Hi. Thank you for reading my post. I hope you are feeling really good today! I hope you are surrounded with love and affection all day and carry peace and fulfillment with you.

Recently I re-entered therapy. In the past it has not been very helpful which I attribute to many things: not a good match in therapists, I was not ready, wrong type of therapy, my tendency to quit too readily. Now I have someone I really like a lot and I think I am more ready and I really really want this to be helpful, productive, and meaningful.

I do feel like she started with an advantage over me in that she spoke with my last therapist (online, informal) and I am still getting to know her. I have not shared this thought with her and I probably should.

But it is awkward. I feel awkward, even though I love being there and I trust her as much as I ever have anyone. This last session we did guided imagery. When she asked if I felt comfortable enough to do it, I said 'No, but I am willilng to try'. It was really wonderfully relaxing and the effect lasted a while... until I did my usual 'falling apart' afterward... After sessions, within hours, I am crying uncontrollably and unable to distract or soothe myself. I am trying to get off Xanax and I resist taking it as much as possible. I don't know why this is happening and this week I was surprised that it happened because the relaxation seemed to be lasting... I didn't miss work this week like I did last week. And last week I called her when I couldn't calm down; I'd never called a therapist and I don't want to be someone who does. That is just me.. maybe it's okay to call, I don't know. We did talk and she calmed me and said maybe she needs to slow down. I thought later that maybe I need to speed up. I find it so hard to talk in there. I can (and do!.. lol) write volumes, but talking... makes it all sound so silly and immature and shameful. I have said things to her I thought I'd never say out loud and I feel good about that. Maybe I need to slow down my expectations of myself and the process too.

When I am in this 'falling apart' state and then afterwards, I feel like I am not really 'there'. I feel like I am in a fog, off in a distance... as if I am in another room although I am standing or sitting right beside the person talking to me. It is very hard to focus, to comprehend what is being said to me. I tried to recall the relaxation exercise but couldn't remember it all which further distressed me (I want to ask her if she'd make me an audio tape, but not sure if I should. Her voice seems to be an important part of the exercise) ... I got up and walked, using the grounding technnique of feeling my feet on the floor and of reminding myself where I was, the date, etc. Nothing helped..I trudged through 2 days of that this week, then was so exhausted I took the day off today.

Sorry so long. I am curious if you have or have had this 'falling apart' happen to you? If so, what did you find was helpful? Does/did it go away with time? Why does this happen?!?

Thank you SO much for anything you might be able to share. I am very grateful to you.

[Perna]

I would look at how you're feeling in therapy and how it may be "overloading" you? That's not a bad thing, quite good and necessary I think (was for me) but painful to go through. I would tell your therapist about your reaction, discuss it with her, and maybe she can modify the guided imagry or get your direct input so it's not so intense? Or, maybe you can make a tape for yourself, kind of copy what she says/is doing? You might have picked up a key with your enjoying her voice. Your mother's or someone's in your past voice you "longed" for might hold a key?

I know whenever I did anything intense in therapy there was always a reaction afterwards, especially before I learned to catch it during therapy and discuss it on the spot. I'd carry stuff away with me to where I was "safe" to fall apart and look at what was scary, etc. It was only when my relationship with my T evolved into a "partnership" and we discussed everything in the session that happened in the session that things got less "messy" outside the session.

The key to doing relaxation visualizations (otherwise known as guided imagry, hypnosis, self hypnosis, day dreaming, therapeutic dissociation) is trusting the "guide" and repetition.

I have been doing relaxation visualizations all my life (dissociation is just using relaxation and visualization (imagry) to mentally escape an abusive situation by daydreaming about a mental safe place)

At home I do them at night after a warm to hot bath when I am good and tired and somewhat relaxed already. I do a self made relaxation visualization of laying in bed and imagining my friends are at strategic points in my home (by windows and doors and so on) and anyone that wants to get to me has to get past them first. Including having one of my best friends and or my therapist holding and protecting me while I sleep.

When my therapist found out I do this and that I have set a goal for myself of using relaxation visualizations as a way to relax myself to where I can access my repressed memories we made some relaxation visualization tapes. Now not only do I have my own relaxation visualization but I also have the benefit of actually hearing my therapist voice helping me to relax. and being able to not only do them in therapy sessions but also practice following her into the relaxation visualizations at home too.

With relaxation visualizations (like anything else a person does when learning to do new things) the more I do them with LL and also practicing on my own at home the easier they get.

Take a cassette and tape recorder with you the next time you do then with your therapist that way you can record doing them. that way at home when you start panicing and so on all you have to do to acchieve that calmness you got during therapy is turn on the tape.

Works for me most of the time though I don't fall apart because of doing relazation visualizations. if anything I have more control of how to take care of things after doing the relaxation visualizations because my head is calm and so on so that I can take care of things BEFORE I fall apart because something in my life isn't going right and so on.
My panics are from nightmares and other PTSD issues not related to the relaxation visualization process.

You might want to talk to your therapist because this falling apart after doing a relaxation visualization should not be happening. They are meant for creating more relaxation and well being not for causing more problems so something isn't right or working in the process for you.

If this was me and I was falling apart after the sessions I would be telling LL that something isnt right and going through each step of the recording to find out what needed to be changed before doing the next relaxation visualization. For example LL and I made a recording. During the session I did not notice that during the progressive relaxation part of the induction process she had said - is your bladder and bowels relaxed? But at home when I practiced the relaxation visualization that sent me into giggles for in physical medicine relaxing of the bladder and bowels means going to the bathroom. LOL Obviously that would not work besides the physical fact of what that is, Im not going to total relaxed state of mind if I can't stop laughing. So I told LL that HAD to go when we did the next relaxation visualization session and I was going to edit that part out on the tape that I had at home.

Relaxation visualizations are only as good as what you put into them so talk with your therapist BEFORE doing it again so t hat the problem can be taken care of.

and professionals that I have had contact with that work with relaxation visualizations say ANY AND ALL harmfull effects should NEVER be happening with guided imagry. When it does happen that means something is not right and the process should not be done again until the problem has been taken care of.

Sounds like you are starting to feel really attached to your t. You said something about trusting her as much as anyone. Maybe... You let her in more than anybody else too... And because you are trusting her so much... You are freaking out.

Happens to me too.

When the attention system is active mentalization goes out the window. I crumble from within. Feels like it anyway. Does this remind you of your relationship with anyone from your past? Who was the last person you really cared about and let in? What happened with that? How about before that? How about before that? What is your recurrent pattern of interaction?

Maybe you are starting to play it out with your t.

Congradulations.
Progress.

Hang in there...

Thank you, Perna, Myself, and Alexandra. You've given me things to think about.

Myslef, I have had this falling apart thing going on for a while; I didn't expect it to continue and be so pronounced after sessions.

Alexandra, I am afraid of getting to attached to this T. I am not yet over my other one which is part of the issue. And she knows this and it makes me think she doesn't want me to become attached. Yet I feel attached to some degree and I think it is a fear that the attachment will increase; I just realized that as I wrote it...

Thank you all for you feedback and kindness and suggestions!

ECHOES

[(JD)]

OOOO We all tend to have "session withdrawal" I think? We go to a safe place (T's office) and share and then have to come back out to daily living!

I would ask the T to give you more time at end of session to acclimate back to dialy life. This might mean 5 or 10 minutes before the end of session that T stops the "therapy" part and moves to current what's up for the rest of the day for you, what the weather is doing etc.

IMO it's always difficult for a T to stop a session that is going well with therapeutic interactions, but sometimes they need to be reminded, esp if you are having such a big fallout afterwards.

Myslef, I have had this falling apart thing going on for a while; I didn't expect it to continue and be so pronounced after sessions.

So it was happening before your last session where you tried using relaxation visualizations?

Now that is normal. it happens because during therapy your therapist is asking questions that will get you thinking about things. This usually stirs the pot so to speak bringing the problems to the surface so that they can be taken care of.

One way I handled this when I was seeing SKR is that I would call her voicemail just to hear her voice. doing that would remind me of the tools that I was learning during my sessions when the thoughts got stirred up during sessions. SKR got really good at recognizing when I was just calling to hear her voice and when I was calling to hear her voice and needed her help. Not to mention memorized my phone number LOL for I was calling every night at one point.

Another thing I did was pull out my copy of Laura Davis's book The Courage To Heal and find the pages that contained information and so on, on my problem that I was having at that moment. I would do them and then give my work to SKR the next time I saw her.

SKR also gave me a small bead pillow to hold and feel when things got going so that I had something physical to focus on and remind me to use my grounding techniques shortly before we went through This states ethics time frame of one year no therapy contact so that we could be legally and ethicall be considered friends and remain friends. That bead pillow comes in very handy these days even though I now see LL for therapy.

I also draw journal and other arts and crafts that help me to settle my head down after therapy sessions or any other time too.

Hang in there.