[usernameistaken123]

**Mild Trigger Warning**

I've just submitted a similar question to the "Ask a Therapist" section... but I decided I wanted the opinion of the community as well. I'm sure there are those of you out there who have struggled with this, and if so, perhaps the experience of another will help me with mine. So, here it goes:

My biological father, Darrell, was abusive. It was made up of both physical and verbal abuse. Whenever I threw a fit, he'd hold me down and scream at me, refusing to get up until I calmed down.

I need therapy, I know. I've tried it... tried the regular sessions. It's fine, as long as I don't have to talk about him--about Darrell.

So I'm wondering if there's anybody else out there, who had something they really needed to sort through--some traumatic event they experienced--but wasn't really ready to talk about it. So if this happened to you, what did you do? When were you finally ready for therapy? How did you prepare yourself... or work up the courage to go?

Thanks.

[HazelGirl]

It has taken me years to be ready to talk about it. I think it's important to go to therapy and build that relationship, sometimes for years, before you start talking to your T about it. And so finding a patient T is essential to the process.

Originally Posted by usernameistaken123

**Mild Trigger Warning**

I've just submitted a similar question to the "Ask a Therapist" section... but I decided I wanted the opinion of the community as well. I'm sure there are those of you out there who have struggled with this, and if so, perhaps the experience of another will help me with mine. So, here it goes:

My biological father, Darrell, was abusive. It was made up of both physical and verbal abuse. Whenever I threw a fit, he'd hold me down and scream at me, refusing to get up until I calmed down.

I need therapy, I know. I've tried it... tried the regular sessions. It's fine, as long as I don't have to talk about him--about Darrell.

So I'm wondering if there's anybody else out there, who had something they really needed to sort through--some traumatic event they experienced--but wasn't really ready to talk about it. So if this happened to you, what did you do? When were you finally ready for therapy? How did you prepare yourself... or work up the courage to go?

Thanks.

It has only been since my mum died this year that i realised how much c**p I have buried my whole life. My husband has always been a rock for me, but he lost a close family member just before my mum died and for the first time I felt like I had nobody to turn to (as H was grieving too)
I had a difficult relationship with my mum and her death marked the end of even the vaguest possibility of ever having a normal mother/daughter relationship in my life. This brought back a lot of stuff from my childhood and a lot of anxiety.
I had to turn to counselling now because I found myself without the emotional support I needed and unable to cope.

[precaryous]

Some time ago I discovered I was ill. I decided it was time to get my many psych and physical issues in hand. I also wanted a T who could help me with end of life issues.

[Polibeth]

It wasn't until I made a half-hearted suicide attempt that I realized I needed a therapist. It's now been about 12 years and has worked out quite well for me.

[Partless]

usernameistaken123, hugs to you and I'm sorry for your experiences.

My first time going for therapy was in my late teens and for a pitiful reason, I wanted my parents to realize how much pain I was in. I had no interest to change myself or learn anything. I just wanted people to leave me alone and let me be. It did not work.

The time I went for therapy that I really started to work through stuff and want to make changes, was when my sibling was suicidal and hospitalized and I got traumatized from the whole thing. Felt very helpless and powerless. Felt like there was nobody to help me, to help us, to help my sibling, that even doctors failed us, and there came an intense unspeakable anger in me that frightened me and I started to have panic attacks like 50 a day. It was one of the worst times in my life, if not THE worst.
Heh, already feel like maybe this is oversharing and also that made myself vulnerable by recalling the exact time but I want to relate that not everybody suddenly decides to go for therapy and work on themselves, on the very painful stuff that they had not dealt with. I personally think those people are ahead of me and they are the ones doing the smart thing. Because some people like me, kept delaying things and delaying things, until a terrible event happened, till trauma happened, and I simply could not manage without therapy. At that point I almost felt like I had no choice, that forces beyond my control were pushing me into therapy. I did not go to therapy and build trust and share, I just went in there and stuff just hurled out of me, like someone who had not spoken for years.

My advice, not that you ask or that I know you or am qualified to give it (but let's call it advice so I can make myself feel better, lol) is that if you are able to talk about Darrell, even a little bit, go for it. Take it a little at a time and before you know it you are half way there. Don't let things bottle up for too long and then something else comes along and you get overwhelmed and then have to deal with too many things.

I had not gone for therapy and kept repressing, but it cost me, losing friends, job, school, gaining a lot of weight...and then the other trauma was what broke me in half. And all the candy fell out of this piñata.

[CantExplain]

Therapy, like parenthood, is something you can never be ready for. You just have to hold your nose and jump.

I got forced into therapy in college when I stopped eating for a few months and started fainting. The doctor sent me to a dietician (as if I were just too dumb to know to eat). The dietician gave me a choice between therapy and going inpatient at a hospital. I went to therapy and eventually found it helpful. I knew I needed help because I had this whole horrible boyfriend thing happening at the same time and was just melting down.

Sometimes you're not really ready, but you go for another reason and find that it was worthwhile after you have gutted it out for a while.

[kororain]

I'll let you know when I figure it out.

My bosses sat me down in December and told me they were afraid I was going to kill myself and that I needed to call the company-provided EAP line. I thought, "What a waste of time. What difference can an hour make?" So I forced myself to go to therapy instead.

Talking to a stranger for an hour seemed like a waste of time because really, what can you solve in an hour? Also, I knew I'd have to just retell my tale to someone else eventually... so I just bit the bullet and made an appointment with T.

I do recommend EAP lines to my friends now though. In a lot of cases, 1 hour can fix so much! So so much!! (I knew for me though, I needed a lot more than an hour.)

Anyway, I wouldn't say I'm "ready" and I've been seeing T since January. The first six months were basically me resisting her. I'm still resisting her, but to a slightly lesser extent.