[wotchermuggle]

In regards to therapy, and by extension, life, how you know you're moving ahead? What are the signs for you?

I saw the following in me:

1. I was consistently taking care of my whole being without having to be told to do so.
2. My confidence and personal drive improved. Reclaimed my life and branched out into the world and relationships again. Stopped isolating.
3. My mood stabilized. Pretty much zero depression for months and months.
4. When situational issues came up, I handled them by using my skills, not falling back on old unhealthy coping mechanisms.
5. Spent very little time thinking about the past; able to live life in the present because I've dealt with the past finally and it's in its proper place -- just memory now, not running my present.
6. I had little to no need for therapy anymore; I realized I was managing very well without needing constant contact with my therapist or pdoc. (Not avoidance; truly no need.)

[Lauliza]

For me it was a lot of things that amounted to just living a better more fulfilling life: taking care if myself and my children; finding a job and doing well at work; staying with something and not stopping due to fear; socializing more; maintaining friendships and making new ones easier than I could in the past; prioritizing other things in my life before therapy.

[ThisWayOut]

another good question...
I don;t think I have moved too far ahead, but what I have noticed is my discomfort with my "tried & true" reactions to things... I want to be better about it all, and I am actively trying to do so. In the past, I would have fallen easily back into old coping without any inkling that things could go differenetly. I feel a tad more in control (though not by much). There's still a long way to go.

[musinglizzy]

Originally Posted by lolagrace

I saw the following in me:

1. I was consistently taking care of my whole being without having to be told to do so.
2. My confidence and personal drive improved. Reclaimed my life and branched out into the world and relationships again. Stopped isolating.
3. My mood stabilized. Pretty much zero depression for months and months.
4. When situational issues came up, I handled them by using my skills, not falling back on old unhealthy coping mechanisms.
5. Spent very little time thinking about the past; able to live life in the present because I've dealt with the past finally and it's in its proper place -- just memory now, not running my present.
6. I had little to no need for therapy anymore; I realized I was managing very well without needing constant contact with my therapist or pdoc. (Not avoidance; truly no need.)

Wow...that seems like a dream world! If I may ask....just how long did this take you? I've been in therapy 11 months (most of that twice a week) and I see little things here and there...some quite important, so I'll take that. But, I guess I'm not budging on changing my thought process at all. I'm talking more, voicing my opinions, which has helped change some things in my life... but I'm still quite depressed, hopeless, empty, alone and constantly bullying myself. In other words, I still feel like I'm just taking up space and air, and am undeserving of it. Ugh.

[Partless]

Originally Posted by wotchermuggle

In regards to therapy, and by extension, life, how you know you're moving ahead? What are the signs for you?

Sometimes you don't. It's best to have goals in therapy and life. That's how you know you're making progress towards them. Without them it's not possible to know. Goals don't have to be strict or short term or set in stone. They can be flexible and more general (become a better father), long term (keep in shape), and they can change as priorities change (being a better more caring mother, to being a mother who can balance school and housework better).

Therapy is a professional service provided to you for a payment. The therapist should not force things on you, particular goals, particular worldview. Of course in reality that does happen a bit, given that therapy has its own values and therapists can't just do whatever you ask them to. They have their own vision of what it means to be healthy or sick, what it means to live a good satisfying life, and how to get there, etc.

Still, when it comes to big picture, you're the one in charge. Usually after a number of sessions, after T learns about the client, some goals naturally emerge. Sometimes it takes longer, especially if a person is undergoing crisis. Sometimes T helps the person actually set goals, if they have no clue, if they're so depressed their life has no direction and they think they want nothing out of life. But when the goals are agreed upon, then you can check your progress on regular basis.

When it comes to CBT, they have their own schedule about how long it should take roughly, for instance, to deal with, say, height phobia. But most other forms are therapy are more flexible. So depending on the issue, you might want to review your progress every month, six months, two years, whatever. One of the wonderful things this does is that when progress has been made and you can view it, it can give you a nice confidence boost in your own ability to improve and in the particular kind of therapy.

Because when you're in it, in the middle of it, hard to know what's going on. But to look back, to see where you were emotionally, mentally, how your relationships affected you, and then to look at where you are two years later, it gives you that aerial view of a map, and can be a nice thing to remember even during those days and sessions that you feel like nothing is going well and therapy is another hopeless pointless expensive thing that you're failing at....

I feel more myself.
Years ago, looking in the mirror was painful. Because I didn't know The person looking back at me.
Now I know her very well

Originally Posted by musinglizzy

Wow...that seems like a dream world! If I may ask....just how long did this take you? I've been in therapy 11 months (most of that twice a week) and I see little things here and there...some quite important, so I'll take that. But, I guess I'm not budging on changing my thought process at all. I'm talking more, voicing my opinions, which has helped change some things in my life... but I'm still quite depressed, hopeless, empty, alone and constantly bullying myself. In other words, I still feel like I'm just taking up space and air, and am undeserving of it. Ugh.

LOL. Forever!!

I'm 51. I'd say the big changes started happening about 3 or 4 years ago, about 6 years or so into my therapy. It coincided with losing my sister which you would think would have made things worse, but it essence, it set my priorities in life straight and I made some very conscious decisions for change at that point. I saw change all along, but I did reach a point where things started moving more on my conscious volition rather than very slowly and without really knowing why or how things were changing.

[musinglizzy]

For someone like me, who's relatively "new" to therapy yet (a year next month), it's helpful to read posts like yours....to see there IS light at the end of the tunnel. Baby steps are better than nothing, but they are still frustrating at times when you aren't quite so patient for change to occur. I have faith in my T, but it's a slow moving process and I've faced some set backs... so it's hard to see clearly sometimes. Thanks for the reassurance!

Originally Posted by musinglizzy

For someone like me, who's relatively "new" to therapy yet (a year next month), it's helpful to read posts like yours....to see there IS light at the end of the tunnel. Baby steps are better than nothing, but they are still frustrating at times when you aren't quite so patient for change to occur. I have faith in my T, but it's a slow moving process and I've faced some set backs... so it's hard to see clearly sometimes. Thanks for the reassurance!

I kind of think of it this way. It took many years of living in my pain and dsyfunction, all the while living in my depression and illness and trauma, before I even really started working on myself through therapy. It was bound to take a long time to reverse that process, to relearn how to think healthily about about myself and life, to overpower all those old messages and "lessons." I don't think that kind of damage can be overcome quickly. But I was very determined to do whatever I had to do, deal with whatever I had to deal with, (and later and probably even harder) really make the conscious changes in my thinking and behaviors that resulted in lasting mental health.

That's why I stuck with therapy so long this time around. I pushed myself hard to stay committed to healing. There were times when I say, "Good Lord, I'm going to be in therapy forever!" "I'm never going to get better," "I'm going to spend the rest of my life on meds and in and out of hospitals." But, my sister's death was a wake-up call to me. I realized how devastating losing a close family member is, even in circumstances of health causes when we all saw it coming. I realized right then and there I would never again contemplate suicide -- I will never do that to my loved ones - - and I walked away from that thinking and have never returned. That was step one on my conscious decision list.

From there I've made other very conscious choices about myself that have continued to move me forward. Holding on to those old "possibilities" such as keeping suicide on the back burner as an "option" were keeping me stuck. I had to give up those old habits (and they WERE habits for me), and in giving them up, I realized I had to replace them with something healthier. It has been a series of conscious choices from there on that have moved me the most. None of those choices involved ignoring my problems, continuing to chastise myself, avoiding my issues, quitting therapy too soon, running away from relationships, running away from risks. I had to face those things head on actually and do completely the opposite of what I had habitually done all my life that wasn't working for me. Hard work and took YEARS of therapy to get me to that place. But it came, and I'm in a really good place . . . FINALLY.

I am extremely grateful that my therapist does not require me to meet any "goals". That would be counterproductive in the extreme for me. I do not need goals in life or therapy, and being required to think in those terms sets my teeth on edge.

And because I don't have those things, I am able to move forwards in therapy, slowly and gradually. Sometimes I move backwards. But in general, change has been for the better.

I've given up on the concept of having goals or moving forward (not really sure what that means anyway). I am not at a really bad place in my life right now. I mostly go to therapy to have someone to talk to who won't judge me. It's kind of self centered and maybe narcissistic, but it is what it is at this point in my life.

[unaluna]

Originally Posted by _Mouse

I feel more myself.
Years ago, looking in the mirror was painful. Because I didn't know The person looking back at me.
Now I know her very well

Looking in the mirror is still painful altho not as bad as before. I wonder what that is about. I have some ideas, but im surprised more people dont mention it here

[Apathy123]

Since I'm transitioning therapists right now I've had an opportunity to look back on the year with my old T, and in that looking back I've been able to see changes in myself and my life. For example, my mother passed away last year and I was able to relatively emotionally handle it in a way I wouldn't have been had I not been in therapy. I was able to ask for help and go into the hospital when things got to be too much for me in the fall, another improvement.

Sometimes it's easier to see changes in the past rather than as they are happening.

[iheartjacques]

Stable mood. Finishing studies. Not wanting to die everyday. Husband and friends commenting on how much better I seemed to be. Took almost a year to see the changes though. Just over two years of fortnightly appointments done.

[msxyz]

I feel better more often.