Overwhelmed between sessions

I know I keep harping on about this, and I'm sorry. But I am not feeling quite capable of coping very well between T sessions. There's some rather painful stuff coming up, more than I thought, and I'm struggling with that. I'm also struggling with the thought of T itself. A day or two after the session I'm usually whining all over the couch thread about how worried I am about how the session went. Surely the rational thing would be to concentrate on the issues that came up, not on how I brought them up or whether T will fire me sooner rather than later. Maybe I should bring this up with T (it is what the couch dwellers tell me to do), but then I'd feel foolish for focusing too much on the process. And after all, what happens once I leave his office is my responsibility, not T's. Right? Does he need (or want?) to know that I feel the urge to call his voicemail and quit therapy, a day or two after each session? I won't quit, that's the thing, not unless something external happened to make it necessary, like me moving to another city or something.

Sorry. Cheese, anybody?

As the years go by, I am more able to cope with the gaps between sessions.
That's no use to you now, of course.

Writing things down sometimes provides some temporary relief, as does exercise.

I encourage you to be more specific about the issues themselves.
I care that you are in distress, but if you want more than just sympathy, you'll have to go into details.

The first question is, why are you so reluctant to say what the sessions were about?

Hi, dont feel bad about posting how you feel. I think your doing great. I have a real hard time when I see my therapist. It take time for me to calm down. I sounds normal to me.

Right. Thank you for this feedback, which is helpful. I do journal quite a bit -- exercise makes things worse, unfortunately, because it causes physical pain as well as a general mood plunge which takes me a long time to get over.

Thanks, layla. It is reassuring to know that it's not just me.

hi apt can i say that i am glad that you post about how you are feeling about your sessions. i never get tired of you posting at all. i completely relate to the hard time you have so post away if you have to. i wish i had some answers for you. i think talking to your T about this may be good.it hard sdaying that knowing i wouldn't probibly for the same reasons but it is the right thing to do i just wish i knew how to make it easier

hey apt...
You definitely aren't posting too much about this. I think posting is actually good, it helps you to get it out. Therapy is always worse when the relationship is newer, because new stuff comes up from week to week, and you just want to hide. As you begin to trust T to not be thinking badly of you, it will lessen.

Apteryx, I had a lot of diificulty between sessions, too, especially when painful stuff was coming up. It took a year of some how managing the pain between sessions for most of that stuff to finish coming out. The feelings were not directly related to the present but to my childhood so it was difficult to know what to do with them, how to handle them, how to keep living my life when I felt as if I was disintegrating inside. Exercise did help me but it sounds like it doesn't help you. I wrote a lot. Painting and other artist expression helped me. Sometimes I'd show them to t. They were all so red and black, abstract stuff about the feelings. They make me shutter to look at them now. There was too much pain for me to 'sit with it' and 'accept it' at the time.

There are no easy answers. I'm sorry you are going through this. You may just have to figure out varied ways to deal with it each week. Expression (getting it out). I wasn't able to post my feelings here on PC but I was reading the boards everyday and it helped to know I wasn't alone in my struggles. I cried and cried. Maybe some kind distraction would give you some relief. My t encouraged that sometimes when I was so overwhelmed. Something that holds your interests. That would be different for different people. Taking my camera into a garden helped for me. Finding and reading an engaging novel I could get lost in. Cooking sometimes help. You still know what you are going through is there but it is taken off center stage for a little while and you get some relief.

I think knowing that you have those urges can be very valuable for your T in helping you. Don't worry about focusing on the process - I'd estimate that my T and I spend about 20% of our time talking about the process and our relationship (mostly my insecurities around it). It's one of ways you learn about yourself.

(((granite)) - thank you, I know you're going through a rough patch and I very much appreciate your responding here. Hey, what do you say to us both making the effort to tell the Ts?

Thank you for the reassurance that I'm not being boringly repetitive. I do try to work on this, and it does help to post, however vaguely. And yes, trust is a big thing, and something that doesn't come easy for me in the first place (like so many of us) ; I sometimes fear that maybe I'm trusting T too much, talking about things like my sex life, which is something that raises huge red flags in my head of the THIS CANNOT BE SPOKEN ABOUT variety. I've only had ten appointments or something like that! Am I telling him too much too early? Is that a completely absurd question? I guess I'll ask, though I predict that he'll turn the question back at me.

I appreciate this very much, BonnieJean. It's extremely encouraging to hear that there may be a way through, rather than just a way of avoidance. I'm not artistic, but I do sing in a choir, and singing is sometimes kind of a relief. I read a lot, too, and can sometimes lose myself in a book... but I keep getting upset (I don't want to use the word "triggered") by all sorts of things in books that I relate to in various ways. (Because obviously everything in the whole wide world is all about me. ) I have actually started to make notes of some of these things, with a vague thought that it might be something to talk to T about. Which means I'm back to obsessing about therapy And PC is often an outlet as well - though not infrequently I feel very guilty about how minor my issues are compared to everybody else's. Which is good because it provides perspective, of course.

I fear I'm being a bit incoherent in my reply here. Your point about forcing the mind to go somewhere else is a very good one. Thank you!

Yes, the more I think about it the more I realise that I will have to raise the question. If for no other reason than to get it out of my head. And it might be a useful discussion to have with T. Thank you!

Good luck with it. It takes me about two days to recover from each appointment. So I spend 3-4 days a week in dread and then frustration over it. I think there are a lot of therapists who like to talk about the process.

This question made me a bit defensive this morning, CE, which is why I didn't respond properly then. I'm not actually sure why it's odd not to post details about T sessions? Some people do, and others don't... and what I wanted feedback on here is the between-sessions time. Much of what happens in the sessions has to do with things I have never talked about with anybody ever, so I'm afraid I'm not prepared to discuss it in public - in addition, some of it involves other people, so it would be a breach of privacy for me to discuss it. And besides, much as I respect the PC wisdom, I'm not coming here for therapy but for support. Does that make sense at all?

I do not talk about the appointments I have in depth here. I understand the reluctance to do so. I am not criticizing that people do, but it is not something that would be useful for me to do. I am kind of amazed at how many details people can remember about what the therapist says.

I don't think you are saying too much too soon to t. I think the more upfront you are the better you'll do.

It makes sense to me.