list i would love to give my T

these are things i would love to share with my T if i ever get the guts.i was thinking of making a listand giving it to her.just a list not a letter.my husband says it is the same thing and i should just tell her whats going on that she wont take the list she will want me to read it.
1.work sucks.in the last 2 months i have been written up 3 times and suspended once and have had my job reassighned sence i had a major panic attack at work and they brought me to hosp.
2. all the stress about my son being in okinowa and north koria threatening to blow okinowa up.
3. my step mother being really sick
4.my not being able to talk and tell her even the stuff going on and how i am feeling even durring therapy
5. how much i want to be hurting myself and all the risky behaviors i have been engaging in
6.my total lack of emotion exsept for anger and fear
7.the horrable mess of thoughts and noise that is running through my head,esp in the mornings
just so much and she has no idea.i feel like i'm going to explode.esp sence my husband seem to have jumped on the ban wagon of trying to get me to talk to T.i was talking to him about my step mom and wanting to cancel last mondays appointment and he said i better keep it like he didnt want to deal with me any more and wanted to pawn me off on T.
anyway this is some of the list i would like to give her

I say, write the list, granite. Take it there with you. Don't worry yet about whether she'll read it or not. Just take it and see what happens. Maybe in that moment you will be able to read it to her. Maybe you'll hand it to her. Maybe she'll read it out loud. Who knows. But that's important information she should have.

(((((((granite))))))))

My suggestion is to just give her the list!! I wish I could go and shake your T and tell her to use what you write. What you write but can't say is still YOU. It's expressing yourself. Why can't she accept that from you? Maybe there's something I'm missing here. Maybe I'm too close to the issue of not talking but being able to write to see it clearly.

I'm sorry you are having all of this stress in your life. One of those things alone would be enough to put me into a depression, and you have to deal with all of them. It's my opinion that your T is so focused on one thing--getting you to talk--that she is not helping you with your pain.

I agree that the goal is to help you to talk, but right now you need support for the stuff you're going through! When kids who have selective mutism go to school but don't talk, the teachers don't wait until they graduate to teach them just because they don't talk.

I wonder what other Ts would do in this situation. My T lets me email and responds to what I can't say in the session. What if I couldn't or wouldn't talk at all? I have a feeling she would let me write it, and then she would respond to what I wrote, in the session. But you don't like her doing that either? Is that the problem? Are you willing to give her the list and letting her talk about it? That's what therapy is for.

Were it my list, I'd do an experiment where I told her one thing on it for seven weeks, each in its turn (I'd rank order them first with what I thought it would be easiest to say down through hardest) and, at home alone, write about the experiment, whether it got easier on, say, #6 or stayed equally difficult.

rain and zoo thanks so much. i'm going to make the list and am going to bring it with me and see whats going to happen.today i'm thinking of this list and thinking i would give it a try and talk to her about it. i feel all brave like i can do this but i get thare and i want to get sick the more i think about using words.you both are dealing with and telling your T's some terifying things.what happens when you walk through that door that allows you to be able to do this.you must be able to do something to stop the sick panic feeling that allows you to talk.what kind of things go on that make you so brave or be able to get past this and tell T anything.i have fanticies about going in her offie and just screaming and being totally out of controle like i use to be but i know this isnt an option.i worry that this could easily happen if i started feeling all these feelings to strongly.posting here helps

i dont know if i could ever make it through the listalthough i like the idea of maybe trying one and comming home and write about it in my journal.dont know if i could talk in depth about it to t but she would know.i dont know i just feel like i'm going to inplode so badly and ruin everything good in my life.i'm scared an i just want to find a way to tell her without accually doing that.

I'll answer your question as to how I do it. Years ago, I didn't. I was like you, though I could talk about day to day stuff that wasn't so important. But T would ask how I feel about something, especially about her, and I would sit there, silent. I would say "I don't know" a lot. So I would be able to tell her facts, but not feelings. I showed her some of my journal after a few years of seeing her. It was never easy to talk.

I saw other Ts and I got better each time. I'm not sure why. But I'll tell you how this T, more than the others, makes it easier to be so honest and tell her what I feel about her, especially.

1. She does breathing and relaxation exercises with me first because she knows I'm anxious.
2. I've asked her a number of times if it's okay to tell her anything, and she says yes in a way I know she means it.
3. She's very non-threatening and doesn't act better than me. She acts like we're in this together.
4. With IFS (Internal Family Systems) you deal with parts of your personality. She says we are curious about a part, not judging it. She tells me that a lot.
5. I close my eyes and then I don't have to see her looking at me. It makes it easier to talk, though I know for many that would make it harder.
6. She says "good" when I tell her how I'm feeling.
7. She likes me, and I know it.

All of the above enables me to tell her. Plus, something in me knows that I have a need to unburden myself. It's worse for me if I don't tell. I'm miserable then. There's stuff inside of me wanting to come out so I let it. I don't have a sick, panic feeling so much anymore but I'm still anxious and embarrassed like I posted.

What if you asked T how she will keep you safe if you "explode"? If you feel out-of-control when you start talking? She probably knows what to do. Maybe you are worried too much about what might happen. You used to scream and be out-of-control? With her or someone else? What about saying "I feel like screaming?" Maybe you could hit a pillow instead?

I like the art therapy. Maybe if you continue with that for awhile? Can you do both? Give her the list, and do the art stuff?

Just tell T what you want her to know and then stop and resume the way you have been in the past.

If it were my list, I'd rank it like this and say:

1. My son is in Okinawa and North Korea is threatening to blow Okinawa up. That really frightens me and makes me worry about my son!

2. Work sucks! In the last 2 months i have been written up 3 times and suspended once and have had my job reassigned because i had a major panic attack at work and they brought me to hospital. I don't know if I'm angrier at them for having no insight and compassion or at me for feeling bad for being sick.

3. My stepmother is really sick and. . .
(a) I'm afraid she'll die
(b) I'm tired of worrying about what will happen
(c) I'm tired of looking after her
(c) I feel safe with her and if she dies I'll be less safe
(d) I'll be glad when she dies and feel guilty about that
(e) I'm afraid if she dies I'll have to look after my father and I just can't do that

(I don't know your actual feeling word/reason in there, just making up my own possibilities :-) Anything you do say to T, you should include some tiny bit that is about you, one "action" word/emotion (tired, afraid, embarrassed, happy, sad, angry, etc.)

4. I feel like I only feel either angry or afraid and I'd like to learn to recognize the other emotions when I feel them.

5. I have been hurting myself and engaging in what I feel are risky behaviors. I don't want to talk about it yet, I just want you to know.

6. The noise in my head is so loud I can't think, especially in the morning. I'm just constantly worried about EVERYTHING! Do you know of any tricks to teach me to give myself some space in there to help me while I'm doing the slower work of therapy?

7. My ultimate goal for therapy a million miles down the road is that I'd like to be able to just "talk" to you and share what is going on with me, my thoughts and feelings both, while we're together here.

rainbow again thanks for sharing what you have gone through.you really seem to have such a grasp on what it is like for me and thanks for not judging me i know i am def continuing the art i enjoy it and T is also doing relaxation exersizes before we start and before i leave.i couldnt do art or talk at all last mondat so we did movement exersizes and did thinngs like pass weights back and forththat was kind of nice because i had been sitting in a hospital chair all day.
my T isnt threatning and maybei need to keep telling myself that.she is strong but not threatning.

perna WOW you have such a way with words and are awsome with how to use them.i may print these out and practice with them maby chang them a little .if i could just get one thing out it would be good i was doing that for a while.i was able to say one thing but lately i cantmaybe a little help

well, it's not easy. Nobody's pretending it's easy. It's in my nature to hide my feelings, to live deep inside my head, as cut off from the world and other people as possible.

So, yeah, I get that sick feeling before T, almost every week, still. After nearly 2 years. I hyperventilate in the bathroom in the lobby. I sit outside & smoke until the last possible moment. I go in there with jaw clenched and shaking hands and just try to keep breathing.

My T is really, really good at cutting through that tension I have built up all around me and giving me a place to let it down for a while. She is calm and centered and strong. She reminds me, over and over and over, that I'm safe now. She helps me stay present when everything in me wants to check out.

I don't know, I guess what I'm saying is, I don't know WHAT I do that makes me able to say these things to her. I think I just have a really good T.

That, and I really truly could live the life I'd been living anymore. Something had to change. So when I came to therapy I told myself I'd do the opposite of everything I'd always done before, because that wasn't working out for me, to say the least. I just keep pushing and pushing myself to do the opposite of what I would have done before. It works for me. :shrug:

And there are times when I have only said a very few words in session. I think once I might have said "by the park" and that's it. The rest of the time was spent freaking out about having said those 3 words.

zoo i can relate to that three words and the next hour freaking out.sometimes when i try to talk my words are totally out of wack and T has told me she has no idea what i said because it was just words that made no sence.that was way back.she would never say that now.but thats how my words are in my head sometimes all messed up.i think you are awsome for being able to go week after week and do this.you may not think so but you are an amazingly strong person.and some day i would love it if you could shar with me what those three words meant to you someday

(((((granite)))))
I think what those 3 words meant to me was finally, finally not being all alone with it. It was letting someone else peek in the windows. It was sharing the burden, just a tiny bit, for the first time.
wow, no wonder it was so hard.

When I'm really frightened because I feel helpless and cornered, I get angry. I then use that anger to help get me out of the frightening corner.

Maybe try to blurt the whole mess out in one run-on paragraph?

"It makes me angry and frustrated that I can't just talk to you like I want to! The North Koreans might bomb Okinawa where my son is and I can't even tell you how anxious that makes me feel! My work keeps moving me around and writing me up and gives me no way to do any sort of decent job and I can't sort it out in my too full, crazy head, either to help them help me or to help myself. I'm afraid my stepmother is going to die and I just can't go there! I practically have an anxiety attack just thinking it. I try to cope but I'm using really bad, unhealthy and risky behaviors and feel so ashamed about that."

I did that the first time I saw my T again after 9 years; just talked a mile a minute the whole time; at the end when we were getting ready to leave she said her head was spinning, LOL. That's part of how T's work, how you can help her know how you feel; if you gush a whole lot of the anxious feelings you are feeling, she too will get some idea what it's "like" to be you, a sense of what it's like to have all this whirling around in her head, etc. She wants that! You need to get some of that anxiety out, with her, like its a bad wound that needs cleaning.

So is this why you fear talking granite? Are you afraid that you will lose all control if you lift the lid a little bit?

perna i did this when i needed to tell her i was going to take care of the mother for three weeks and it to seemed to make her head spin.she gust shook her head and said what?(dont think i was making a lot of sence)that day wasnt easy at all.i think it resulted in me writing her that letter that started the whole no letter thing.i'm hoping that i'm getting up the guts to use one of your sentances monday.i have 4 days to build up to what im going to say.

zoo i bet it was hard but at the same time i hope you were able to feel a sence of relief.

(((sannah))) i know this is one of the fears i have.i worry how T will react to what i say or even how i will react.2 weeks ago my T showed me a magnet board that she put a bunch of words on and asked me to look at them.it totally set me off in a panic for days and they were just words.i still see them in my head today.anyway i feel i'm am going to inplode soon if i dont do something soon and i'm scared that she wont even know why anything happened.

Then why can't you give your T the list? Why make it harder on yourself?

i am really going to try rain but i am scared to death about what will happen.even if she does take it.but really i hear her saying "you know me better than that,are you able to read this to me today?and it will go from thare and i'm scared.but these days i just dont care what she does i'm just to tired of being the good person to everyone.i have three days to get up the guts and it may happen.i may need a lot of pocket riders for monday