Distinguish between correct therapy awfulness/incorrect kind (triggers si/term)

It has been two weeks since I decided to stop seeing one t with whom it seemed all that happened was I was in frustrated anger all the time. Since stopping, I have had fewer nightmares, regained three days of each week which were previously filled with fear and dread the night before and day of the appointment, paralyzing anxiety and fear at the appointment itself (I could not hear her over the pounding in my ears for about the first ten minutes of each appointment, numb upper body, shaking, teeth chattering etc) and intense urges to si to alleviate the anger and frustration for the day after the appointment. I did tell the t about these things and she said they were resistance and she was sorry it was so hard for me - but that is all. I would bring it up every month or so and her response was always the same. I tried for a year and although it got a little less intensely bad for about a month or so during the winter, it got worse again and when I quit, it was really bad for me. The problem is, now I am starting to be afraid of the other t (with whom I previously had not had these intense reactions) and I am afraid the same thing will happen again. I have told the second t this. I really do not know if it is masochistic self torture to continue trying therapy with these strangers or if this is what it is supposed to be like. I know no one can really help with this, I just thought it might help me to post it.

Hi stopdog - it's interesting that you experienced a reduction in your symptoms when you stopped seeing the first T.

My head is a little spinny right now, so apologies for any lack of clarity - but do you think the increase in symptoms now has anything to do with getting to the edge of something in terms of your life experiences with your current T? Like your defences are getting woken up as you and T are getting close to the big stuff?

What comes to my mind are defenses, defenses, defenses. Have you done any reading on defenses or I have posted any of this on any of your other threads already?

I do not think there is anything in particular coming up with the second one. It is like a pre-emptive torture.
Yes, defenses, resistance etc.

Have you read anything that I have posted on attachment and defenses here?

I personally would like to see anything on defenses. My last T (I won't re-hash right now but reserve the right to do so later ) said that I had a very strong defense system. We were talking about my (very brutal) family of origin.

I laughed (humor was one of the tools, I guess ) and said, I guess that is bad to have good defenses, right?

He said no, not necessarily. And then said, nothing, and I asked him to elaborate and he said nothing.

So...now, I'm wondering, can anyone out there help me? I could do a google search, I guess, but I get a lot of ....dreck that way....

This link explains adult attachment. The best info IMO is under the types of insecure attachment. Under the dismissive attachment style click on the "defensive" and another good article will come up. The list of defenses under levels 1 -4 is really interesting I think. I just did a bunch of work on my defenses and it was really productive. I was able to stop using them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attachment_in_adults

I have read about defenses but am uncertain how they fit into dead flat fear and panic and engaging in what appears to be simple unadulterated torture for me every time I try to engage in therapy. I do not dislike either of these women. I did not dislike the first one I was 25 years ago when this same thing happened. I did dislike the other one I saw for about 4 or so months.

You fear contact with these women and have the need to defend yourself?

Quite possibly.

I will say not having nightmares every night and not wanting to annihilate myself weekly is a good thing I think. I struggle with whether these things are the right bad things one has to deal with to endure therapy or if these are the signs that therapy is not something I am doing correctly.

When you say, I just did a bunch of work on this...what do you mean? I cannot possibly understand how my last T and I would have "worked" on this....I talked, and he sat blankly! I was just twisting in the wind...and I know there are plenty of things that I need to work on! Can you tell me what that was like...how it played out? Honestly, I can't imagine how that would look...you are very lucky!

I would say these are things that you have to work through. Therapy is to make your life more pleasant by working through what you need to work through.

Defenses were certainly not the first things that I worked through. I've been working on myself for over 20 years (the last 15 without a therapist). I worked on boundaries, self worth, meeting my needs, living in the present, becoming empowered, learning how to express my feelings and unloading the backlog, social skills and triggers, etc. I worked on whatever was bothering me at the time. Defenses just came to the top recently.

I worked on the defenses by being aware of myself and how I was using the defenses. The defenses that I was using were 2 of the mature ones - the altruism and introjection (Identifying with some idea or object so deeply that it becomes a part of that person) (I was introjecting my values) . I had absolutely no awareness of these until I read this exact article. After I became aware that I was using these defenses it was making the subconscious conscious and my need for the defenses left me, most likely because they were just habit and i really didn't need them anymore because of all of the other work that I had done to fix so much. When these defenses left me the anxiety that went with them left me also.

Mcl, can you identify which defenses that you are using? Are you aware of yourself most of the time? (This is the learning to live in the moment stuff I talked about above).

Therapy however is not making my life more pleasant - it makes it much more unpleasant. I do not, on a weekly or even monthly basis, want to annihilate myself or have nightmares, when I am not seeing a t. I wonder how long one puts up with it being worse before throwing in the towel altogether - surely a year and thousands of dollars spent being worse with no indication anything is better- is a good enough try. My concern is that it is now happening with the other one. And I try to figure out (I know no one can help with this) how feeling worse with no relief in a year is a good thing - when I know I at least do not want to bludgeon myself weekly when I do not see a t, even if all the reasons I went to see one in the first place are still there. I want a list of the correct sorts of bad things therapy does to you before you start to see some good and the sorts that mean you are simply a failure at it or it is the wrong therapist for you and so forth.

So what is it that you are not telling them? What are you holding back? You must have noticed the big difference in the way a member here has changed the way they write over this weekend, from hiding behind long sentences to sharing WORDS. That was an incredible breakthrough. What is your breakthrough? Why do you call your T's strangers? That's kind of hostile, isn't it? Will Rogers said strangers were just friends he hadn't met yet. Yet you use the term as if you expect us to think it's negative too.
What would happen if you stopped debating every point? This sounds to me like my "habit" of correcting pronounciation - which we recently analyzed as, if you can't talk right, how can you take care of me? So who is gonna take care of me? Obviously I have to take care of myself. And that provokes a lot of anxiety. Hence your feeling of being tortured. So stop rationalizing about how it wasn't so bad - it wasn't so bad for me, either - and tell the ONE thing that still makes you uncomfortable - again, for me it was "having" to answer phone calls from my mother. I finally realized how afraid I was of her - as a child. And still am. There is no other relationship between us. Your debating every point makes you kind of scary, just as my correcting people does (I am also a debater, just nobody talks to me anymore!) - so are you scared too? You know I am asking you these questions because I hate hearing that all your T had to say was "Oh, that's resistance." I wish you had someone more intuitive, more warm and loving.

You definitely get worse before you get better. Focusing on what we need to work on is not pleasant at all. When you aren't in therapy you push this stuff aside and it is easier to deal with, even though it interferes with a better life.

You have to decide to work on this stuff and do it. Maybe you fear losing control of this stuff?

Thank you for asking! Yes, I am aware (to the extent that any of us is..who has done a lot of mindfulness and training around that...it has taken YEARS! ) I know that I rely really heavily on humor and altruism (worked many years in a cause-based world saving everyone else ) but I wish that my T and I could have talked very directly about why I rely so heavily on these things instead of more self-care (which I am doing now..I have huge resistance to even allowing myself to have a bubble bath --no time -- or a massage --no money). I would love to have processed with a T what my defenses are, and to talk about my family of origin issues with regard to defenses (my mother is in huge denial about my brother's mental illness, for example). i think this is an inspiring place for me to go, and I thank you for bringing this to my attention. I've got some reading to do (while in bubble bath!).

I don't think referring to them as strangers is hostile as much as simply accurate. I don't know them.

And, I appreciate your thought on on me having someone more warm and loving - but if a t was like that, I would probably run over the edge trying to get away from her.

I tend to use humor, intellectualization and some dissociation (probably others too - but I think those are the big ones)

Wonderful!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Keep me posted?)

OK my take on defences from my own experience is that I don't trust anyone (well apart from you guys on here ).

Also there is some stuff from my past that is really hard for me to talk about, let alone "feel" again.

So there is my T who I size up and down and test for trustworthiness, who I am expected to sit with and talk about this stuff (and other stuff that I am not yet conscious of) in order to move forwards in life - and I use every game in the book to not share the stuff as it is just too damn scarey.

I think some of my defences are within my conscious thought - like "Oh no he is going to ask me a difficult question unless I get in there first and throw him off the scent", others less conscious - dissociation, blankness, low mood etc...

I think that if I was truely completely comfortable living in this old skin of mine and had a good understanding of myself, then I could sit in that room fairly comfortably and discuss in an adult way all this stuff that I am trying so hard to hide.

I am not sure how I get the defences down - as your T said, they are not necessarily a bad thing, all this time they have kept me safe, have served me well - protected me as a child - but it is time for them to come down - part of me knows they are not needed now, well not when I am with T - it just still feels hard.

I don't think so because this was basically how I was when I first started seeing her. The first month or so it took longer to get the fear under control at the beginning of each appointment. I literally cannot hear over the pounding in my ears and have motion for her to just wait until it goes down. I usually threw up right before the appointment. The dread parts can happen in other parts of life, but the urge to si after an appointment is pretty specific to therapy for me.

That sounds such a scarey thing to go through - I can really get how that can put you off going and question if it is even helpful. Have you ever been able to discuss these symptoms with your T?

In my opinion that is absolutely not what therapy should be like at all. You definitely should not feel like annihilating yourself after therapy. No,therapy is not a sunny stroll through Paris, but it shouldn't be torture either.

I would refer to my therapists as hostile as well if I left feeling like that.

If it's defenses, then it's defenses and they will come down when you are ready.

Where was the pressure coming from do you think? You or your therapist? It's obvious why you left therapy (I would have too) but I'm curious what lead you to enter therapy?

I did try to talk to her about the si etc and she would call it resistance and say I should stop if therapy was not safe, but would never want to talk about it with me past that.

It is almost like I need therapy in order to do therapy. It was exhausting to fend off the amount of desire to beat myself to a pulp after each appointment.
Even if thismis just me having some attachment or defenses thing, it still sort of seems like the annihilation part is the wrong kind of awfulness.

The fear was from me. Even I cannot come up with a way to blame her for my crippling dread and fear of her. She did not usually do anything to create it and when she actually did mock me, the response I had was over the top for it.

SoupDragon, I loved your post!