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  #1  
Old Jul 06, 2012, 01:09 PM
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pbutton pbutton is offline
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I have a proven track-record of minimization. I realize this.

However, I am struggling with why I think I need to be in therapy. Ok, maybe some of the things that happened to me were a bit worse than I realized at the time. But why does that mean I need therapy? I didn't think any of that stuff was too bad. I feel like my past was normal, especiallly when I read about some of the hard stuff you guys have gone through. Most of my childhood was ok. I am tough. It's fine.

If I have to go to therapy, why doesn't EVERYONE have to go to therapy? Hasn't everyone had bad stuff happen to them? Am I just being a baby? Shouldn't I just suck it up and handle myself better?

I am so confused. Are there really people who haven't had bad things happen?
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  #2  
Old Jul 06, 2012, 01:21 PM
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critterlady critterlady is offline
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I don't think it's about the bad stuff, per se, so much as it is about the effects the bad stuff had on you. If you're happy, have fulfilling relationships, don't obsess about things, have a positive self-image and a good sense of your own self-worth, then you may not need to be in therapy. Some people (I think a small minority) can get through some really bad stuff without long-term negative consequences.

I couldn't. The bad stuff that happened to me in my youth has affected me all my life and left me distrustful, scared, somewhat self-loathing, and, most importantly for me, alone. I don't like any of those things, so I'm in therapy develop more beneficial coping mechanisms.

As to whether everyone had bad stuff, it depends on how you define bad stuff. I describe stuff my grandmother did like it was no big deal and T says "you know how crazy that sounds to someone who didn't ever see that before?" I described how my parents used physical force for discipline and shrugged it off with "everyone got hit as a kid, right?" and he said "no, not every child was hit by their parents."

Sometimes it takes an objective eye to help you figure out what's "normal" and what isn't and the effect the stuff had on you.
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  #3  
Old Jul 06, 2012, 01:30 PM
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unaluna unaluna is online now
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Quote:
Originally Posted by pbutton View Post
If I have to go to therapy, why doesn't EVERYONE have to go to therapy?
Precisely, my dear Watson Everyone DOES have to go to therapy, only no one makes them go. Do the Kardashians need therapy? YES! Does Mitt Romney, putting his poor dog on the car roof, need therapy? Duh! Wouldn't you send most of our parents to therapy? One problem is, you do have to be therapizable; otherwise they just send you home after one visit like they did my mom. So now that you have seen the light, yes, you kinda sorta are obligated to follow it - how do you turn your back on knowledge? Do you pretend you don't see the better path, and just go back to taking "it" out on other people, whatever your "it" is? So that's why I go.
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  #4  
Old Jul 06, 2012, 01:49 PM
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i dont think everyone needs to go to therapy. A lot of people had a good enought upbringing, their ok with their inner world and if things go wrong for them they are able to map their way through it.

I think a lot of people could benefit from therapy, but thats different from needing it.
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  #5  
Old Jul 06, 2012, 01:50 PM
Anonymous32517
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Originally Posted by hankster View Post
So now that you have seen the light, yes, you kinda sorta are obligated to follow it - how do you turn your back on knowledge? Do you pretend you don't see the better path, and just go back to taking "it" out on other people, whatever your "it" is? So that's why I go.


Thank you, Hankster! I would like to embroider this in cross-stitching and place over my bed, only 1) I don't do cross-stitch, 2) the kittens would tear it down in three minutes like they did with the previous decoration we had over our bed. Oh, and 3) it is maybe not quite as snappy as most of the wall hangings with embroidered mottoes you see. Much more true, though.
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  #6  
Old Jul 06, 2012, 02:23 PM
Anonymous33425
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Originally Posted by hankster View Post
So now that you have seen the light, yes, you kinda sorta are obligated to follow it - how do you turn your back on knowledge? Do you pretend you don't see the better path...

Wise words H!
  #7  
Old Jul 06, 2012, 02:26 PM
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unaluna unaluna is online now
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you guys are embarrassing me! you're gonna make me follow my own words - I hope!
  #8  
Old Jul 06, 2012, 02:35 PM
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SallyBrown SallyBrown is offline
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It's really interesting to me that in many health-related areas, we think we need to stop when we're feeling better. That's the whole thing with antibiotics making superbugs. People stop taking them when they feel better, but when they feel better isn't necessarily when all the bugs are dead. It's the thing with fad diets, too. People eat and do crazy things, but stop when they've lost the weight. And usually put it back on.

You're making an assumption that people who don't go to therapy don't need it. Oh my goodness no. How many people do you interact with on a daily basis that are handling one thing or another in a bizarre self-sabotaging way that could probably be helped with a little guided self-examination?

Also, what's this with NEEDING something in order to make it worthwhile? If we only did what we needed, we wouldn't be doing all that much. The fact is, we all do lots of things we don't need because they make our lives better. I don't need to try out a new haircut every so often, but I do because it makes me feel good. I don't need to walk to work sometimes, but I do because I find that getting some sun during the day helps my mood. I don't need to travel, but I do because I really enjoy it. I don't need coffee, but heaven help you if you try to take it away from me.

And in reality, many of us would probably survive without therapy. I would probably be able to stumble through life. But the fact is, I am much happier and much more balanced with therapy. I do believe there's something chemical/genetic about my depression that I am just plain stuck with, in that I have been having trouble controlling my own sadness since as far back as anyone can recount. But like you, many of the bad things that I read about on this board never happened to me. Sometimes I read this forum, then promptly go into the bathroom and cry, because it makes me so angry and upset. Relatively speaking, my parents did ok. I've had a pretty lucky life. But there is still stuff that I do that I don't understand, that makes life more difficult now. Just because that stuff doesn't have an origin in abuse doesn't make it not worth sorting out so I can pursue happiness.

Everyone goes through some bad stuff, and some people still manage to keep a really healthy perspective about some things. People have been trying to figure out what makes some people respond to a certain life one way, and what makes other respond another way, forever. If you could figure it out, you could bottle it and sell it and retire. But for now, if therapy helps you, then let it help! If it feels like it's not adding much, that's one thing... but if it's good for you, continuing to benefit from it doesn't really say anything bad about you at all.
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  #9  
Old Jul 06, 2012, 02:55 PM
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I'm feeling a little guilty, pbutton, thinking some of the junk I've been posting may be what's making you feel this way. [feel free to say IT'S NOT ALL ABOUT YOU! to me now] However, having read some of the stuff that you posted on here before and in some of the other forums, your childhood was no picnic and I think that you have legitimate reasons for going to therapy. Even if those reasons did not exist, the fact that you want to improve yourself and how you interact with people would still be a legitimate reason to go to therapy.

Also, I will say that when I was growing up, I watched my cousins' lives and was convinced that I was one of the lucky ones, in terms of my parents. They never left us alone for days on end with no food. They didn't shoot us with a gun loaded with rock salt to punish us. So, everything is relative.

Oh, and my cousins? The ones who got locked in houses with no food and shot at? THEY did not go get therapy. Just because people desperately need therapy doesn't mean that they get it. Does the fact that they did not get therapy mean that I should not be allowed to go to therapy?
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  #10  
Old Jul 06, 2012, 03:34 PM
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A lot of this is coming from a conversation I had with T1. He has told me that I am in good shape to be facing this [unwanted] end to my therapy. He told me that I am a success story and that I am very capable. He says I am not one of the people he will worry about after he has to stop seeing everyone. (He was very quick to add that it did not mean that he doesn't care about me.) When I tried to talk in the next session about how that comment hurt my feelings, he tried to explain by saying that he had patients who were sui, didn't have a place to live, etc. Those people are getting dropped too.

In the interest of full disclosure, I did not explain myself very well. I did not tell him the comment hurt my feelings. Instead I said it was an awful thing for him to say & that people on this board don't even like to SEE their T's other patients yet there mine is, comparing me to his in my session.

I am taking it to mean that he is determining I am less worthy of help, but I don't think I have managed to communicate to him that it is hurting me this way. I told him not to say that to anyone else. I MEANT that it was hurtful and I didn't want him to hurt any of his other clients, but he said something about how I wanted to be special. WAY OFF TRACK.

I feel greedy for seeking out another T. Maybe I don't need more help. HOWEVER, I have a tendency to think everyone else needs help and that I should somehow be able to figure everything out on my own.

T1 did finally say at the end that it may be his 25 years in community mental health that is making him biased when he thinks I am doing so great. He is a good T but he is being forced into dropping all his clients. I'm wondering how that is affecting him. I know he's not happy with the changes, he has made that clear.

T2 seemed to think I needed help. But he doesn't know me as well. It's confusing me. I am not good at asking for help. I am AWFUL at asking for help.

Last edited by pbutton; Jul 06, 2012 at 04:19 PM.
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  #11  
Old Jul 06, 2012, 04:23 PM
stopdog stopdog is offline
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If therapy is helping you or has the potential then it is good to let yourself have it, in my opinion.
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  #12  
Old Jul 06, 2012, 05:24 PM
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Silent_tsol Silent_tsol is offline
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I've spun that circle many times pb. I think what everyone else has said is very true. Try replacing therapy with some other activity in the same sentence. I have a hard time believing I'm not wasting t's time with my menial problems too, but when I sub in something else I can think more clearly. For example, I'm not wasting my yoga instructor's time because I can't do a handstand because she gets paid whether I can or not, and she helps me to work towards crazy things.
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  #13  
Old Jul 06, 2012, 05:27 PM
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kiki86 kiki86 is offline
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well nothing terrible has happened to me and i still need therapy. my T says it's not really about what happened or didn't happen to me, it's just that growing up I wasn't taught to deal with things.

My views on the world and relationships became warped and now it's causing me problems. most importantly if it helps you then nothing else really matters. there isn't some therapy arbitrator who decides who needs or does not need therapy.
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  #14  
Old Jul 07, 2012, 07:36 AM
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WikidPissah WikidPissah is offline
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pbutton...it drives me crazy when my T tells me I am doing "so well". It makes mefeel like he hasn't listened or I haven't been clear. Don't get me wrong, telling me that I kicked ***** getting off my meds is great, but telling me I am doing "so well" when I am spiraling out of control in a flashback mess sux.
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  #15  
Old Jul 07, 2012, 11:19 AM
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pbutton - I am no expert and I struggle with the T thing all the time - but I do believe if you are completely OK and don't need further help from a T, you wouldn't be asking the question (at least that is what I tell myself at times of ambivalence).

You felt hurt about what your T said, aren't good at asking for help and to me at least exploring these would be beneficial for your future - there may be times when we need to ask for help when T is not around (i.e. we have finished therapy) and if we don't know how to do that, we may end up really struggling with life events.

I am learning from my T that the relevant stuff to explore, is the stuff we are focused on at any one time and I wonder whether what you have posted here, would be useful to work through with a T?
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  #16  
Old Jul 07, 2012, 12:32 PM
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athena.agathon athena.agathon is offline
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I feel like everybody covered this really well, but I'm gonna jump in anyway. As Kiki said, it's not like there's some therapy arbitrator deciding who does and does not deserve help. You are not a waste of time. It sounds like your therapist is relieved that you are not suicidal or homeless. But that's a pretty low baseline.

If you want to do better (and somebody else above said accurately that sometimes we let ourselves think mistakenly that therapy is just about crisis management when it can also be about learning to thrive and be happy). I think getting over our stuff is a continuum; being on one end or the other does not make you bad or good or less/more deserving of help. And everybody can move around a lot on the continuum depending on what's going on in their lives.

I think "bad things" happen to most people--that's life; however, I think whether bad things constitute "trauma" or not depends on how a particular person's coping skills match up with their level of distress...if something really bad happens to you when you are particularly vulnerable, like if you were a child when it happened, or it was someone you trusted and depended on who hurt you, that can make the repercussions worse.

I do think there are plenty of people who haven't been traumatized...until I moved out of the house and started checking out the situation when I was in college, I thought everybody's dad knocked them around. But apparently most people were not raised by wolves.

As a fellow minimizer, I have to say I think you deserve help. Personally, I would say I'mfineI'mfineI'mfine, back the **** off me, even if I was standing on the edge of a cliff, so don't do that! It's OK to ask for help even when you think you are just a little not OK.
  #17  
Old Jul 07, 2012, 12:32 PM
InnovateYoung21 InnovateYoung21 is offline
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I think it's subjective, what's bad to one person may not be bad to another person...there are people who are better equipped to deal with some things in life then others. For someone that has a good support system and has an upbringing where they were taught how to cope and deal with their problems effectively; they might not need therapy as much as someone that doesn't have those things even though they are both dealing with similar problems
  #18  
Old Jul 07, 2012, 12:52 PM
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Perna Perna is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by pbutton View Post
In the interest of full disclosure, I did not explain myself very well. I did not tell him the comment hurt my feelings. Instead I said it was an awful thing for him to say & that people on this board don't even like to SEE their T's other patients yet there mine is, comparing me to his in my session.

I am taking it to mean that he is determining I am less worthy of help
Ah, the old comparison thing. I remember when I was 9 and moved from the Washington, D.C. suburbs to Norfolk, VA and was supposed to start 4th grade but they could not find my smallpox vaccination scar so I had to get revaccinated. My father was in the Navy so we go to the Navy dispensary (this was back in 1959) and it's toward the beginning of the year so there are all these first graders needing their smallpox vaccination and they were all crying, etc. The doctor tells me (love being the military brat, stiff upper lip and all that) to pretend it does not hurt so it will give confidence to the younger kids.

I think that is sort of how your T is meaning your therapy; no you are not grown up yet, ready to necessarily terminate therapy and ride off into the sunset but, for this episode of therapy, you're in a better place than the first timer, six year olds. Your difficulties and defenses are such that you'll be "okay" (not cry :-) until you can get up and running with T2.

Assuming another person's meaning without checking it out with that person has long gotten me in trouble. I always got "marked down" in my therapy grades for not doing "reality checking".

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/...nd-your-dreams
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  #19  
Old Jul 07, 2012, 12:53 PM
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Originally Posted by pbutton View Post
I have a proven track-record of minimization. I realize this.

However, I am struggling with why I think I need to be in therapy. Ok, maybe some of the things that happened to me were a bit worse than I realized at the time. But why does that mean I need therapy? I didn't think any of that stuff was too bad. I feel like my past was normal, especiallly when I read about some of the hard stuff you guys have gone through. Most of my childhood was ok. I am tough. It's fine.

If I have to go to therapy, why doesn't EVERYONE have to go to therapy? Hasn't everyone had bad stuff happen to them? Am I just being a baby? Shouldn't I just suck it up and handle myself better?

I am so confused. Are there really people who haven't had bad things happen?
i could have written this word for word, pbutton. i question this ALL THE TIME, and my T also says i minimize as well.
  #20  
Old Jul 07, 2012, 01:41 PM
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athena.agathon athena.agathon is offline
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Originally Posted by Perna View Post
I think that is sort of how your T is meaning your therapy; no you are not grown up yet, ready to necessarily terminate therapy and ride off into the sunset but, for this episode of therapy, you're in a better place than the first timer, six year olds. Your difficulties and defenses are such that you'll be "okay" (not cry :-) until you can get up and running with T2.
Ok, this is what I wanted to say but you said it way better with your analogy, Perna!
  #21  
Old Jul 07, 2012, 01:53 PM
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Originally Posted by athena.agathon View Post
But apparently most people were not raised by wolves.


It is amazing to get out into the "world" and find what you thought was "normal" based on what you experienced growing up is not. I wish I had remembered the shocks of learning that and applied it my understanding of how I perceived things so I could realize if how I was raised was not "normal" than how I perceive things is not "normal" either so, when negative should be discredited immediately until I can learn a better perception pattern.
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  #22  
Old Jul 07, 2012, 02:46 PM
ListenMoreTalkLess ListenMoreTalkLess is offline
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Originally Posted by pbutton View Post

However, I am struggling with why I think I need to be in therapy.
For myself this answer is not about what other people do or what other people need. I think there are a number of different dimensions upon which some therapy clients could be considered to be doing better than others-- one is life functioning, from unable to work because of mental health issues to super successful at work, or from no social support system to a long term and stable support system. Another might be severity of symptoms, from folks who need to be hospitalized to folks who pose no threat of self harm. Another might be coping abilities, where some folks might appear able to deal with whatever crises come their way, to others who are thrown into a crisis from any small destabilization. I think another might be progress, whereas some folks are stagnant while others move quickly towards growth or take risks that are likely to generate growth. So when T's make statements about how one is doing well, they could be speaking to any or all (or more) of these dimensions. I could see how this could be felt as if a T was minimizing difficulties experienced by a client, though. I have certainly felt that way in the past.

For me the issue is about whether I am where I want to be right now. If I am where I want to be, then I don't need therapy. If I want to be healthier or happier or be more who I think I am but I'm not there yet, then I need to be in therapy. I think that a belief that you don't need to be in therapy because of some objectively high level of some kind or all kinds of functioning misses the point. That seems like saying that the world record holder in some distance of running or swimming doesn't need a coach because they are already the world's best. Or that this athlete doesn't need to practice, or try different ways to become better, faster.

Of course athletics are competitive, but therapy is for me a competition with myself. I have goals to be a better person-- at ease more in my social relationships, a better communicator with my wife, to be more comfortable and have fewer miscommunications with my colleagues and friends; to be better at resolving conflicts with everyone; to have a greater distance between the effects of my traumatic past and my present life; to be more mindful, especially during times of intensified emotion.

I'm sure if I quit therapy right now, I'd be just fine. But I guess I"m looking for more out of life than just an absence of serious problems or crises.
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