Where are you in therapy?

I feel in a strange place in therapy. I feel like I went through a door into a room that has a small box. I've opened the box and it exploded into a big mess that is everywhere....Everywhere I look all I can see is the big mess...I try to locate the door to go back out of the room but there is no door knob. I try to pick the mess up to put it back into the box but it won't all fit back in....and no matter how much I pick up there is that much more mess in the room.....

I can't go back to the place where I was before therapy and I can't pack the mess back in the box....so I'm stuck in this room with a big mess...Can't decide do I just sit down and cry and wallow in the mess? Or do I look for a way through the mess even though I can't see a way?

Yeah, I can relate. I came in a little more than three months ago for food related issues that had basically been controlling my life. Now, three months later, those issues do not control me anymore, but I was thinking about something my dad had said when I went to visit my parents that upset me very much, as well as epitomized the way he thinks about women. So I emailed my T, and she wrote me back her thoughts and told me this was a very important issue, and we would be discussing my family next session.
So now, I have been thinking about things that happened when I was a kid, some of them not very pleasant, and how they impacted me growing up and as an adult. And I want to be like "But this isn't what I came in here for, why do we have to talk about it?" Part of me doesn't want to do this and wants to run away and forget about this, and another part of me wants to talk about it. So yeah, these issues would never have come up had I not started therapy in the first place, and now I just can't stop thinking about them and some of the memories they bring up.

Hi Ready........

I get this. I like your analogy. In the past I have compared therapy to digging, digging, and finally finding a can of worms you didn't know was down there. You can quit anytime but you still have the unresolved pain from the digging and the can of worms to deal with. So in a way you are worse before you are better. And for me, I also went in to deal with just a few things and realized I had a whole lot more to deal with.
Using your analogy, your T is on the ceiling of the room. He can see the way out but you have to listen to him and do the work. You are not alone. He is there to guide you every step of the way. He can see the trees from the forest. You cannot because you are in the middle of the mess. He may see there is a bigger box over in the corner that everything will fit in. Or maybe there is a door knob to get out buried under everything. At any rate.............this is where trust and faith come in. Trust your T to tell you where to go, and have faith in yourself that with time you can get there. Your T has faith in you, ultimately, at some point or he wouldn't be working with you. If you have a good rapport, connection, bond with your T, then that is the most important thing you will need.Be patient and gentle with yourself. Talk about this place you find yourself with T. Eat the elephant one bite at a time. One thing is for sure.............if you choose not to deal with it now, it is not going away. I know, know it is so, so hard. I hope this helps. (((((hugs))))))

I have issues with trust and control...so I can now see that the opening the box which took 6 painful months was the easy part of the therapy...what to do with the mess must be what my T. refers to as the "hard work of therapy". I thought all I would have to do was open the box and see what was in there. Thanks for your support.

I am Totally lost and no one seems to be selling maps! Well, they do... just not a map for whatever therapy I am in!!!

T quote an old T (that I usually wanted to slap) "It is all part of the process"

Hang in there... at this point the only way out is through.

I feel the same way. . .that a Pandora's box has been opened, and a huge explosion of "stuff" -- some of it bad memories, some of it angst, some of it fears and insecurities, etc. I can't pretend it's not there anymore. It's all here. And I can't go back to where i was before. I can't stuff it back away. So i try to deal with the items one by one. But it is hard and painful, and i keep wanting to just stuff it all back down because it feels too hard and scary.

Where I am in therapy feels like limbo.....I thought we had made lots of progress and done hard work and now it feels like I am just in a strange place I don't understand and don't know the way out of at all. With me not being stable, not a lot of deep work is or can get done, so it feels sort of like a derailment really I think, a derailment into limbo! I am seriously questioning continuing with therapy if it keeps feeling like this.......all I am going for is the support and the hope of acquiring better coping skills......

My t and I refer to this feeling as being out in the middle of a lake - too far to go back to shore, but not far enough to see the other side. She promises me there IS another shore, even though I can't see it and thankfully serves as my life raft through the process. It's hard, though, I really do understand. I'm out there in the middle of the lake/mess with ya!

Although I cannot see it, my T keeps telling me that I'm making good progress. But it is confusing and scary being in the messy room with no door to exit. I tried just the other day but T wouldn't hear of it.

I am

-at the beginning

-in the thick of it

-and ready to quit...

I came into therapy with my box already ruptured. The mess was insane. T told me we have to neatly fold and store the memories not shove them tightly in the box and push it to the back of the closet. This is so the box does not explode again. In T right now I am entering another scary place. I am entering the hard work phase. I actually blocked some of what T was saying yesterday and I answered questions that I did not hear. Now I will have to tell T this and I hope she will understand. I think I left her for a little while and I only do that when I am tired or overwhelmed or fearful. I feel like a child who needs disciplined. And this place is worse than starting T. I know what we need to discuss next time.

Something like that for me too I think . Maybe not in the thick of it, more wondering if there's a point or not.

Wow... I was just writing in my journal about that tonight. Thanks so much for your post! I was thinking that all the issues I was beginning to remember was making me regret that I'd ever gone to therapy... but I want to much to just feel better that I'll try anything. What's a little more pain if there might be a light at the end of the tunnel? xxxx

Thanks everyone for your posts...it's helpful to see I'm not alone in how I feel...wish someone who has made it out of the mess/or to the other shore would post....

I'm currently in the "I think T and I are appropriately thinking of ending" phase.

So you have made it to the other shore? How long have you been going to therapy?

I too think of my issues as being boxed up inside me. When I started with T they were exploded everywhere as well. I believe we sorted through it and kept the stuff I needed, packed that stuff neatly away and swept up and disposed of the stuff I didnt need. Im comfortable within now. I still go to therapy every two weeks. Sometimes I wonder why I am going but I figure he would tell me if he thought i was well enough not to see him any more. I use the state system and there is no room for wasting appts on clients who dont need it. I couldnt even get weekly appts when I was doing bad. In Jan when i moved to another city and needed to petition to stay at that clinic my T described me as being 'brittle" and not able to handle a change in T and pdoc when i thought i was doing well. i am too afraid to ask though because i dont want to stop going. its security for me more than anything else.