[Favorite Jeans]

How do you talk about hard stuff? I don't mean this necessarily as an advice-seeking how-to question, I mean: what is your way of talking about hard material? Do you find it challenging to stay connected to your T or to the subject matter when you're talking about hard stuff?

Lately I find myself moving very fast through uncomfortable stuff. Talking about it with an eye-roll or even feeling like I'm "telling on" people in my life. I feel this kind of mild nausea, this embarrassment as I try to tell her what's going on with me.

I share information in a conversational, almost gossipy way and then jump right to the "correct" answer, like:

"I know I played a role in how this went down and I have to take responsibility for that" instead of "my devastation and grief about this are so raw and so acute that I just want to die here and now." Sometimes I'll even say "I'm heartbroken" but I really don't feel it as I'm saying it. I tell it like I'm describing what happened on a sitcom yesterday.

I'm not sure what it is that I'm trying to hide or avoid. I don't think there's much that I'm omitting in the sense of inaccurate factual recounting but I feel like lately I'm skating on the surface of what I need to say. I find myself sitting there with words forming in my head that my mouth just cannot speak.

After a long time of mostly trusting her, I'm again quite certain that she thinks I'm gross or dumb or tedious. I'm not sure how to get past it. It makes therapy less satisfying and less comforting but a little safer. Maybe I'm just risk averse at the moment.

[feralkittymom]

Maybe you need to get stuff out in an emotionally disconnected way first? I think I did something a bit similar by writing: a way to gain a bit of distance, keep myself an observer. After I'd revealed something that way, the feelings would get reconnected during sessions, and I often fought to keep dissociation manageable. In a practical sense, writing stuff out left session time for the depth of emotional experience that maybe you're missing now.

Everyone goes through difficulty in their sessions. After a while you get to a level of becoming more comfortable with your T. Mention something then let them interject a question or perhaps an observation, then comment back. This is give and take and it helps diminish the embarrassment and the discomfort one goes through. At all ages we go through this. Thanks for asking this because a lot of people are too shy to ask a therapist yet your peers here can give feedback. I hope this helps, keep up the good work and don't be so hard on yourself. None of us are perfect and we all are working at getting better. Our goal is to help others along the way and through the process. I hope this helps. tc. blessings.