[stopdog]

Has anyone here experienced being literally unable to speak to the therapist? When I first go in my pulse races, there is a rushing in my head and my legs feel like rubber. I used to literally shake and teeth chatter for the first 10 minutes or so. Now I can control the shaking, but I go to answer a question and it is like my throat is frozen. I have answers. I am trying to give an answer. I want to give the answer. But I cannot physically get it out. It usually gets better after about 15 minutes.
It irritates the crap out of me.

Sometimes I freeze up. Last session, we were arguing . . . oh sorry, DISCUSSING whether my family and my husband's disdain and disregard for my feelings is a sign of my worth as a human being. At one point, I was just frozen by the internal chorus of how worthless I am and how T only pretends like he cares what I think or cares about my feelings because he gets paid to. I couldn't say or do anything except stare at the floor. It seemed like a really long time and T finally asked what I was thinking and asked me please to try to verbalize it. To get it out in the light of day so we could actually talk about and examine the thoughts.

[stopdog]

Did your throat feel weird? It is like those cartoons or movies where people have laryngitis and their mouths are moving but no sound is coming out.

[sittingatwatersedge]

Originally Posted by My kids are cool

...I couldn't say or do anything except stare at the floor. It seemed like a really long time and T finally asked what I was thinking and asked me please to try to verbalize it. To get it out in the light of day so we could actually talk about and examine the thoughts.

yes, this was me just last week. You're not alone, SD, MKAC.

Stop - when you begin the hour & are unable to make words come out, can you write? I remember Treehouse who said her T kept a pad & pen there so she could write if it was easier than saying. Just a thought to help.

Originally Posted by stopdog

Did your throat feel weird? It is like those cartoons or movies where people have laryngitis and their mouths are moving but no sound is coming out.

Yeah. That's what it was like. Other times, like when I first trying to tell a little bit about the sexual abuse, it was like someone actually had their hand around my throat. I felt like I was choking. I kept pulling at the collar of my shirt and had trouble breathing.

[stopdog]

I can write. It is not the inability to form words or sentences. It is the inability to get them physically out. I will open my mouth and no sound. It is so effing irritating. I am like a fish whose lips are moving but no sound is coming out.

[granite1]

yes!!! most of the time

[stopdog]

I don't have trouble raging at the therapist or telling the therapist I am angry with her or how badly she fails. I relish that part of it sometimes. This is happening even at the insanely annoying small talk designed to help stop the overwhelming fear and anxiety. It is new and has been happening for the past 3-4 weeks and is getting worse. This week it took about 20 minutes for me to be able to do other than croak out a few words.

[sittingatwatersedge]

wow,a silence like that can run into $$$

[stopdog]

Just one of the many reasons it irks me. That and of course the obvious lack of physical control over my body. Bodily betrayal is annoying.

[Nelliecat]

Yes, this happens to me frequently. The tougher the content the less the words come. And the shaking happens to me too. Just today my session was one of mostly silence, a lot of tears and words just waiting to be said.

[stopdog]

It is a weird combination of frozen and so many words I want to rail out at the therapist that they create a logjam in there.

[Nelliecat]

That is absolutely it. It gets so blocked because there's so much piled up and I don't know where to start, so I don't or can't.

[SoupDragon]

Often my head knows what it wants to say - but what I call "my internal gagging order" comes into play and I have no contol over my throat / voicebox

[stopdog]

Originally Posted by SoupDragon

Often my head knows what it wants to say - but what I call "my internal gagging order" comes into play and I have no contol over my throat / voicebox

Yes - like this. I lose all ability to control my vocal cords or command them to act.

This happens fairly often to me, yes

[SpiritRunner]

I could get some sort of words to come out, that wasn't usually my problem.....it was the words I WANTED to say, the feelings I really wanted to express, but when I would open my mouth for that bigger stuff, whoa, there was a roadblock. I hate that - I am good with words, articulate, eloquent, whatever, so it really was, as you put it stopdog, f'ing irritating to find the words I wanted to say stuck in my throat.
Or sometimes, I just felt completely blocked in my mind.....no desire to even say anything at all.....
In a session with T2 once, I knew the whole dang session I needed to say something important, but I simply could not just SAY it. But T, who knew me pretty well and which buttons were safe to push, pushed the right ones......and I got pissed enough about sitting there wasting time I finally said what I needed to say. Seems like it's easier for me to express certain thoughts/feelings when my temper is up.....

[mcl6136]

Not to get too theoretical and weird but I did Jungian therapy when I was in my twenties. I had some problems like those that you mention....

Read a little Jung. Found out that he called it "regression in the service of development."

I loved that.

I had a therapy session a few months ago when I stuttered.

Which tickled me because 1) I was a lobbyist in Washington for Crissakes, and lobbyists have a lot of character flaws but they can, at most moments, keep the bull flowing... 2) I thought of my old pal Jung.

This is regression and Development is just around the corner, Corndog.....

Smiles, smiles, smiles...my damn emoticons are broken.

[stopdog]

I think they need to be beaten into submission or cut out and replaced with ones who will do the job properly. When I command you to speak vocal cords, by god I mean it.

[Snuffleupagus]

Originally Posted by stopdog

Just one of the many reasons it irks me. That and of course the obvious lack of physical control over my body. Bodily betrayal is annoying.

Sounds like your body is screwing with your autonomy. Maybe it would help to not view it as a betrayal but rather an opportunity to practice gentle acceptance of yourself and what's going on in you at the moment. One of the paradoxes of anxiety is that fighting it exacerbates it.

[stopdog]

Originally Posted by mcl6136

Smiles, smiles, smiles...my damn emoticons are broken.

Is it wrong for me to rejoice over this?

[stopdog]

Originally Posted by Snuffleupagus

Sounds like your body is screwing with your autonomy. Maybe it would help to not view it as a betrayal but rather an opportunity to practice gentle acceptance of yourself and what's going on in you at the moment. One of the paradoxes of anxiety is that fighting it exacerbates it.

Always good to have a plan of last resort if the beatings and replacement fail.

[mcl6136]

Originally Posted by stopdog

Is it wrong for me to rejoice over this?

I would have expected no less, Shelterdog!

[BlessedRhiannon]

Originally Posted by stopdog

Has anyone here experienced being literally unable to speak to the therapist? When I first go in my pulse races, there is a rushing in my head and my legs feel like rubber. I used to literally shake and teeth chatter for the first 10 minutes or so. Now I can control the shaking, but I go to answer a question and it is like my throat is frozen. I have answers. I am trying to give an answer. I want to give the answer. But I cannot physically get it out. It usually gets better after about 15 minutes.
It irritates the crap out of me.

Sigh - yeah. Happens all the time to me. Even today, as a matter of fact. I will actually open my mouth to say something and no words come out...I can't get them to come out. The words are screaming in my head, but I feel like I physically can't turn them in to audible sounds.

My T is very patient with me. When I get like that, she asks me to talk about something else, or asks me to just sit and focus on my feelings for a minute, or she'll just patiently wait for me. Today, I was so very stuck and upset, she just asked me to tell her about my dogs for a few minutes. That got me relaxed and my vocal cords unstuck enough that I could talk. I'm so grateful for my T right now! (had a really, really tough session today, and she was just awesome...wish I could shrink her down and carry T around in my pocket!)

[Perna]

Do not like those physiological feelings! I remember when almost every time my T spoke to me it felt like she was zinging darts into me. What besides the 15 minutes passing helps? Is it just that nothing "bad" happens so you relax some or what?