Is it common? Plz help!

I am to the point where i am beyond sadness. I've been dangerously close to the brink all this weekend. I sent an email to my T and she told me that its a good sign! and that its expected. I feel so frustrated that she isn't taking me seriously. I waited all week to tell her this. I even postponed my plans hoping that talking to her about it would help. I feel like telling her that it isn't common to set things up to end things. Is she supposed to be so relaxed about it? Is it really that common? She did offer to meet with me this week if I needed and she gave me a hotline number, but it was kind of a second thought. I feel like she doesnt care Maybe thats her way of saying not to lean on her for things like that. sorta tough love. I dont know if I should take her up on her offer to meet if she is just going to tell me its common. Im so unhappy.

(((((((((((((esthersvirtue)))))))))))))))))) It sounds to me like she does not understand the severity of what you are feeling. I think you should consider setting up the appointment and telling her exactly what you are feeling and thinking about doing to yourself. If she still doesn't respond then you need to make a decision if she is the right t for you. What you are feeling is very serious and needs to be taken as such. Please take care of yourself and at least see her and see what she says. You do need the support right now. Feel free to PM me. I am thinking of you.

Esthersvirtue,

If you need to talk to her, and it sounds like you do, take her up on her offer. Maybe she doesn't realize the intensity of your pain right now. It is her job to help you through this crisis. If she doesn't want to work with suicidial thoughts and feelings, she should let you know that. She has chosen this profession and I am sure she has procedures she follows for these kinds of situations. There is a reason we see these professionals. We need to be able to count on them when we need them.

Now that I've finished ranting, let me say that I understand how it feels to come to that brink and start to fall off. IMHO I think you should pursue the appointment and not hold back your feelings one bit. Sometimes I have been afraid to let my T know how intense my feelings have been. I don't know if other people ever cushion their feelings because the words sound so scary. If after meeting with your T you don't feel better, look for someone else. Use the hotlines while you are finding the right person. I have worked with Ts who just didn't seem to understand the powerful feelings I have. I felt disappointed and hurt. I now have the most compassionate T in the entire world, I am convinced. He has taken many late night/early morning phone calls and has made several emergency appointments for me over the past couple years. I could never ask him to do all that he has. I tell you this to give you hope that someone will care about you and how you feel. Someone will make sure you get the help you need. Please, please take care of yourself while you are working to get someone to help you. Someone will notice your pain and validate it. It always seems to get worse before it gets better. But that doesn't mean the worse doesn't scare us completely. You are valuable and worthy of the help. Please hang in there!! And if you need to go to the hospital, do so. I know it takes more courage than you may feel you have, but you are so important that you must take care of yourself while you are hurting like this.

I will be thinking of you! Please let me know how you are doing. If you want to share your feelings here, do so. We are here for you!!

The fact that she offered to talk to you and gave you some numbers means she's taking it seriously.

She is also being a good therapists. Therapists dont force their clients to meet with them. They leave that and the topics for discussion mainly up to the clients.

So if you want to talk about this and the email then it is up to you to schedule the appointment, attend that appointment and actually talk about this with her.

She's already done her job - made herself available to you by offering to meet and gave you resourses that may help.

Now she is leaving your job - to meet with her or not and discuss it or not - up to you.

whether or not this is common for clients to want to end it all is not the issue. You and your wanting to end it is. and -

The balls in your court so to speak shes done her part

the rest is up to you.

No one here can say whether or not you need to or should or have to meet with her, we are not in real time going through what you are at this moment, only you know if you are ready to do your part - scheduling the appointment and discussing the issue.

My personal protocal is that when my therapists make themselves available to me when I am feeling like this I do schedule the appointmnet and do talk with them and by doing so I feel better.

I made an appt to talk with my T tomorrow. I've extremely scared that AIm not going to know what to say or that shes going to be very "clinical". You know.. the "sign a contract, call the hotline" speech. I'm not sure what to expect.

It sounds like you have never had this kind of conversation with her before. Know that you are doing what is best for you -- you are taking care of yourself. Be truthful, you know that. She can only help you with the information you give her. Your T will help you navigate this. Let us know how it goes.

signing a contract isnt that bad a thing. I have one with my therapist. All it says is that I will try not to hurt her or myself during sessions then my signature and date. The one I had with my past therapist was a verbal one that I would not try to hurt myself (suicidally or with self injury) with out talking to her first. If I still wanted to do something after talking to her she would not put me in the hospital as a means to stop me. Thats not saying she didnt do other things like making the time frame between my calling her and her calling me back progressively farther apart. she did this as I became stronger at fighting the urges for self injury.

She knew there was nothing she could say or do if I tried to kill myself. if someone truely wants to die they are going to do it regardless of what another person says or does so my therapists focus was more on helping me learn to control the self injury stuff. by doing that I learned other coping tools and this in turn made the reason why I want to die at least tollerable. I also have the same ageement with some very close friends.

My present therapist has asked for the same agreement my friends (my past therapist is included in this group of friends) and I told her there was no reason since I don't break promises to these special friends of mine. I love them all too much and value our friendship more that a suicidal act that would take a matter of minutes to carry out. As for self injury part she knows Im working on it and has told me that if there is any other alternative she will not hospitalize me. So far I haven't had to take her up on her offer of help on my self injury battle. I do know this therapy agency does folllow state and mental health protocals of hospitalization if needed and that for involuntary commitment the injuries have to be recent with in the past 24 hours so I told her I would not put her in that position. I have no problem letting her know if I have done anything but it will not be within that 24 hour commitment window. She has accepted that. What matters to her is that she knows I am working on it and knows if I get in over my head so to speak I will let her know but not during that 24 hour commitment window. She has asked to see some of the scars and I did show them to her but thats as far as our conversations go on the subject. She doesnt push the issue. its my job to bring it to her if I need her help.

My therapist did ask if I had my emergency numbers posted and I do - a copy of the list in every room.

She did not lecture on for a whole hour about it. She asked if I had any questions about anything and I told her I'm fine and we went on to other topics.

One way to make sure you get what you need out of therapy is by writing things down.

You wrote the email and you are taking her up on her offer to talk great start now take a piece of paper and write down questions first for yourself to answer since the appointment is for you by you about you. these questions will help you to decide what to say and how much of what you want to say to her. Worse case scenero You get tongue tied and cant talk you will have the paper to hand to her.

Why did I write the email?
What do I want to happen now?
What do I want from her?
What do I need from her?
What do I want her to do should I call in the emergency stage of it?

Then any questions for her to answer -
What is her office protocal for such things?
What can she offer?

wish you lots of good luck and you can do this. You wrote the email so the subjects now right out there waiting for you. just grab ahold and run with it.

Oh my, I just wrote a post sort of similar to this. I hope that your T listens this time...

Hugs!
Ally

just wanted to update.

I had a session with my T and it went well!!! She actually never made me really say if i was thinking about suicide. We just talked about my life, my happiness, and how things were going here. I feel good about it even though i feel strangly sad too. But going to therapy always brings up a little sad for me.