[Broom Hilda]

I don't think I can be helped. I've been in therapy for 3 years. I understand the concepts and what I am supposed to do to help myself. It isn't working. I have a really nice relationship with a great therapist so it isn't him. All the skills he has given me, the tools, encouragement, being there always if I needed him, the insights I've had... I immersed myself in "the process". I did everything I could. I am still at square one. Actually... I started at a healthier level than where I am now. I've regressed to an embarassing state. I am completely alone. What little confidence I had is gone. It's embarassing to watch me order a coffee for crying out loud.
I don't expect anybody to know how to fix me. I've tried just accepting everything... it's depressing to accept I can't socialize, make friends, find a partner.. I'm simply less socially skilled than other people. This is true. Trying to kid myself into believing otherwise... reality will always smack me back. I'm also not smart. Accepting doesn't take any anxiety away. It might for a moment, but the second I am called out for being inept-- I can't accept it.
I guess I was naive having never been to therapy before. I had this fantasy that there was some way of thinking or that talking about everything would somehow change me and allow me to be who I want to be. I questioned what the "process" was several times. I was told to "have faith in the process". I'm starting to think there is no process. Or maybe I'm not the type who can be helped by anyone or anything. I was so afraid that might happen when I made the decision to go ahead and open up. Now I'm broken in a way that has taken all hope.
Does anybody else feel like therapy has made them worse? If therapy has helped can you explain why? Was anybody else difficult to help, but managed to have a breakthrough? And being real. Not saying therapy has helped because this bizarre "relationship" with our therapists makes, well, at least makes ME feel like protecting him. Like playing the role of "yes, you helped me! Thank you! You are wonderful!". I would do that. Pretend to make my Therapist feel good. I've even written before on other sites about how great he is and how much he's helped me. Weird, huh.
I'm considering quitting. That will be hard because he is the only person I am attached to.. I can't imagine not seeing him... but I am failing him. I need to pretend and let him off the hook.
I'm grateful for any response.

[Omers]

Hi. I have been in therapy for 17 of my 33 years with a variety of different kinds of therapists. My first was just a very warm nurturing T who wanted to help very badly but I was too scared... So she did nothing. We are now friends, she loves me like a daughter but would still never have anything to offer me as a therapist. The next got overwhelmed by my history on session 2, canceled our next appointment and wouldn't answer/call back to set another one. T 3 was a "smile be happy" type that wanted me to focus just on the here and now without coming to terms with my past and struggles. T 4 was a cognitive behaviorist who was VERY direct in her approach and gave me skills to combat my flashbacks and body memories. T 4 helped me a great deal. T 5 was a "trust the process" T who cared deeply about me and truly believed she was doing the best possible thing she could to help me heal. T 5 hurt me more than any of my abusers. T 6 was also a "trust the process" type and cared deeply about me. I spiraled down and out of control at a mind boggling pace. I went to her feeling suicidal one day and she told me I could never come back to see her again. She wasn't going to have me die on her like her dad did. Again far more harm than good. Current T is very direct with me and somewhat more of a "life coach" than a therapist. I tell her what is going on and she helps me to find more options about what to do than I can come up with on my own. She is especially helpful to me with my social anxieties and insecurity. She is primarily trained as a family systems therapist although she knows lots of other stuff too. I also currently work with a massage T too who has training as a T, training in body work and in Eastern and "new age" healing modalities. She is just awesome.

All that said, while some here at PC have done really great work with "trust the process" Ts I am not one of them. There are a ton of different Ts out there, different personalities and different training. Finding the right "fit" is hard. IMO the only person who can fail at therapy is the therapist. I believe you can be helped, I believe that there is healing out there far better that what the "experts" say is possible, I believe that we are worth all the hard work to find that special T or Ts that can bring us where we want to go and beyond.

Keep chasing your wholeness even if you have to change paths. You are worth it!

[swimmergirl]

((((((((Hugs Broom Hilda)))))))))))

Your user name made me smile. I am considering you a "good witch". You asked a lot of questions so I will do my best to answer most of them, at least according to my experience. First, you are smart. You articulated your position very well on here and I understood what you were saying. So give yourself credit for that. When I started therapy I was definitely worse. I am not done with the process. I'm not even sure that I am back to where I was before I started(meaning in ways sometimes I still feel worse). The reason I felt worse is because part of my therapy was to dig up old, repressed emotions that I didn't want to deal with it and that I had stuck away and forgot existed. When those emotions came out, not only were they angry for being ignored but I didn't even remember them and on top of that, didn't know how to deal with them! So that accounts for me being worse. For some people, going into therapy makes me worse in the beginning(or yes, even 3 years in) because of this. That is normal.
Next, you say you have a great relationship with your T. Realize that this is just my opinion and I'm telling you because I care..........but I disagree. If you had an "authentic" relationship you would be honest with him, you would not be worried about hurting his feelings. You can tell him what you said here without being rude. It is not all or nothing. Sometimes it's halfway. He cannot read your mind. Print up what you wrote here and take it to him............and say I hope you can help me but right now I'm not feeling it, it's not working, what can we do different? I agree with Omers that the only person who can fail at therapy is the therapist. But how does he know to try a different approach if you don't tell him? YOU have to stand up for YOU. He cannot fix you. He can only help you fix yourself. If you don't know the answers, that's all good. But you have some info you are withholding from him that he doesn't know, and that is only hurting YOU. I am not saying to change your T, if you have a great relationship that is awesome, but you don't really trust him if you cannot empower him to help YOU by tellling HIM what is not working.
You say you were naive to this process.........boy do I hear you! If I had known what I was in for I never, ever would have started. I think that T's do us a disservice by not telling us upfront what to expect. I have thought of quitting many times but one of my good friends said.............well, you have already opened your can of worms, if you quit, it will stay there festering and smelling, etc. In other words, I stayed in long enough to dig up the problem...........might as well stay around to find the solution. Healing cannot be as bad as acknowledging my issues, at least for me.
You say that you are socially enept. Welcome to the club! Why do you think all of us post on this forum? Because it is easier in some ways to remain anonymous. You are not enept here! Do you want to change that or not? Maybe you are recognizing how much work it will be and are overwhelmed by that? I'm with you on that as well. It is easier to quit, remember that..........but be gentle to yourself, give yourself time, patience, etc. Would you be this hard on a really good friend? Of course not. You would be encouraging, etc. Be that way with yourself.
Hang in there, you ARE WORTH IT! Sending lots of love your way. ((((((hugs))))))

[Perna]

Therapy is to help us in our actual lives. What you learn in therapy you then have to go practice out in the real world. I do not understand why you are not ordering coffee 10 times a day if that's what you want to get good at? I had trouble relating to others/socializing so I practiced with talking to grocery clerks, librarians, anyone I could. What is scary we have to do until we understand why it is so scary and then some more so it becomes more routine and less scary. Insight from process alone won't help us, putting the insight to work and redeveloping it so what happened before isn't happening now is what helped me (during and after therapy, 1970-2005).

My husband loves ice cream but I would not go to Baskin Robbins or elsewhere with him for ice cream. One day we were in the Mall and I did get an ice cream cone. I also got extremely anxious! Because of where I was in therapy, I got an insight: my stepmother use to "punish" me for getting messy when eating ice cream. I was only five or six and could not lick the cone fast enough (and, back in the 1950's, you generally only got ice cream in summer) and to make matters worse, my brother 2-1/2 years older than I was was able to eat his cone fast enough so did not get messy. So, there I was in my mid-40's feeling anxious about getting messy (still don't "like" submarine sandwiches because of all the dressings and stuff oozing out!) and not being able to lick my cone fast enough. Well, I was also well enough along in therapy to be able to laugh at myself; who cares if I get either messy or can't lick the cone fast enough??? I'm a big kid now!

Order the coffee often as an experiment! See what is making you anxious. Is it worrying about the other people? Why worry about them; you don't know them or they you! Are you afraid of the clerk? Afraid they won't give you what you want, will misunderstand you? Or, maybe they won't "like" you and will be mean to you? They, too, don't know you so don't have any valid reason to not like you; we can "decide" how we think other people are, why not decide that the person is nice and wants to help? Practice changing your assumptions about people; even the same people :-) Go for a walk on a busy street or in the Mall and practice just saying, "Hey" or "Hello", or "Hi" to people you pass or even just looking at them deliberately and smiling. There are so many fun things to make up and do and no one has to be the wiser! You can see if people smile/say "hi" back and speculate on "what kind" do/do not. It's almost like sitting and making up stories about what people do for a living; being aware of what our own heads are doing versus what is checked out by asking another. We can't know what others are thinking/feeling unless we ask them; that's the ONLY way we can know for sure (or if they spontaneously tell us what they are thinking/feeling).

Before therapy I was really really bad at "reality-testing": http://dictionary.webmd.com/terms/reality-testing but learned through therapy how to separate what's me and what's not me; who I am and what I'm responsible for. But putting what I learned in therapy into practice was the most difficult part of therapy. Just showing up each week was the "easy" part, relatively speaking.

[elliemay]

I really think that the whole "trust in the process" thing translates into "trust in yourself". You're likely not as broken as you think. I mean you are still here, still sane, still trying. That indicates strength and courage to me.

I can almost promise that what we think we create - if you do not believe that you can be helped, then you will not allow the help you need.

Case in point, you're letting your therapist believe that he is helping you, when he isn't. Maybe if you were honest with him about how you felt, then perhaps you two could work together to find a therapeutic modality that would help you. He may be a one trick pony, but most therapists aren't.

They aren't mind readers either, so if you're telling him things are okay, well then that's what he's going to think.

Socializing is hard. Especially if you're carrying the feeling that you are broken. I think that translates into the thought that you don't deserve friends or to belong to a community of people. I strongly urge you to challenge that broken feeling, or at least recognize that others likely feel the same way.

Everyone pretty much carries the same insecurities and worries. All conversation involves vulnerability. But it is worth the risk for both parties.

I think starting out with people that you already share a common interest with is a great way to start building a community of friends for support and love.

What do you like? What makes you happy? Move toward that and I think you will find hope again.

[SoupDragon]

Thank-you for posting this Broom Hilda - I have been going to T for just over a year, but I can really relate to what you are saying here. I do feel worse, my SI has kicked off again and I am terrified of opening up to T and then oneday having to leave that close relationship behind. Seems a rather cruel twist. I just keep telling myself to have faith in the process. It's a hard journey isn't it?

[Broom Hilda]

Omers, Thanks for sharing your experience. May I ask how it is that T5 hurt you more than any of your abusers?

I feel like therapy has hurt me more because I finally feel such a deep, strong bond with someone. I want to protect that person. A reality check is-- yeah. He cares. But when he clocks out I don't exist. It's a manufactured bond that must be stronger on my end. That is heartbreaking. It's frightening. He has so much power over me. He has the power to break me. I wish he had the power to help me. I will take the advice of the other kind responders and let him know that for some reason I am regressing and i worry it's been to long to be like this. If he suggests we taper off sessions or I go to someone else I would fee so abandoned and rejected I will not recover. Guaranteed. My mind will play out pictures of him celebrating getting rid of this ridiculous client. ha, now I'm rambling. Really I just wanted to know more about your experience.

[Broom Hilda]

Shoot... I just spent a really long time writing a loooong reply to include everyone and thank you for the responses and how what you all wrote was helpful. It somehow dissapeared. psychcentral gremlins? you know how after you write a long term paper and the hard drive crashes and you don't have a back up and you simply have to get away from it for a while? Yeah. gotta run. Love to you all. Thanks for the advice. Better go buy some coffee now.

[tohelpafriend]

I could relate to your story...desiring good social friends, a guy, but at the end of your post you mentioned you didn't want to fail your therapist. I think therapy is very hard work and brings us to unexpected places, sometimes fast and we have to take a hard look at ourselves to integrate it all and decide what applies and can help us, and what doesn't. Maybe find a creative outlet you like, art or music? After 5 years in therapy, going back once after a crisis, I'm seriously thinking of getting out; my therapist recently changed my diagnosis because too many clients were staying too long. It is normal to feel attachment to a therapist you've grown to trust. I don't think you will have failed your therapist if you move on.

[sittingatwatersedge]

BroomHilda.
Reading your thread is ripping me up. I wish I was open enough to have written this, it's my own experience too and you've said it so clearly. I read the wisdom coming from others and I think, I can't say more / better than that.

Then I read this and it staggered me.

Originally Posted by Broom Hilda

..... He has so much power over me. He has the power to break me. I wish he had the power to help me.

Unlike your parents, who were not of your choosing, the T has power over you because you gave it to him. Yes it's an inequal relationship; if it were equal you would be friends, maybe friends helping each other, but you didn't go there to find a friend - you went to find a guide. The T has power that you give; by opening yourself, by holding up the broken shards of your earlier life and saying, what do I do with these?

Yr T has power that you give... and has power to help you if you give it. I know that's a hard saying. Judith Herman writes that an abused person was in no way responsible for her abuse, but she is responsible for her recovery - and the first time I read these words I got so angry. It seemed to be too much to ask. But... practically speaking... how can it be otherwise?

I hope you can lay all this out for yr T and the two of you can go through it for as long as it takes to help you. In my experience this is the hard part of therapy, demanding a trust that I never knew could be asked of me (and which I have personal doubts I can achieve, but I'm still trying). You have a great desire to heal; please go gently. Healing takes time.

[WikidPissah]

I could have written this post. T hasn't helped me so much either, in fact I feel better when I am not going, because I am not "in my head" as much. I start to forget about the bad stuff because I am not talking about it every week. I will say that I am still NOT whole even outside of T. I have my mental ticks and my anxiety to deal with daily, so I don't think quitting is the perfect answer either.