I am hopeless

I have been in therapy for 4.5 years. I don't think I've made much progress. I keep doing the same dumb things over and over even though I KNOW better and I know I can make better choices. I keep choosing my eating disorder, my self-injury, being abused, and so many other bad, unhealthy things.

I want to give up. How long should it take to get well?

The answer is so individual. Have you asked your T how long it should take? Do you or he have any insight as to why you haven't made the progress you would like? Do you think you need a new approach? A new therapist?

Sometimes it is hard to see the progress we have made. I sometimes feel better if I make a list of all the things I have been able to change or accomplish since starting therapy. You could also ask your T to give his observations on your progress. Maybe you have made progress but can't see it. Sometimes progress is also not so easily observed. Like one thing I would put on my list would be that I can sense my feelings more easily--I can actually know when I am feeling something. This is huge, but it might not be readily observable as "I eat more healthily now." But it's still important work, and more tangible benefits will flow from it later... if all goes well.

I don't know what situation you are in...but usually I don't think being abused is generally a choice. It's not your fault for the pain that you are in.

One idea is to maybe work on finding healthier outlets for your stress or whatever emotions cause your self-harm. Maybe you could find something else that you like to do like kickboxing or something. Exercise is always good. Just a thought.

it took me 5 years of therapy (from pdoc and various Ts) before i was able to leave my home, and since then my disordered eating and urges to self harm have been a lot more manageable and ive been able to make healthier choices.

i want to say "just leave your abusive situation and everything else will become easier", but i also know that it took me 5 years of therapy to gain the courage and self-confidence to do so, and those years of therapy were essential to me coping once i'd left.

Holy moley! I asked the same question of my T today. Actually I asked her why the hell she was still seeing me, since I told her I've been in therapy with different Ts for like five years and shouldn't I KNOW better by now about most of my ****?

My T said that just because you "know better" about something doesn't mean you can snap your fingers and just change.

Change is scary. Change is hard. Change takes a LOT longer than we'd like to admit.

Question: Why do you think you choose these things, if you seem to want to change them? What are you getting out of sticking with your current issues/addictions and stuff you want to change? What's the payoff - what are you getting from your 'negative patterns' of behaviour?

There's probably something there blocking you. Same with me. It's easier to stick with the bad stuff you know, then to risk trying to change things to something "better" and "healthier" which is an unknown.

Small progress. You're making progress, recognizing where you do the same things over again but slowly changing your patterns of behaviour or your thoughts about it. I bet you've changed since you started therapy, in fact I KNOW you've changed.

We all probably could give someone else great advice if someone else was in our exact same spot, but it's hard to take our own advice because sometimes we're our own worst enemy. Sometimes we need to hit rock bottom several times to change something. That's what addictions can be all about - it's "easier" to change once you've hit rock bottom than otherwise.

What other issues do you think you haven't worked on yet in therapy? What are your therapy goals? Do you have steps to achieve those goals?

(BTW, I hope you don't think I'm picking on you. I'm just regurgitating what I've been 'taught' in therapy for myself. Which, btw, is still impossibly hard to do).

I'm probably not very useful, but I do kinda understand what you're going through. It's like beating your head against a wall sometimes, trying to force change to happen and feeling like you're stuck in a rut. But even being stuck in a rut, you're still learning something. Really.

((((((((((Roseleigh))))))))))

Don't give up

My T sometimes says "time takes what time takes". There's no timetable for healing...I think it happens for all of us at our own pace. I know that when I started therapy, I thought I would be "all better" when my THIRTY SESSIONS were done, and here I am, over three years later. I've worked hard, I have a great T...AND healing takes a long time for some people. Like me.

I was out of an abusive situation for a LONG time before I started therapy, though. If I were still in a situation like that, I think it would feel overwhelming, and make it SO much harder to give up all of the coping methods I had used over the years to deal with my feelings. I hope you are safe.

Isn't it hard to give ourselves the gentleness we would give to others? Try to see yourself with compassion, and really look at you at the beginning of therapy and you now. Change is SO slow that sometimes it's hard to see it. I like Sunny's idea of asking your T what changes he/she has seen.

Sending lots of hugs

Don't give up....perhaps you have made more progress than you think!
Change does come hard, and so often, it comes slow.....you may know better, but it still takes time to do better and to do better consistently. Everyone takes a different amount of time, some longer than others, but there need not be any shame attached to how long it takes to heal.
If I've learned anything for myself, it's that insight/'knowing better' does not necessarily mean I have all the skills I need yet to follow through on the insight....acquiring them is a gradual process, patience needed!
I have insight and self-awareness, so I tend to feel ashamed that I fall into negative thought/behavior patterns still though I know they hold me back from healing......I told my T the other day, I feel like I am less stable right now than when I started, and she said, Oh, but I can see how much you have changed and far you have come..... So, roseleigh, perhaps you too have changed and come much farther along your journey to healing than you know. Keep encouraged, keep on in the journey, there is hope as long as you are still trying!

((((((Roseleigh))))). I know that feeling of wanting to give up and feeling like you have been spinning your wheels and going nowhere. I literally JUST asked my T yesterday, "have I made ANY progress at all????" He said yes, and I made him name it...name the progress....specifically. And, he did. He pointed out very specific ways that I have grown and changed and healed that I hadn't even noticed! Sometimes it really takes that objective person to see positive. So, I really think that you should ask your T what changes and improvements she/he has seen, and if there really haven't been any, then this should probably be a discussion as well.

I hesitate to tell you how long that I have been in therapy because I don't want you to become discouraged.....but it has been a really long time. I will tell you though, that most of that time was spent doing as you describe....engaging in abusive high risk situations, SI, ED, you name it......It wasn't until I got away from those things that my healing really took off.....

To specifically answer your question, I don't think that there is a predictable time frame, because we are all so different. Personally, I continued my very same self-destructive patterns for many many years while in therapy. I guess that I kept going to therapy because somewhere deep down I knew that I really REALLY wanted to heal. Now, I really feel like I don't care if I am in therapy for the rest of my life.....if that's what it takes for me to be healthy and whole, then so be it.....sometimes it is a slow process, and I think that's ok....though I understand it's very frustrating at times.

I hope that you can talk to your T and really share your feelings of frustration and disappointment. Hopefully she/he will be able to offer some input and guidance that helps.

Thanks, everyone. I think asking him is a very good idea and I will do that. I just feel so stuck right now and maybe that's just a "now" feeling if that makes sense.

I thank you so much for all of your wonderful, thoughtful replies. You are all such sweet people.

Pgirl - thank you for this thought!! Roseleigh, if ** I ** am not hopeless, you surely are not.
And my T assures me that I am not. I'm trying to prove her right