[growlycat]

Hello, I'm new to the board and I am finding it helpful to read about others' experiences with their therapists.

I will try to explain what is going on for me, but forgive me if I do not know what exactly "triggers" are (any particular words or phrases?)

I have a (normally!) wonderful therapist who's been treating me since I was nineteen (I'm in my 30's). Things are not so great lately. I think he's trying to get me to reach out to other people more but I'm not really in a place where I feel I can do what he is asking. My social anxiety is driving me out of my own skin, and it has been a long time since I have been this uncomfortable, uneasy and really unwell.

I can sense his frustration with me, as neither of us is getting any younger. He actually berated me by asking in a nasty tone of voice if I was going to let anyone in my life. I ended the session abruptly (don't think he expected that). He did end up apologizing but I feel like I want to fix this in a hurry, with each passing day until I talk to him next I feel more and more hopeless. He is taking great efforts to check in with me, which does feel good, but I just want our relationship to go back to being warm and caring again.

I feel so exhausted from crying. It feels like I will never be "better", whatever that means.

[Rapunzel]

Hi growlycat, and welcome to PC. Maybe reaching out here is a step towards letting someone else into your life and making progress against your social anxiety. It has helped me a lot in that way, as I have been able to find some wonderful friends here and find a place where I can belong, even if it's in cyberspace.

TC,
Rap

[biplol]

((((((((growlycat)))))))) I agree with Rapunzel.
And at the same time I think he feels that even though the relantionship has been great, maybe is time for some changes. And I mena that in a good way.
Talk to him about your fears and thought, abviuosly he is a caring and good person. And maybe you guys can find a new plan to approach a new type of beginning.
Hang in there hon.
Pm me anytime~

hey. nice to see you here :-)

maybe... you do what i do. which is to say you are so afraid of people that you push them away so they don't get the chance to push you?

just wondering...

i know hindsight is a wonderful thing... but i wonder if you could have diffused the situation by jokingly saying 'why? are you trying to marry me off?' or something like that.

i don't know. maybe he thinks you would progress in leaps and bounds if you had more social support... but sometimes one needs to make a little progress before one can obtain more social support.

can be a bit of a cycle.

dunno. anyway. nice to see you here. hope you stick around.

[JonB]

Maybe it's time for a change. Could you write up some things you think have gotten better over the years, and some things you still want to work on. Then ask how you're going to proceed working on those things. Just sort of take stock of the relationship. How has it worked before, How is it working now, Is there a future? What are your goals with this. If you can't go through all that with him without getting a bad feeling, then it might be time for a change.

Good luck to you.

[growlycat]

Thanks for the welcome and the good feedback.

Rapunzel-Thanks, I'm glad I found this forum too.

Biplol-yes, it is hard to change strategy after seeing the same T for so long. (Although after having a few bad T'S, I wouldn't "trade him in" just yet!)

Alex K- Yeah, that would've been a great comeback but I was too angry at the moment. He knows I'm lonely so that seems like the most hurtful thing anyone could say to me.
It is a catch 22- if I am feeling lousy it is hard to get out there more, but he believes I would feel better if I "just do it" in terms of reaching out more.

Jon B- It could be a problem that we don't define goals more often in therapy. However, I am not great with openly discussing goals because to put it all out there seems overwhelming and impossible. I always seem to feel like "I can't get there from here". So I think my T avoids it too because it just ends in "I can't do this"

i appreciate everyone's thoughts. Wish me luck this week!