[Seeking_Peace]

I know that I should ask my T these questions to get the best answer but I'm still processing this and will ask him soon....just don't feel ready now.

So I started seeing T due to something that happened over a year ago. I'm having a lot of anxiety & some issues at work so we started with that. I have told T about several traumatic events throughout my life (including CSA in passing). Last week T gave me some tests to do. This morning T said I have anxiety but one of those tests really worried him. T said one of those was something called beck hopelessness test that measures my views of my future and my score on it really worried T. We went on to talk about ways for me to reduce my current symptoms more & working on changing how I feel about my future. I have a big work presentation/event coming up in April and botching it could cost me my job. T knows this.

We haven't talked trauma or anything past related for the past 2-3 sessions. Mainly have focused on changing how I think and how important it is for me to get past this work event. Here is what I'm wondering.....is T just focusing on my current symptoms/work issues so much b/c of this big event? And after its over....and by then if I'm able to handle my anxiety better, we will do more trauma work? Does T think that I'm not ready to handle all the intense emotions I hear many of you mention here when doing trauma processing and this is why T is so focused on me handling my anxiety better? For the record this is trauma T with over 10 years of experience.

[healed84]

I would guess that T wants to reduce your symptoms now, which may include your hopelessness feelings, in order for you to be ready to deal with the trauma stuff. If you are feeling crappy now, I will guarantee you will feel crappy after your really start processing the trauma. Though, if you want to focus on the trauma now, you should bring it up to T and see what their thoughts are on the matter. This is your therapy, and it doesn't have to be completely dictated by the T. Good luck!

[ThisWayOut]

he may be focusing on trying ot build your skills for dealing with difficult emotions. s healed84 said, you will definitely feel crappy at times while processing the trauma.

in general, t's will not go into trauma work if you are not more stable as it can be very destabalizing. he may also be taking the presentation into consideration.

if you feel that te trauma is a large part of all these symptoms, you could talk to T about that. while we do have control over th ecourse of our therapy, I've found that T's tend to recognize when we still need help building skills vs simply diving into the difficult stuff...

My T always has dealt with immediate stressors first; that just makes sense. Sometimes they way I was dealing (or not dealing) with those stressors was actually very related to my past and we sort of talked about them concurrently. Always, he minimized working on trauma if I was not in a place where I was stable enough to manage the things that would come up dealing with trauma.

And yes, these are questions you should ask of your T.

[SnakeCharmer]

I had several huge traumas in my life, including on-going child trauma when I was young and then traumas that left me severely injured and others worse off. More than once.

Therapy was highly successful in helping me. It was laid out in a way that first taught me how to control my symptoms of anxiety and worry and, for want of a better word, impending doom.

I learned breathing exercises, full body relaxation, biofeedback, meditation -- I got a whole toolbox of skills to use to calm symptoms as soon as I perceived them and then would use whatever worked best and least conspicuously in the moment.

We didn't deal with the trauma until I had the skills to lower the intensity of the symptoms while talking about truama and triggers and while facing the phobias and fears that had developed, plus the doom I felt while being exposed to things that reminded me of the trauma. Part of therapy was purposely exposing me to triggers so I could see in a safe way I could stand it and get better. Each time we run from a trigger, it intensifies the negative emotion. It makes us more fragile. Each time we allow ourselves to face it safely (emphasis on the safely part) it has much less hold over us.

I'm familiar with hopelessness. I did my best to deny it, but that's actually what my feelings of doom were about. The biggest problem for me was that while I felt hopeless the slightest little setback or disappointment, memory or trigger could paralyze me and make me want to give up.

My T told me I had inner courage (HA!) and then told me that courage isn't the absence of fear; it's going into the unknown despite all the fear and I had repeatedly done that and that meant I really did have the courage inside me that I believed, in my hopelessness, had failed me.

When things are really bad, sometimes just picking up the phone and making an appointment or talking to someone takes all the courage we have. Slowly, slowly, we can get better and braver as we go along. We don't have to fend off hoards of zombies to show courage. Sometimes just making a phone call we need to make when we're feeling so hopeless and anxious, man, that's fending off our inner demons.

Learning how to reduce my symptoms is the thing that allowed me to go forward despite my knees knocking. It really did work. Hope it works for you, too.

I wish you the best!