didn't do the work

Since I started with T last July, she has been encouraging me to thought journal (CBT technique) - to help identify the 'cognitive distortions' that lead to ED behaviors. I've never done it, until last week. I thought journaled everyday, and took in my journal to her on Thursday as she asked me to. We talked about it for the whole session. She encouraged me to take the next step, which was not only to journal about the situation, thought feeling behavior, but also think of a way to re-frame the thoughts and avoid the behavior.

Well, this week I didn't do any of it. No thought journaling. At all. NONE.

And now I am SOOOOOOO regretting it. I have nothing to show her tonight. I don't even want to go. I've thought about lying and saying I 'forgot' my journal. I was so motivated and worked so hard last week, and this week has been crap. I feel like giving up. I don't even care anymore. It is too hard. But I have irrational fears that she'll be disappointed in me, frustrated with me, want to give up on me or tell me not to come back. I want to cancel but I can't. I want to go and curl up on the couch and hide from her but I won't do that either.
I hate the thought of sitting there in front of her..... as a failure.

Another thing is, I'm kind of using all the CBT stuff to avoid trauma stuff. I don't trust her with the trauma stuff right now and I figured it was best fo focus on ED stuff. So NOW what are we gonna talk about?

Has anyone else ever blown off therapy 'homework'?
How did you handle it? How did your T handle it?
I know I need to talk about the reasons why I was afraid to do it.
And I will talk about that. But I also know the answer is 'So what?'
It's going to be hard and she's just going to tell me to do it anyway.
And she's right! ugh. What's the point of all of this.

((((((((((darkrunner)))))))))))

T gave me an assignment and I did it, but I also told her that I had thought it a darned queer exercise to be doing in Lent. To my amazement, she said, then why did you do it?
Because you asked me to.
She said, but this isn't a Mandate From On High you know, it was just something that I thought might be helpful to you. If (for any reason!) you didn't want to do it, or didn't want to do it right then, you could just say so. Think of it as an opportunity to assert yourself.

Darkrunner - by now I think you have seen yr T, hope it went well.

good luck darkrunner!!!

ive blown off therapy homework more times than i've bothered to do it. and on the occassions that i have done it, i've also been too scared many times to share it with T.

i think it's ok to avoid things for a little while. maybe you can spend the session connecting instead.

((((((((((((darkrunner))))))))))))))

Your expectations for yourself are so high I know you aren't the first client to show up to T without their homework done. It's okay.

Maybe not doing the homework is part of the homework...maybe you needed to not do it, and to talk about why you didn't want to. The path to healing seems like it rarely makes sense while it's happening, but if we let ourselves sort of stay with it, we can get the insights we need to actually move forward. Maybe you will go to T, you will talk about why you couldn't get yourself to journal this week, and that will lead to a deeper level of understanding.

We can't be "perfect". I think it's awesome that you did the journal last week, and that you are brave enough to go see T and talk about what was hard about doing it this week. You are doing really GOOD work

i hope it all turned out ok for you.im sure it was ok

Seems like your response to the homework (and not doing it) might actually be more important than the homework itself. I imagine that might be how your therapist views it. Hope it went well.

I agree with mobius, I think you probably learned more from NOT doing the homework than you would have if you'd done it. At the very least, you learned something by not doing it, so you were not a failure!

Thank you to everyone for responding.
I just got back from therapy.
It was disappointing and useless.
I can't figure out how to make things work in therapy or in my life.
Maybe I'm trying too hard, or not hard enough.
Either way it doesn't matter because it isn't making a difference.
Sorry, I shouldn't have posted any of this - just a waste of space.

darkrunner, don't forget that one session does not a whole course of therapy make! Remember what this disappointment and uselessness feels like and use that to help you work on your homework in time to come. Remember your insights that you feel like you're using the ED stuff to avoid the trauma stuff and think of a few ways to gently get yourself into working on the trauma stuff too. They aren't either mutually exclusive or one less valuable than the other!

I use to do that all the time; I had enough problems :-) that if I got stuck with one, I could easily move over and work on another for a bit. You'll be surprised how working on your ED will help with your trauma! Everything is related to everything else and even this disappointing session can be helpful.

Could it be that it's not making a difference because you are spending more time in T avoiding the core issues than you are working towards healing from them?

Just a thought...

Remember how we talked about how T needed to know better than to just tell you what to do? Sounds like this homework didn't fit with you. Maybe it wasn't time to do this CBT stuff, not really, and you knew it. So you didn't do the work, because maybe, it wasn't relevant.

Can I ask how your T reacted to you not having your homework with you?