Not much patience.

Not to hijack anyones thread, but a response about wanting to give someone a good kick up the behind echoed how I often feel. I know the response was said in good faith adn no malice, it just made me think, I wonder if there are different sorts of people? I am a very strong personality and from the age of 14 when my active alcoholism took off I was always desperately looking for help. Hospitals didn't seem to be of any help, they'd bring me back to life and send me packing with another bag of shame and humiliation, couldn't they see I had more than enough of that?

At last aged 40 I found my help, the T I am with now, but I wonder would I still be running round like a headless chicken if this T like so many other so called "professionals" I came into contact with on my journey wasn't as skillful as she is? I've heard talk of strong or weak therapists, and think its not about that, its about skill.

Now my life is beginning to change and I am beginning to let go my cloak of "victim" I realized that I could never have taken that off without the level of skill T has, its nothing anyone else could have told me to do, and when I was in AA alot did try, but their hounding me and adding to my bag of shame and humiliation just made me grip that cloak even tighter around m shoulders, afraid that without my "victim-stance" how was I ever to find warmth and comfort?

Perhaps my victims cloak was tighter than others and a kick up the arse is enough for some? Not for me, and I struggle now to remember that when listening or reading others, perhaps eventually when I am fully "recovered" that too will heal, but yes I struggle with patience unyet have someone now that has all the patience in the world and then some. I think I am ready to begin work on letting go the need to control, thats basically what impatience comes down too, just another layer of the onion to be peeled.

For those that had the patience to read this, thanks

Now to hijack your thread: I think the average level of knowledge of mental health workers today is about the same as the average level that regular M.D.s had 150 years ago. Think about what they were doing in 1860... obviously you have one of today's best.

The cloak of impatience (gray instead of black :-)

I was very startled when my T expressed her opinion that my stepmother was anxious and that's why she was controlling. I'm anxious too. I guess we have to interpret everything through our own eyes, in our own world-view. Your post made me wonder if it was you who had changed and could finally use your therapist effectively to help yourself rather than the therapists were all so useless back then. Just to send a chill up and down your spine; what if your therapist had arrived in your life 10 years earlier than she did? Would you have been "ready" for her (AND would she have been experienced enough/ready for you?)

perna, proberbly a part of that is true, but I understand now I was always looking to be "claimed"...a pyschiatrist I saw once asked me if I could stop drinking for 2 wks and to come back then. I managed that and returned and he said, well then everything seems ok now then lol!

I saw another therapist and tested her abilty to "hold" me by saying afTer 8 mo ths that I think I was ok and was going to Stop coming, she said, ok. I remeMber walking away with tears in my heaRt and not understanding what it wAs I needed to say or do.

Now the T I have now for 6yrs, I spent the first yr keep threaTninng to quit and she would say that she didn't feel I was ready to quit, and I would act all hurt and pretended I would stay for her sake lol, but really she knew and was "holding" me and continues to do so but in a non controlliNg manner. She helps me when wordS fail me.

But yes there was some room for me not being quite ready.

Jumping in again: it seems to be the combination of the state the patient is in with the state the therapist is in! The less impaired the patient, the less it takes from the therapist to accomplish effective work in therapy. That's the conclusion I come to, anyway.

Conversely, the more impaired the patient the more skilled the therapist needs to be to produce a good outcome.

Just wondering...when going thru all those hospitalizations and T's...did you feel you were the failure? Obviously you weren't...but I feel like that a lot, like I just don't "get" it, and the T's are all perfect. The T's make me feel that way, as if I'm not trying hard enough.

Eileen, I had no idea what I was entilted to expect from a proffesional until the one I have now and feel the others were just not that skilled. I felt I was to blame for ending up in the places I did, not even aware it was a big desperate scream for help.

I think one needs a T one cares about and wants, just like they need to be wanted and feel like they can help you, personally. Both sides have to be seen; the client will test the T to see if they are seen and the T's responses will influence the client's responses which will be more healthful, trusting, etc. which will make the T feel better, more sure of themselves as T's. If either or both sides don't get "nothing" then the relationship (if one could call it that) will fall part.

oh perna, I have to disagree with you...theres more to it then what a T gets out of it.....the T who I left use to tell me how much she enjoyed working with me and I her...she just wasn't skilled enough to go further..she once told me she felt redundant as I seemed to know much more than she could offer me...I was like, wtf? I think I left to help her lol....

I'm not talking about just what the T says "about" you; you recognized she wasn't enough for you and left; you're half the contract and she didn't do her side, for you.

My T was good at listening and communicating with others and that's what I wanted/needed and recognized in her and, in trying to be "like" her, that's what I learned and how I helped myself. My biggest complaint before T, although I didn't realize/know it, was I didn't have any words. I couldn't talk/express myself and what I said came out bizarre. Lots of that was my point of view (the inside of my head was bizarre :-) and wanting T and having to adjust to her, helped me adjust to the rest of the world because she was more attuned to the rest of the world while also being able to listen to me, personally.

I'm sure T's enjoy working with some "challenging" clients more than other, to-them, boring ones but both sides have to make a "whole", the client has to find the T useful too, see something in the other that they want. But, T's, like us, are individuals and maybe a T wants to work with the to-them boring clients especially as that is a challenge of sorts? But it still won't work if the client doesn't choose the T too.

Perna, with a skillful T what client wouldnt want that? A skillful therapist fits into the client. I'm not sure where your coming from with this, I'm not really understanding what your saying, I think your injecting your thinking into my experience and thats why its becoming missmash, you seem to be trying to force your take on my experience, wanting to correct where I am coming from, when I have made it clear already. I wonder what my post is bringing up for you?

Perna, I owe you an apology. I asked T what sort of people she couldlnt work with? As she had previously said that there have been people that she has told they perhaps need to go find someone else. She said its hard to pin point but some people dont really want to do the work, don't want to put themselves through it, she said you do, you keep coming back no matter how difficult it is and gets and you dont just do it in the room you do it outside have done it before you got here and will continue to do it when this is over. I then said, but why dont some people want too? T smiled and said, perhaps frightened? I said, I know its bad, but I got no time for people that dont want to do it, and gave a cheeky innocent but guilty look and she laughted too. I cant believe there are people that dont want to look at themselves honestly, the good and the bad, its like, wtf! but hopefully that will change, the fact that I ain't got much time for those that dont want too, me bad!

I can see we have had different experiences and I'm glad; I learn a great deal from your posts, Melba, and don't mean to sound like I'm injecting myself into your experiences. I think you feel you needed a good T and when you found her that worked for you.

I had the same T, twice, for 9 years each time with 9 years off inbetween and I can see the differences between each time; the first time I wasn't as ready for T, even though I was committed, came and worked; I just wasn't as able. I view most of that 9 years as T keeping my head above water so I didn't drown; I don't feel like I got much growth out of it. I think my T saw it differently, saw more growth than I did and, if I think hard, I can see that my current 20 year happy marriage could not have happened without that therapy groundwork.

The second time I was surprised because T had grown as well as I had in the years apart and I could see that very clearly. In the beginning of the second set, we would get into the exact same positions/arguments as we had during the first set and I'd get this feeling of déjà vu but then something wonderful would happen and T's response would be different this time and it would be good for me. But also, I would be able to see and appreciate what had happened, which I wouldn't have been able to do the first time, as quickly, if at all. I think my T was a good T to begin with and kept getting better but I think the same could be said for me and it took the right combination at the right time. it's like we were both moving targets. I am grateful I got my T both times but I can imagine if I'd gotten her a little earlier that it might not have worked at all because one or the other of us would not have been mature enough in our "jobs".

I think some people, sadly, can't identify a good T necessarily and/or that particular T is not good for them for whatever reason. I don't know that you would have been able to work with my T or I, with yours, but we both know they are good T's.

I think we've read posts on here where people have gone to "expert" or renown T's and been disappointed, and some of them, you would think, would be "good" but I think it's like how I feel about best selling books; I don't read them, don't care what book Oprah or the New York Times is recommending, etc. Those aren't what works for me.

Oh honey. Believe it.......................... !!

someone I know well has been to anger management several times - and every time ends up blowing up, blaming the T, threatening to file, to get the T's license revoked.

There is so much pain there........

laughing at this, me neither! I have a bad track record with T's, the longest one I have had was 1.5 yrs. But I gotta say, I live in a small resort community, an hour from the mainland, and there aren't many T's to choose from. I have stopped to think "is it me", am I the screw up? Of course I am to an extent, but if I could just find someone "skilled" in dealing with my issues I think that it would go well. Ain't no specialists in my end of the earth!