkerbell. We all have issues here and as the saying goes those who live in glass houses shouldn't throw rocks.

I fess up about things myself because when I was a teen I went to a therapist and lied about most things. Mostly so that my boyfriend didn't end up in jail due to statitory rape. I found that it didn't help me to keep quiet and vowed that this second time around I would be honest and hope that it would make all the difference. Besides, you are paying them to listen and help you and not to judge you. They wouldn't be a very good T if they didn't know enough by now to know that judging someone isn't going to help them.

Im finishing with my T in 8 weeks time after seeing her for 2 years,as its time limited .I still have not been able to open up and tell her every thing .I feel so dam stupid

i know it's hard for me to tell my T stuff. mostly b/s i have a lot of trust issues. i've been seeing this one for about a year - she's also my pdoc - and i've *just* started telling her details about my mood swings.

but now i enf up feeling like my "crazy" is in retrospect. i always feel like i have to convince her ("i swear! two days ago i was a hyped up, overreactive spazz! you should've seen me!).

i feel you Tinkerbell (& others)...it seems so stupid & self-sabotaging, but it's what i do.

After reading all your post, I think I'm gonna just be completely honest, I don't want waste my evaluation. I want to be properly diagnosed, and properly treated from here on out. To me, I have already tried this myself, I can't do it.

Evaluation tomorrow @ 4pm. First time too. So, I'm sure I will be on here telling the story.

Later

Good Luck!

I think everyone has different levels of trust and that plays a lot in to how much you tell your therapist. I have been seeing a T and P since August and have been diagnosed with being cyclothymic which is mild bipolar. I am just now starting to feel more comfortable with my T to the point where I can open up a little more about my life. At first I felt like if she new everything upfront I would be put in some sort of home or hospital. I now feel that I have shared with her the basic facts about myself and can now start to go more in depth with her about things of done and behaviors I've exhibited. I believe that everything with me must be done in small steps and that I'm not going to fix everything in a day so by going deeper and in more depth with my T I'm just building more trust and taking more steps to understanding and controlling my illness. I have been keeping a journal which I share with my T and that has helped me alot in expressing, sorting, and coping with my moods and thoughts.

people do this all the time and if you go back to treatment that will be a major accomplishment for you. it takes courage to admit when we need help and by realizing you do need help is a positive thing. good for you that you are able to recognize you are going down. no need to suffer needlessly, get on the phone right now and make an appointment. ((hugs)) good luck!