I'm curious as to how common it is to have the experience that I have had of being triggered. For me, I quite often feel a little lousy after my session, and particularly the couple of days afterwords. However on a small number of occaisions something completely different happened, which is this: Sometime after my session, and the following day I have felt a depth of lousiness that felt like I was re-experiencing the feelings of trauma from my early life, the feelings at these times have brought me to my knees, the first time it happened to me I had no idea what was going on, except that I could barely function, and felt like a child again, feeling the emotions of a painful, trauma. (I don't know what the original trauma actually was).

I'm interested to know how many others have experienced this, what you make of the experience and what you do about it. Maybe the experience is different for other people?

[AnxiousGirl]

A few times we talk about lots of triggering topics and I pretend that I'm fine with it but in reality I want to run away and leave. I come home feeling very exhausted and tired and i sleep until the next day. It's tough, and I've learned to tell my T when it gets too much. (I have such a hard time saying no to anyone).

[Mike_J]

I have been triggered a bit, but only to the point of being a bit flustered, almost walked out once, but never triggered to the point that I had difficulty functioning after a session.

I have had times not too long ago where after a session I slept and for a few days after I couldn't do anything except lie on the bed in a kind of trance. A few years on it not quite so tough.

[Out There]

Yes , the lousy feeling , but not overwhelmed or unable to function. Sometimes the triggers can be strangely reversed. Working on trauma is gruelling. I make of the experience that it brings up difficult stuff. I use mindfulness and binaural beats , I find that helps.

I had some pretty horrific flashbacks in therapy over the years -- sessions where my husband had to be called to drive me home or I had to wait a good while until I was okay to leave.

[AllHeart]

When I was in the thick of things, I would sometimes walk out of t's office feeling far worse than when I walked in. Sometimes I couldn't function, left in total darkness, and felt dead or frozen inside for several days. I don't know if that's how I felt as a child during the trauma years. Can't remember.

Sometimes I'd come out of t's office feeling good just the same. Same thing happens now just on less severe levels. Therapy has always been a crap shoot for me -- never know when I walk in how I'm gonna walk out.

[ilikecats]

I've left therapy feeling pretty crappy sometimes. Not to the point where I couldn't function, but where I felt like I was in the same sort of environment as I was at the time of the stuff we were talking about. It was weird and felt really bad. It didn't last too long though, only a few hours or so.

[ChavInAHat]

Yes I have been triggered by therapy, but I kind of expected it

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[stopdog]

I feel lousy after every appointment just about. A few times (less than 10) I have left not as lousy as I usually am - but usually it is lousy for a couple of days after -and great dread right before.

When I was early in therapy and extremely depressed, therapy would send me into a tailspin pretty easily. I'd go home and have nightmares that night or in other cases, be unable to sleep. I'd have a "therapy hangover" for a day or two--able to function but a bit in a funk.

Now, I do sometimes get triggered in therapy, but it usually just leaves me off balance and annoyed. I have a 40 minute drive home so I'm usually fine by the time I get home. If not, I take my dog for a LOOOOOONG walk and I'm fine when I get back home. That baby dog is a true mental health worker

[awkwardlyyours]

Yeah, it's been a little under a year since I started and while I thought I was able to handle the post-therapy hangover a bit better with time, have suddenly been finding myself getting worse.

I am functional but productivity or my ability to concentrate on anything goes for a toss for pretty much the entire day and a little into the next.

My therapist's only 'solution' to this (when I've asked her how to cope with it) has been to repeatedly say that maybe it's time for me to let myself fall apart -- so, I've just quit telling her about it!

[Jbeancoaster]

Most of the time when I leave upset it is usually because I'm mad at myself for wasting appointments. I have been in therapy for around 10 years and I still have not gotten over the fear of uncomfortable subjects or triggers. I have full intentions of talking about things and as soon as I get the slightest uncomfortable I don't even bring it up.

[atisketatasket]

I felt lousy after appointments for the first few months after starting therapy, but then I just stopped that somehow and felt normal after appointments. Not great, but not lousy either. Yet we discussed worse and more current traumas.

[guilloche]

I choose "other". My answer would be, "yes, yes, yes."

I've recently left the old therapist, and will need to look for a new one, but that was part of the problem. Both #1 and #2 in your list.

#1... therapy often makes me feel lousy. I end up feeling misunderstood and invalidated. A lot. From several therapists. I get that I *shouldn't*, and I've tried discussing this with the therapist, but it keeps happening, over and over, and the therapists I've seen have not been helpful in understanding it, working with it, or preventing it.

#2. I seem to gravitate towards avoidance as a coping mechanism (lots of dissociation, which I understand works well with that). When I get too close to certain things in my head, I get very triggered. After approx. 7 years or more years with no self-harm (and no therapy), therapy is what made me start back up again (doing much, much better now).

It sucks. I'd like to find a therapist who understands this stuff and is better at working with it. My therapist didn't seem to get what I was talking about. One of his suggestions was going to a one-week program out of state that sounded very... confrontational? Very much an "open up fast, brutal honesty, get everything out in the open to deal with it" - which clearly works well for some people. But, I was worried it would be incredibly retraumatizing for me... and when I tried to explain... he looked like he honestly had no idea what I was talking about.

I either suck at therapy, or suck at picking therapist. Bleh!

[stopdog]

I would not say my lousiness is due to any triggering of anything. I find therapy to be unenjoyable and I dread doing it. But I don't consider that to be "triggering." I don't think all bad response to therapy is trigger.

[Cinnamon_Stick]

Yes, therapy has left me feeling triggered a few times. It has sent me into crisis mode. My T and I work carefully so its a less chance of that happening. One thing that really helps is that I tell my T that I am triggered and not in a good state of mind. We spend the last 10-15 minutes of a session getting me back to the present and in a good frame of mind. Most of the time it works. I hate the sessions where I leave in worse shape then when I went in. It makes me cherish the times I leave in a really good place and feel like I can take on the world.

[musinglizzy]

Yes. I have felt retraumatized in therapy. After our rupture almost a year ago, I've still not recovered. Someone posted this on here awhile back. I'll share it for the sake of this post....

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog...aumatizing-you

[RedSun]

Yes, sometimes T has unintentionally said things that spun me out completely, and although she can usually bring me down off the ceiling i feel rubbish for a couple of days.
More generally, if we talk about difficult stuff, it can trigger me. T has helped me notice a delayed reaction, I seem fine in session and after, then a day or two after it gets worse...

*trigger*

I drink too much, self harm, feel low and out of control....

It's less often now, but more intense when it happens.

I've tried to post a multi-quoted message, but despite reading the FAQ, I haven't figured out how to do it. I'm reassured to read that I'm not the only one this happens to, though I feel that my ex-T never understood it and perhaps had never come across it before. It's good to hear Bunyip and Jaybird and others saying that it has lessened with time for them. Bunyip it sounds like you had really, really difficult post session emotions, I'm glad its got better. The same for you AllHeart and Jaybird. I likecats I think I've experienced something similar to feeling that I was back in the same kind of environment.

Chavinahat - you expected this? I never in a million years imagined that this could ever happen to anyone in therapy, least of all me as I didn't know I'd had any 'trauma'.

StopDog therapy for you sounds like a tough workout class for me, I dread going, I force myself to go, afterwards I feel so glad I went, and I resolve to go again. Except I'm not sure you get that 'I'm so glad I went' feeling afterwards.

That sounds good that your T works hard to help you to be ok when you leave. One of my problems is that I don't know at the end of the session that the session has triggered me, I can leave the session feeling fine.

Originally Posted by RedSun

Yes, sometimes T has unintentionally said things that spun me out completely, and although she can usually bring me down off the ceiling i feel rubbish for a couple of days.
More generally, if we talk about difficult stuff, it can trigger me. T has helped me notice a delayed reaction, I seem fine in session and after, then a day or two after it gets worse...

*trigger*

I drink too much, self harm, feel low and out of control....

It's less often now, but more intense when it happens.

This is exactly the same for me - I get a delayed reaction, I'm fine in the session but then the next day feel bad. Has your T given any understanding of why the delayed reaction?

[ChavInAHat]

Originally Posted by Brown Owl

Chavinahat - you expected this? I never in a million years imagined that this could ever happen to anyone in therapy, least of all me as I didn't know I'd had any 'trauma'.

I always knew I had 'trauma', and I figured working on it would bring up things that would cause me to struggle more initially.

Opening up Pandora's box has consequences, but hopefully once those things have been dealt with, they can go back 'in the box' and not cause so much of an issue when they are accidentally set free (if that makes sense)

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[divine1966]

I usually feel better. Few times I felt bad because t pissed me off making stupid suggestions that I kept telling her I am not going to follow. Other than that I am pretty uplifted after sessions even when we discuss painful topics

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[88Butterfly88]

Yes, but I think that's a part of therapy that's unavoidable. You have to deal with the pain to get through it. It's worth it, don't let that stop you from going.