Dear God can it get any worse!!

[granite1]

are you ok what happened

[BlessedRhiannon]

[ljp1979]

((((hugs))))

[Omers]

We're here if you need to talk/vent

[sittingatwatersedge]

I'm sorry Squiggle.

[nannypat]

Originally Posted by Omers

We're here if you need to talk/vent

Oh no! You are hurting badly. We are here when your ready or just to send you soothing hugs.

[googley]

((((((((((Squiggle)))))))

[WePow]

OH NO!!!! What happened? Big hugs!!!

[SpiritRunner]

Oh I am sorry! Please tell us if/when you can......

[rainbow8]

Squiggle, what happened? Please post. We're here for you!!!

((((((((((((Squiggle)))))))))))))

Thinking about you...

Making the decision to go into therapy was just another stupid phase I went through in anticipation that something good may actually come of it. Once again, I have made a fool of myself thinking my life could be different.

(IMO) Therapy is nothing but a dead end road. False hope. I cannot believe that I bought into this nonsense that talking about all my issues would make a difference. I emptied my soul. For what? Heartache and major disappointment, that's what.

((((((((Squiggle))))))))

What happened??

[rainbow8]

Squiggle--I'm so sorry you're feeling that therapy gets you only heartache and disappointment. You haven't always felt that way. What happened in your session today?

[karebear1]

So sorry Squiggs-- check you pm's please.

If any of you read my other thread on shutting down, you will know what I am referring to. I totally shut down completely today. No emotions. Minimal talking. Stared at the walls. Looked out the window. I was empty and void. Numb. I felt absolutely nothing at all. It was almost an out of body experience.

I gave her my journal notes to read. At the end of them, I wrote, "Please don't let me sit here and do nothing. This will cause me to go home and be miserable." She tried a little to get me to open up. But mostly sat there in silence. WHY! I asked her NOT to do that! At one point she asked me if I was going to go home miserable. I did not say this out loud, but I was thinking, "Not if you do what I asked you to do in my notes!"

She asked me, "Are you wanting me to make you talk?" and later, "Do you want me to make you mad so that you will open up?" I told her, "YES! If that's what it takes, I DO want you to make me mad! I do want you to make me talk!"

I explained it to her like this. I am a teacher. If I have a student who comes in one day and sits there with a blank look on his face and says he doesn't FEEL like working today, I would say something to the effect, "I am sorry you do not feel well, but you are going to work today." I would give him the assignments and make him do them. I would stay on him until he got them all done. He may get mad at me, but it is my job to make sure he does what he needs to do for that day.

She said, "But you are not a child. I am not going to make you do anything. You have to want to do it. What do you want to accomplish in therapy today?"

I replied, "I disagree with you. YOU are the one who should have an agenda of what we need to work on. I write you several emails every week. You KNOW what I am going through. YOU should take over when I cannot. YOU are the expert. I came to YOU for help. When I am in a desperate state, are you just going to leave me like this?"

I was SO MAD! I need for her to be more aggressive!!! She said that me wanting her to make me mad, or pounce on me (attack me), was my way of using avoidance and projection as a coping mechanism. In other words, I wanted her to bring up the painful things so that I could blame her if they caused me to get too emotional and upset. She said this is common with clients who are going through major issues in therapy.

I told her, "For one thing, I am sick to death of you talking about FEELINGS! Just how many textbooks did you use on FEELINGS? Do they have FEELINGS 101, FEELINGS 102, FEELINGS 103, etc...in college? Is that all that you learn in psychology? Can we talk about something else!! We have gone over these same things 100 times!! The horse is dead. Can we stop beating a dead horse!"

Her response was, "Yes, we talk about your feelings a lot. They are important. You have not faced your feelings and that is why we continue to work on them. You are going through anger right now. You have not addressed anger in therapy. I WILL continue to 'hound' you about anger until you get to the point that you allow yourself to FEEL anger, work through it, and let it go. That is my job! It is not my job to make you feel good. It is my job to see what is hindering you from having that successful, happy life that you wrote in your goals. You must work through this anger if you ever want to achieve that goal."

She went on to say, "What can you do today to let some of your anger out? Can you yell or scream? Is there something you would like to say to me? You said in one of your emails that you wanted to tell me to 'shut the f** up!' Is that something you would like to say? Go ahead, say it!"

Of course I said, "No, I am not going to disrespect you by saying that to your face." She went on, "Do you FEEL like saying it? If you do, I want you to say it. You can say whatever you want/need to say in here. What is holding you back? Therapy is where you dump out all the ugly things in your life. You are not going to offend me."

I just sat there like a rock. Completely closed. No expression at all.

She asked me if I felt that was I cycling out of the mania and going in to the depressive phase. I told her, "I don't know. What do YOU think!"

Her response was, "How do you feel? Do you feel like you are depressed?" She makes me so mad! Answers my questions with a string of her questions!!

I was so aggravated by the end of the session. I got up and slapped my check on her desk and waited for her to give me my receipt. As she was writing out the receipt, she said, "Your assignment for next week is to explore where all your anger is coming from. Try to identify the source. Work on how you can release that anger in a safe way. I want you to continue to work on being able to express your FEELINGS while IN therapy. You do a good job of writing them in your emails, but I want you to be able to show them in our sessions as well."

I was like, "Yeah, whatever." Another stupid assignment on anger and feelings. Blah, blah, blah,.......

I kinda snatched the receipt without looking at her. Normally she would walk me to the door, but I beat her to it. As I walked out, she said, "I also want you to explore why you are mad at me."

Whatever! I didn't even look at her. Just walked out. It was horrible!!! I felt like I wasted my time and money today! I am so mad at her right now that I never want to go back. Why can't she be more aggressive? I am the type of person that needs that! I told her I need for her to push me. Why does she make me sit there being swallowed up in my emotions?

I am sure she thinks this is good for me in some way. Sitting with my anger, fear, and whatever else I have wrong with me. I am a basket case. Much worse than I was when I began therapy. What is the point of all of this? If I am going to have to do all the work, why bother? What is her role? Sit in that leather chair and look at me???

Our session was about 90% spent in total silence and 10% actually talking. What a waste!! Maybe I need to take a month off from therapy to re-evaluate if this really has any validity to it. Right now I am thinking it is a bunch of crock!!

[lastyearisblank]

I think that sounds like the best session ever. (Don't get mad at me Squiggle!) It just does.

"For one thing, I am sick to death of you talking about FEELINGS! Just how many textbooks did you use on FEELINGS? Do they have FEELINGS 101, FEELINGS 102, FEELINGS 103, etc...in college? Is that all that you learn in psychology? Can we talk about something else!! We have gone over these same things 100 times!! The horse is dead. Can we stop beating a dead horse!"

You are very much your own person Squiggle. I really hope you're not mad but I agree with your T. She can not make you do anything. It's all coming from you and you're doing amazing work together.

[Suratji]

Oh Squiggle - so sorry it went badly for you. It seems like T should have been more assertive but I don't know for sure. I do know that when I needed T to take the lead, she did. Our situations are different so I wouldn't be able to say that that is exactly what you should have received from T.

It does seem like she could offer more guidance instead of giving you the same homework over and over again. Of course we need to do our own work but when we find ourselves stuck, we need extra help. I can feel your frustration and I think it's very understandable. She keeps asking you to figure it out by yourself. It seems like she should be trying a different method by now.

In my experience, therapy can make you feel way worse before youf eel better.

Hang in there.

[with or without you]

Sounds like a bit of a breakthrough to me. (Don't hate me!)

[rainbow8]

It COULD be that the fit isn't good with your T and you need someone who is more directive, or it could be that she is going to help you if you stick with it and try to deal with the way she does therapy.

It doesn't sound to ME like the worst session ever, but that's because I'm not you. I can understand your frustration, but I think your T is doing her job correctly according to her orientation. Most of the Ts I've had have left it up to me to lead the therapy. In fact, out of the 5 I've had, my current T is the only one who often has an agenda, but she still leaves the subject up to me.

It's YOUR therapy. Your T can't make you do anything. I don't think that would be helpful in the long run.

My T also wants me to express my feelings in my sessions, and not just in my emails. She says it's always been in my head, and that's not healing. I need to FEEL, and do it in the sessions. So, your T isn't wrong about feelings. What do you think is important to concentrate on if it's not feelings? Well, my former T was behavorially oriented and focused more on solutions, not feelings. So, do you want a different kind of therapy that is solution/oriented instead?

I'm sorry you think therapy is a waste and are having such a hard time with your T right now. It does seem like you ARE accomplishing something but it's painful and maybe that's why you're so upset. Hang in there. I think something good WILL come from your sticking it out.

[karebear1]

I think T's probably get to us anyway they can Squiggles. There's a good reason they not only lisen to us, but watch us very closely and pick up on any little que they can. It helps them to know what our sensitive areas are us and when we can't approach them on our own, they prod and poke and PUSH until we finally respond. (That's what I think anyway)Doesn't matter to them if we get mad. I think they relish it when they see any emotion from someone that doesn't exhibit emotion to them.

Originally Posted by Suratji

Oh Squiggle - so sorry it went badly for you. It seems like T should have been more assertive but I don't know for sure. I do know that when I needed T to take the lead, she did. Our situations are different so I wouldn't be able to say that that is exactly what you should have received from T.

It does seem like she could offer more guidance instead of giving you the same homework over and over again. Of course we need to do our own work but when we find ourselves stuck, we need extra help. I can feel your frustration and I think it's very understandable. She keeps asking you to figure it out by yourself. It seems like she should be trying a different method by now.

She is in the process of studying EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique)to use with me. She knows how much I shut down and this particular method is supposed to help you tap into those emotions/feelings you are struggling with. When I look at it, it looks rather silly. But when you get desperate enough, you will try anything!

In her defense, (because I feel guilty for talking bad about her), she did prompt me quite a few times today. But those prompts were open ended questions. We would sit in silence for a while, then she would say something to me. Most of the time, I totally ignored her. Not that I wanted to, but I could not talk. That is NOT normal for me at all.

When I got too distant she would call my name, "Squiggle? Did you hear me? Do you want me to repeat the question?" If I said anything at all it was, "What question?" So, she may have said a lot more than I recall, but I was so emotionally numb that I did not hear her. As for the repeated assignments, she did add one more thing today. "I want to work on how you can stop the negative thoughts you keep telling yourself. Pay attention to what you are telling yourself. Stop yourself from going there. Use the skills we have talked about (REBT) to rethink those thoughts."

One other thing that happened before I even got there. She emailed me this morning that we would have to end our session at 4:00 today because she had an unexpected issue come up. We normally go from 3:00 - 4:30. I only pay for the hourly session, but we always go over.

She told me that it had nothing to do with the (ugly) email I sent her earlier in the week. She said, "I am not mad at you, ignoring you, abandoning you, rejecting you, or any other thing that you may be telling yourself. This is just for today. We need to end on time."

She knows that any little thing that messes with our appointments stresses me out. It can send me into an anxiety attack! I told her that I didn't think I would come today, but wait until next week. My appointment is Friday, April 8th. This would mean that I would have had 18th days between sessions! I felt that would be far worse than if I just came on in today. Not sure if I made the right decision or not. I think no matter what I chose to do, I would have been miserable.

Something else that is probably fueling my anxiety is that our appointments have not been consistent. I normally go on Mondays. This past month, I went on a Tuesday, the next week was Wednesday, this week was Thursday, and next week is Friday.

After that one, we are back to Monday. I can't deal well with so much change. She normally does not do this. I am the only client that she sees at 3:00. I know she is just working this out for me. She has issues with picking her girls up after school when her husband is out of town and her babysitter can't do it for her. That is why the days have been moved around so much this month. I hope it gets straightened back out.

When she knows that I am stuck she will ask me to tell her what I need from her. She says this helps me learn to reach out to others and ask for help. She thinks that my low self esteen and low selfworth keep me from reaching out to others. She says that I am to use her to help me gain more confidence to be able to ask for help.

[Suratji]

Squiggle - do you really believe that today you had the worst session of your life? Or is it that you felt some of the most painful emotions of your life? Progress maybe?