I am less curious about things

I can't read very well

I'm sloppy

recently the unattractive effects of anhedonia--or rather the inability to have interests--have been hard to hide

I must hold myself to a higher standard. I have been trying to raise my standards for myself recently

I hope for my higher standards to include:

-a fight to win attitude
-better indulgence of my hobbies so that I can follow my curiosity without feeling like killing myself
-ability to identify and follow passion
-less sloppy appearance
-cheerful and engaging attitude at work

in my opinion, if I just get a little more lust for life, and follow my curiosity to gain knowledge and experience, the effects of depression and failure will lessen

is this something therapy could help with, or just me? I'm curious what people actually ask their therapists about because every problem I have just seems like a self-solve situation

can I ask a therapist to help with these practical effects on my abilities to appear as a normal person?

can I literally say, "I have to perform to this standard (my own standard or that of my work) -- can you help me with reading or trying to be more curious again, or to work on social skills in the work place?"

can I say that I'm having problems exploring my interest in music because I am inhibited?

can I ask them to help me identify situations where I am feeling curious and how to follow through on the curiosity?

I just feel like most of it are things I should just work harder on or just get over. Has a therapist ever even helped anyone on any of these problems?

I don't want therapy to be unfocused. I don't want to recount every moment of my childhood. That is a waste of my time and depresses me. I don't want to be in therapy for years.

Ultimately my problem with therapy is this. I think that therapy is, in the end, self driven, but I don't know exactly where to "drive it". So it ends up being a waste of time with the therapist just kind of going in circles and not proposing any solutions.

I feel that I have to come up with the solution myself.

So please, I would love to hear any situations where a therapist helped in a practical manner, rather than just talking about the past in a roundabout manner.

(posted this in psychotherapy forum as well just to cover my bases)

[cryingontheinside]

I've tried hypnotherapy before . I know it's not the kind you meant but in my own experience it can help with those kind of things . I saw a hypnotherapist when I was younger . It worked wonders but I didn't go back . The positive effects of that one session lasted about a year . I want to go again . It's a bit pricey . I've tried the free recorded hypnotherapy on YouTube and it didn't work for me , had to be face to face. Sorry if this is not helpful at all

Originally Posted by cryingontheinside

I've tried hypnotherapy before . I know it's not the kind you meant but in my own experience it can help with those kind of things . I saw a hypnotherapist when I was younger . It worked wonders but I didn't go back . The positive effects of that one session lasted about a year . I want to go again . It's a bit pricey . I've tried the free recorded hypnotherapy on YouTube and it didn't work for me , had to be face to face. Sorry if this is not helpful at all

Thanks for your reply! What were the positive effects?

[cryingontheinside]

Originally Posted by emptynightmare

Thanks for your reply! What were the positive effects?

Well I told him that I was being bullied at work and that I had no self confidence , had anxiety and depression . A feeling of calm washed over me and stayed with me for at least a year . My anxiety vanished , I was a bit more confident , brave and smiled more. Of course I have most of them problems again now and really want to go again. I figure maybe if I go like twice a year it could help . I prefer someone to come to my house because I have agoraphobia and they need to be fully trained and experienced . I'm going to start saving up for it .

Thanks! I love to hear your responses. Keep them coming, everyone!

I am not sure that your focus on depression is the best for you. To go to therapy is not the same as trying to get a haircut. "Cut a bit here and there and I will have it the way I want".

If you have broken your leg, you don't sit at home and figure out in what positions you want your leg treated. You let the doctor diagnose you and find the best medical way for you (legs can be broken at different places).

The same goes for depression. You let the P.doc figure out how your depression is unique for you (because only you are you) and then let her/him present her/his treatment program for you. You can of course choose to say yes or no to it, but NO TREATMENT without A PROPER EXAMINATION first.

My advice to you is to let go of your need to control how you need to cope with your depression. Work a bit with yourself until you are ready to trust yourself into the hands of a skilled therapist who is well educated to do such a job.

May be the therapist will find it quite obvious that you need to train your "curiosity", but may be she/he can see things that you don't see and sees that while talking about other things, your "curiosity" will improve as well.

Give yourself time to get ready. It is of course scary to go into the unknown, but it can be well worth it.

I find my therapist quite helpful!

I'm in DBT therapy, though primarily for borderline. It is a game changer for me. I'm learning to rewire the way I think and how I respond to life situations. We talk about the past when it's pertinent to make progress in the present. I go in and my therapist asks me what I would like to talk about and we go from there. I have made the deepest confessions to her and my load is so much lighter. I'm also developing a healthy self esteem and boundaries. I have coping skills to deal with my emotions. She has validated my feelings. I feel like I have someone on my side rooting for me.

Therapy is changing my life. Just back in October I was suicidal and committed to hospital. I've come a long way since then.

[downandlonely]

I haven't had much luck with therapy, but I think that's because my depression is mainly biological and not situational. So it's best treated with meds. When my meds are working, I don't feel like I need therapy. When they're not working, no amount of therapy will help.

Have you ever tried group therapy or a support group? I find it more helpful to talk to peers who know what I'm going through than to a therapist.

[Bill3]

In response to the questions you raised, yes, you can work on those with a therapist.

I don't want therapy to be unfocused. I don't want to recount every moment of my childhood. That is a waste of my time and depresses me. I don't want to be in therapy for years.

You can investigate different types of therapy. There is for example "Brief Therapy". CBT usually is short-term.

I just feel like most of it are things I should just work harder on or just get over.

I suspect that this statement comes from your past, from people who were influential there: the idea that things are your fault, the idea that you are not good enough as you are, the idea that if only you got yourself to be better in some way then things would be better. The idea of self-blame.

You don't want to recount every moment of your childhood--and you don't need to--but to understand your basic perspective on yourself, a psychodynamic therapist, at least, would want you to speak to some degree about your childhood.

Has a therapist ever even helped anyone on any of these problems?

A therapist helped me with:

--social skills: these have a lot to do with self-image
--curiosity: curiosity has to do with self-image, with having the courage to push beyond perceived limits, with having the courage to say what one is curious about
--identify and follow passion: very much like curiosity, it takes courage and an ability to value oneself to be willing to devote oneself to a passion
--inhibition: I did not work specifically on music with my t, but we did work on inhibitions. I am now less inhibited in most if not all areas of life. If I took up my instrument again, I believe that I would play with more freedom and courage now
--appearing as a normal person: looking back, I think that I appeared as a normal person far more than I thought that I did. Being oneself, accepting oneself, makes it much easier to feel as a normal person.

I think that therapy is, in the end, self driven, but I don't know exactly where to "drive it". So it ends up being a waste of time with the therapist just kind of going in circles and not proposing any solutions.

I think that in discussion with a t you yourself discover how and where to drive it, you will discover solutions. My t at various times proposed different practical ideas, but that actually was getting out of her lane, you know? Her practical ideas never resonated with me. Having a person to help me discover and accept my own way, though, very much did resonate with me.

[Fuzzybear]

Thanks for the above reply ...

(It’s good to read a reply which isn’t focused on... meds )

Hey everyone, thanks all for your replies!

I just wanted to let everyone know I read their replies and am grateful for them. They have been helpful and make me feel more optimistic about therapy! Thank you! I will think about a response in the meantime.

I think I'll start searching for a therapist and give it a try -- this is difficult when depressed! My brief forays into therapy have been unproductive but I will try. Hopefully now that I have some goals therapy will be more helpful to me. Perhaps the problem is that I generally don't ask for help, and don't see therapists as people to ask for help from.

I was very interested to hear the perspective that I would like to control the therapeutic process. I will never trust a therapist or p-doc 100%. I think it's dangerous to do that. I would mention that your mind is not the same as a physical foot. People use the mental illness = physical illness analogy to legitimize mental illness but I would say there are nuances that people ignore. My mind is unique. You cannot follow directions to fix a mind the same way you would fix a foot. (I would also add that sometimes you should not fix a mind, otherwise you are getting close to controlling a person's entire being.) I would never assume that a person understands me so completely that they could give me a diagnosis, treatment plan, and tell me whether my goals and self discoveries are valid avenues to explore.

Thank you all for responding!

emptynightmare

I was very interested to hear the perspective that I would like to control the therapeutic process. I will never trust a therapist or p-doc 100%. I think it's dangerous to do that.

To go to therapy means to cooperate with the therapist, not to submit to the therapist. To submit is something else. Cooperation means that you tell your therapist about your problems including the problem you have with trust. A good therapist will understand and respect that and give you slowly, slowly the time you need. The therapist is interested in your well being and will go in your tact.

I would mention that your mind is not the same as a physical foot. People use the mental illness = physical illness analogy to legitimize mental illness but I would say there are nuances that people ignore. My mind is unique. You cannot follow directions to fix a mind the same way you would fix a foot.

That was what I was trying to tell you. Nobody has said that one use the same methods to heal a leg as one uses to help people heal themselves when they are suffering from depression or other "emotional problems". What I was trying to tell you was that not one broken leg is similar. The doctor therefore needs to examine each leg to find out how to give the right treatment. Even in such a situation cooperation is important. If the doctor tells you not to step on your leg for eight weeks and you ignore that advice, you cannot blame the doctor if your leg has grown together in a wrong way.

It was not my intention to compare a leg and inner feelings. Inner feelings; sad, heartbeat, anxiety, suspiciousness and more are result of genetic heredity to some degree. But nobody inherit another's depression or other so called mental disorders. There has to be one or more triggers to activate a cluster of genes. If you have problems with trust, you have probably met some people who deceived you. The therapists job will then be to help you with that trust issue. May be he will advice you to move away form the community who instilled those feelings in you. If so cooperation does not mean that you do exactly what your therapist has suggested to you. Instead it means that you think it through. Will this be wise for you or are there other options? It is the dialogue between you and the therapist that will be part of the cooperation. (The example about moving, was just an example - it was meant to tell you the difference between cooperation and submitting).

The idea that I have to rely on someone for them to be happy and cooperative in the relationship is not agreeable to me.

The therapist does not need you to make him happy!

I would hope to work with the therapist as an equal, and of course am open to discovering underlying causes to my problems (...)

I can assure you that that is what we all want, to be treated with dignity. We are all humans and have the same dignity eiter we are a professor, a cleaner or whatever. But we are not equal in knowledge. If you call for a plummer, you will besurprised if a carpenter comes home to you to do the job. The therapist has through his education some skills and knowlede that we don't have. That's why we call for an expert. Please remember the differnce between submitment and cooperation.

These ideas are all from my experiences in therapy, and perhaps from my experiences in my family of origin with a domineering father.

Sorry that I did not undertand that you already had experience with one or more therapists (perhaps negative experiences).

I think the control thing would be something to discuss with the therapist, perhaps I could find one that works well with my approach.

Great idea! Discuss this topic with a therapist!

The control thing--(edit) now that I reread my post, perhaps I do have a thing with, but I am not interested in changing that part of me currently as it's not relevant to my goals.

If you don't want change for the time being, perhaps it will be best for you to wait until you feel for it ....

If you don't want change for the time being, perhaps it will be best for you to wait until you feel for it ....

I do want change. Just not with my control thing. I don’t think it’s a problem. A therapist will have to accept that.

Thanks for your response though, especially about submission and cooperation.

Thanks all, I've decided therapy is not for me.

Neither is this site. I was very happy on my week long break from it, happy enough to consider getting help for the problems which have plagued me.

Therapy brings you down.

I will change my own way in my own pace, on the areas that I know are necessary to change, not irrelevant areas others condescendingly tell me are better, despite education or expertise.

My self knowledge and confidence is labeled as issues with control and trust.

This is what the mental health very much for profit industry does. It labels you and puts you into tidy little boxes and gaslights you.

There is nothing wrong with me except for the things I specified in my original post. Those are things I have considered and reflected on to be the most relevant things to improve upon. Overall I am fine.

Please do not twist me this way and that. Never again.

If a therapist does not accept me and my approach, I do not accept them. I'm not going to change myself for them. That's ********.

Thank you.

I won't be back on this site for a very long time so don't bother replying.

I am very hurt. I deserve to express this hurt.

Please take the high road and dismiss me. I won't be coming back for a long time anyway.

Originally Posted by emptynightmare

Thanks all, I've decided therapy is not for me.

Neither is this site. I was very happy on my week long break from it, happy enough to consider getting help for the problems which have plagued me.

Therapy brings you down.

I will change my own way in my own pace, on the areas that I know are necessary to change, not irrelevant areas others condescendingly tell me are better, despite education or expertise.

My self knowledge and confidence is labeled as issues with control and trust.

This is what the mental health very much for profit industry does. It labels you and puts you into tidy little boxes and gaslights you.

There is nothing wrong with me except for the things I specified in my original post. Those are things I have considered and reflected on to be the most relevant things to improve upon. Overall I am fine.

Please do not twist me this way and that. Never again.

If a therapist does not accept me and my approach, I do not accept them. I'm not going to change myself for them. That's ********.

Thank you.

I won't be back on this site for a very long time so don't bother replying.

I am very hurt. I deserve to express this hurt.

Please take the high road and dismiss me. I won't be coming back for a long time anyway.

I will miss you. Love and hugs to you.