[jazzy123456]

I am angry. I don't know why. I want to quit. I don't know why. I feel stuck. So, stuck. I feel like 2 and a half years ago I started therapy because I was severley depressed and suicidal but, most of all- the biggest reason that I know today but, didn't know then... was that I bottled in so many of my problems and issues my entire life, up to about 19 or 20 years old. Bottling in so many experiences and feelings was the true root of what really brought me to therapy in the first place. I didn't know that at the time. I just wanted her to figure out what was wrong with me. After a year and a half of processing through traumatic events and stories with my old therapist, I finally felt the weight of heaviness lift from my life. I finally felt like I could breathe a bit again. Was I still depressed? Yes but, that big heavy weight that depression carries, where clients carry a load of bricks with them to sessions disappeared... My old therapists calm, gentle, and empathetic nature gave me the strength to speak up about things that I never thought I could talk about. Unfortunatley, I left that alliance with my therapist feeling like she hated my guts and I was nothing but an annoyance to her. I was nothing but, an annoyance to her because I couldn't stay positive. I always said... "I just never felt validated growing up, so I feel like I have to be negative in order for people to hear me or listen to me..." I guess that line was old to her after a while ( a year and a half while-- dang, that's a long time!) but, I kinda wish instead of her being impatient with my negativity (although I understand her impatience, I was not a pleasant person...) I wish she could have TRULY got it. TRULY understood my story of me weeping and barely being able to stand up and my well-meaning dad but, misplaced statement he said while I was weeping: "You have never experienced pain...You don't even know what pain is..." I wish she could have truly understood what it really felt like to hear things like that while you are in tears and can barely stand. Instead, my therapist was so annoyed with my negativity I remember she said her abuse was worse then mine... which I can't say I disagree with that? I believe hers probably was. I just wish she could have put aside her resentment and patiently walked me out of that negativity and negative spirit...Maybe I could have learned something...maybe I had more work to get through with her... It would have been a fight. It might have left some scars but, I bet I would have came out stronger on the other side and more willing to abandon my old pattern of thinking for her view and opinion on optimisim and positivity. Anyways, thats actually sort of a tangent. It's over 2 years later.. and I have a new therapist. My old therapist supported me through the process of speaking up but, the speaking up was only limited to therapy and thats really as far as we got. I never learned how to speak up anywhere else but, in that room... 2 years later, I am still too afraid to say everything I am feeling to all of my family. I can say some to my moms but, I still hold back. I don't trust a single person to share anything with thats a supposedly "friend." I am thankful for my friends and I enjoy hanging out, especially in groups but, I'm not really a fan of close, intimate friendships anymore. People always seem to leave. And so I am stuck, stuck in a place where I like therapy because it's finally my moment to talk about what I have bottled inside... but, the problem is, I don't want to bottle it inside and wait for therapy to talk about it anymore. I don't want to do that because therapy makes me feel like I am not a valuable person. It makes me feel like the only way someone will listen to me is if I pay them. This makes me sad. It makes me sad that I feel like the only way the person will even see me is if I fit in their time slot. It makes me feel like their is something wrong with me because the only time I will open up is when I am in a room with a therapist. It makes me sad that I can't control when I will run out of money and not be able to afford it... yet, the therapist will move on... and make a "healthy detachment," and be done with it. A lot of these things make me sad. It makes me sad that I am not the client who works best with an hour. I am the client who needs 30 minutes just to get to a peaceable state... in order to really make progress but, thats not possible. The fact that I even desire that makes me feel guilty. It makes me pull back from even wanting to attend therapy.. it makes me desire the ability to open up my bottle and let my family (pretty much the only people I'd consider opening up about anything too) know what's going on in my life. Why am I always hiding? Why am I so afraid to show all of me? I don't get it. I'm stuck...I am stuck because I like therapy but, theres so much about therapy that makes me so sad. It kinda makes me feel like I am incompetent in a way to handle and tough out life like some of my other friends. I feel silly that I actually miss the sessions sometimes... when, again, it's just a slot.Anyone I would talk too would just tell me "Jazzy, they are just doing their job. That's all it is." It makes me feel weak. Yet, at the same time... if I don't go, I will bottle everything up inside again.. like I did 2 years ago... and then that may evolve into me becoming that suicidal, depressed girl again... someone I never, ever want to meet ever again. I feel stuck. I feel sad. I feel worthless.

Good thing feelings aren't fact... maybe they won't sit and stay too long... if theirs anything I've learned about therapy it's this...

"& This too shall pass... This feeling that the world is caving in on you and you feel you don't have enough space to stand. Yes, it will pass. You will feel light-hearted another day, as if none of this stuff ever bothered you. Yet, you will wake up another day to this lingering sadness again.. and you will feel like the storm clouds refuse to change pace and the heart in your chest will never stop the race but, it does. It all stops eventually... cus' at the end of the day, feelings aren't facts... No matter the pain, this too shall pass."

Jazzy.

--Some people want to know they aren't alone in their experiences or shortcomings... I just want to know that all of this is a normal part of the therapy experience. Is it? I mean, can you relate?

[Perna]

I think you have done incredible well in two years. I was in therapy for 18+ not that I'm saying I suffered more/less than you do but it just took me that long to work it all out.

Remember, if you were bottling hard for 20 years, having those experiences for that long, it could take you another 20 years to have the experiences that aren't like those, not counting the learning where and how to find those learning experiences. That's why I say I think you are doing incredibly well, you've gotten rid of the weight in two or less, think how long you carried it.

I think (at age 62) that parents and siblings, our "family" is a bit over-rated. You don't really know what is going on for 5-6 years and then you live with them another 15 or so and then go off into your life for another 50+, in my case, spending 35 of that 50, in and out of therapy because of that first 20. There are things I know now I wish I had figured out earlier but. . . what's that expression? "It is what it is".

[ultramar]

I'm so sorry, Jazzy that you're hurting so much.

I'm struck by that you almost seem to be writing about two different therapists, in that from what you say below...

After a year and a half of processing through traumatic events and stories with my old therapist, I finally felt the weight of heaviness lift from my life. I finally felt like I could breathe a bit again. Was I still depressed? Yes but, that big heavy weight that depression carries, where clients carry a load of bricks with them to sessions disappeared... My old therapists calm, gentle, and empathetic nature gave me the strength to speak up about things that I never thought I could talk about.

...It sounds like she really helped you with this:

I wish she could have TRULY got it. TRULY understood my story of me weeping and barely being able to stand

What could she have done differently to help you feel that she got it? Maybe in thinking about this, it will help you address your needs with your current therapist.

From a couple of things you say, it sounds like your therapist helped you process a great deal of pain/trauma, but maybe at some point wanted/expected you to move on from this, apply what you were learning in therapy to every day life -am I right here? Or maybe she was expecting that without helping you cope with your everyday life and therein lied the problem.

I'm so sorry you're not still with her (for this, not other reasons) to be able to talk to her about your perception that you were annoying to her, she was resentful, etc. Because there's a good chance that if you did that you'd find that this is not how she felt about you and you're being so very hard on yourself -she may well have some very positive feelings about you! Do you think you could schedule just one session with her to talk about this -maybe it would help you feel better about yourself -and even your current therapy?

I remember she said her abuse was worse then mine...

Did she really say this, I mean in these words? Or was it something implied and/or something you interpreted from other things she said, her demeanor, etc.? Because if this is a direct quote, what a horrendous thing to say!

I'm so sorry about what you're going through. What is it about your current therapy that gives you that 'just a client' feeling? Is this at least in part leftover from how you feel your previous therapist felt about you? I'd encourage you to talk to your therapist about how you're feeling about therapy itself. Maybe he/she could help you with this, maybe a first step to becoming unstuck?

I wish you the best.

[CantExplain]

Feeling stuck is often a sign of an imminent breakthrough.

[unaluna]

Off topic, but CE, is that you stuck on that sheep??? How cute!!! Ie both of yas!!