Do you ever feel like you're not being heard or understood?

Do you ever feel like no one really understands your pain, not even your therapist (on occasion, for me)? Are there times when you think you're doing a good job of explaining how you feel, (judging by the look on people's faces and/or their affirming sighs), and you get a "but...." where they go on to tell you how wrong you are about your own feelings and proceed to tell you just how you should get over them? I've been feeling like that for a few months.

My therapist is amazing, but sometimes she gets on my nerves, which is not often, but she can jump all over the last nerve I have left. It feels like she's wearing stilettos while she's jumping, too.

I'm a christian, but if I hear another person quote another scripture to me or tell me "God will...", I swear, I'm going to punch somebody. Actually, today I got so angry at someone who was on positive-thoughts-overload that I punched the brick wall near their gate as I left their house. They didn't see me do it. I didn't feel a thing when I did it. I have so much anger built up inside, and I feel like I can't tell anyone.

Anyone else ever feel like this?

I just had this problem with my T--I tried to explain that it was as if my hand had a gaping bleeding wound and he was just standing there lecturing me about my hand's circulatory system. Insight is useless when the pain is so intense.

Got this problem with my mum. I love her and know she loves me too.
I dont know why, but whenever we tried to speak about my problems/what had happened to me it just got worse. Yeah, she too came up with the open yourself to God and he will help you (god knows I've spent nights praying when I was a child and it didnt help a bit), accept it, don't think about it, think about something positive... Anyway, I felt so frustrated (plus it deepened my it's-all-my-fault thinking).
i've learned not to speak about this with her and find a T who understands and can help calm me down when I feel that way. IDK how he does it but it works and I do feel better after speaking to him- great relieve.
Cant imagine not getting that even from my T...

There were times when Madame T didn't seem to hear me at all.

My H tries to hear me sometimes, but he will openly acknowledge not understanding at all. And he will say things like, "Well, why don't you just stop thinking about it?"

I don't know if you deal with depression, but I found this bloody brilliant, and it kind of gets at the idea of the obnoxiousness of people spewing random positivity:

http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.co...t-two.html?m=1

Yep i feel this way all the time by my husband

And the other night t and i were having an intense discussion, and we were BOTH yelling at each other "youre not listening to me!" "i AM listening, youre not listening!"

All the time! It's my chief refrain - I'm not being heard, not being understood. And Ts are the biggest culprits (I've seen many Ts in the course of my therapy career) despite what I think is exceptional clarity and lucidity on my part in explaining myself .

It especially winds me up to get that 'but'. Not being heard and understood, that 'just' causes pain, but when I get lectured (even if well intentioned) about how I'm wrong or that I ought to do this that or the other - well yeah then I become very very frustrated and angry .

But then I have a lot of resentment anger and rage built up over the decades, for many many different reasons - so this kind of thing is just one more red flag to my anger bull.

Peridot can I ask, how do you deal with your anger, what do you do with it? Mine just sits there destroying me from the inside out .

Torn

Omg! I love this! I saw this the other day! I even printed it out to give to my T! I really recommend this to everyone! There is Depression and a part two. I highly recommend both!

I know that anger where people interrupt and/or obviously don't get it when I do get it out and they "should".

Make sure when you are talking about feelings that you say, "I feel. . ." and then use feeling words. List of Feeling Words Then gently correct people who try to tell you how you should feel or who try to tell you that you do/do not feel the way you feel, etc.

"You shouldn't feel sad, blah, blah, blah"
"That may be true, but I do feel sad."
"Well the Bible says, "A joyful heart makes a cheerful face", it works in reverse too, if you would only smile more you would feel better.
"I do not feel like smiling right now, but thank you for you advice."

Or,

"Maybe I will try that, thank you for your advice." (give them a sickly smile and walk away)

However, often when other people, especially T's negate what we say we feel, they are actually just giving their perception of us and that is "more valuable than gold". Just like another person cannot say we do/do not feel happy, sad, angry, hurt, anxious, etc. we cannot say how we look to them. And, to make matters worse, if they say, "You are not worthless" then, logically, we have to accept that since if we are of worth to them, then we cannot be worthless. If we insist on being worthless, we are calling them liars. Rock and a hard place.

If I were you, when your T or someone says, "You are not ______" take the word and ask them to give you concrete examples of how they see you as not ______. I have turned my thinking and perceptions around many times by taking the word of someone I love and/or trust and just arbitrarily deciding I'll agree with that view (take it on faith :-) instead of my own negative one. Over time, I start looking for the new actions that show I am not the negative but the positive instead.

OMG Lifelike, I am so glad you shared this with me. I totally get the facial expression thing, it happened with me the other day at work. And I started laughing at something that happened in therapy that could have been just humiliating, and I did feel that way at first, but then I felt like it was so hilarious. That was brilliant and I totally relate. Whoever posted that clearly knows what it is like.

All the time. People talk over me and never care that they are telling me what to do.
Even my t just ignores it when I say something hurts or something upset me she will totally skip over the feelings and look to the thoughts I had toile those feelings. It drives me nuts, I love her to bits but sometimes she is very frustrating because she talks so much I can never get a word in

I can relate to this.