Crying Got Me Psych Referral

I know. I've left boyfriends before. I was out the door, leaving their heads spinning. This is so complicated, so many layers, so many others involved.

I'm willing to be totally open about everything with the marriage t, why can't we really talk about the whole relationship? Why did he go send me to my own psych? He is implying there is something wrong with me outside of the marital problems, isn't he?

Why is it so complicated? What's so complicated about calling up a lawyer and getting the papers in the works? What's so complicated about not listening to this awful marriage T and feeling that you've at least tried, but the marriage was doomed anyway? Was so complicated about doing something that will make you happy for a change?

As far as BPD, I don't think you can say for sure that you have any particular disorder based on what you read on the internet. Everyone's moods vary some, especially in stressful situations, that doesn't necessarily mean anything. However, if you told the marriage T that you think you're BPD, maybe he's referring you to a psychiatrist to assess whether that is the case and whether meds would help. It might not be a bad idea, if you really think you might have BPD, just to find out.

CBT is definitely not the only kind of therapy. It works great for some people but if you want to talk about childhood influences and such, you should probably look for psychodynamic psychotherapy or something along those lines.

Crying is usually encouraged in therapy as it means you are being open to the process, and experiencing your feelings fully and thoroughly. When I cry, my therapist welcomes and holds my tears, honoring the bond between us.

I wish for you kindness, tenderness, and the experience of shared emotion as healing rather than something to be ashamed of.

If I were there, I would tell your mother that the 1940's called and they need their outdated opinions back.

There's many, many forms of therapy other than CBT. Maybe look for an integrative therapy which blends elements of cognitive and psychodynamic therapy? There's transference focused therapy and schema therapy for BPD. Crying doesn't mean you're disordered.

Sad you are going through this emotional rollercoaster.
Glad that you are not accepting the labels that people put on you. Agree that there may be sexism involved. H may also be feeling threatened, getting defensive and lashing out at you instead of admitting to himself his role in the sad state of your marriage. In the past, when I have fought with my H, he has done a good job of making me afraid to leave him. In my case, I have come to the conclusion that my H really loves me. You are so brave to tackle this issue. Once you are married and have children, our lives are thoroughly intertwined emotionally and financially. Divorce is scary and if your H is a fighter, it will be tough until it is finalized. Perhaps you are feeling like you might have a mental illness only because you are having a lot of legitimate anxiety in regards to how hard it would be to leave him. I admire you for trying to save your marriage first, but if divorce is best, that is OK too. You're right, you are an extraordinary person. I like you so much just from what I have seen you write. It may be that you are passionate and loving, not hysteric. You deserve someone that can love how wonderful you are!

PS. Don't worry about the insurance thing. A diagnosis would likely only effect life and disability insurance policies. It is usually not cost effective to purchase these policies when you are over 50. I recommed putting the money in the bank instead of paying premiums anyways when the rates become to exorbitant.

Is this T primarily an individual T or does have real experience with couples (it's not required to do couples therapy so I would ask if you haven't already)? CBT is usually used for individuals, NOT couples therapy. That doesn't mean a T would be Freudian - most Ts aren't these days so that shouldn't be a concern. They should just be more psychodynamic in the sense that they listen to both of you talk and not immediately jump to conclusions. I think his attributing your crying to a mental illness is sexist and is a red flag. If couples therapy is something you're truly interested in, I would find a different T.

PSS. "It is usually not cost effective to purchase these policies when you are over 50. I recommed putting the money in the bank instead of paying premiums anyways when the rates become to exorbitant." -- every situation is different. Insurance is never a one size fits all decision.

Tishabuv, you have more important things to worry about besides insurance--they are trying to scare you. And don't ever let getting a good rate prevent you from getting any kind of medical help that you might need. Though it is totally possible that there is absolutely nothing wrong with you.

The difference between a mother and a husband, friend, and acquaintance is that you had/have no choice in who your mother is. You can choose how much you want her in your life (once you're out of the house), but otherwise, you're stuck with her. But if a spouse (or friend or acquaintance) frequently mistreats you and leaves you miserable, you have the choice whether to leave or stay.

I get the sense that people are trying to label you to shift the blame/fault onto you and off of themselves. Like, they aren't doing anything wrong, so it must be you. If your mother did this to you, too, then you've probably internalized it, so you automatically think problems in a relationship are your fault, are a result of a deficit in you. And it seems like your husband and therapist are just reinforcing this. Like, you're upset, so that means something is wrong with you. When you have a legitimate reason to be upset--most people would be upset in the same situation. I think you need a different couples therapist, as well as someone different for yourself.

I agree with other posters that you should get regular psychotherapy as opposed to CBT. CBT, as others have said, is more about learning to control your thoughts/behaviors. But psychotherapy can help you understand why you have those thoughts and behaviors, like why you may have low self-worth and feel you deserve to suffer through a marriage that makes you miserable. It can help you understand more what messages/beliefs your mother (or others) put in your head that have affected you all your life. It may take longer than CBT, but I think it's worth it. I see it as going into the root cause of the issue, which is ultimately more healing. Hugs...

My mother was/is verbally abusive. It started over my not eating since I was born, barely thriving. She actually recently said to me that I was born stubborn and wouldn't eat just to spite her! She would scream at me to eat and call me names. I would cry. She wouldn't let up. No compassion whatsoever. Even as far back as I can remember, I knew that was shocking. How could this mother really love me, if she makes me cry and emotionally beats me?

Husband does the same thing, but not by screaming and cursing. Instead it is by withholding love (sex), and when I cry he pushes me farther and shows no sympathy.

I would have died for someone to hug me and stop making me cry!

Even sitting there in the psy office crying for an hour, they just kept talking and ignoring me. The t asked me questions, but at some point I said I was just too upset to even talk. I told him I had mentally left the room. He asked if I had heard what my h said. I said I only heard him defending himself, then finally admitting some culpability eventually when the t pressed him.

You hit the nail on the head. That is what the hysterical crying is about. I have only had it with these two people in my life!

. I locked myself in the bathroom and cried for hours.

Oh boy. TishaBuv I'll just start with a disclaimer that I just left a relationship that had many features that resemble what you describe. So if I'm reading my own stuff into your story, I apologize.

Does he love you? Who knows? What is love anyway? Maybe he does love you as best he can. But if that's the case, it means that your H's best love is full of cruelty and gaslighting. So that's just no good. The fact is, he's mistreating you and it doesn't sound like he's striving to do better. You can have a life where you're not mistreated by the person closest to you. You can and it's beautiful.

An emotionally abusive partner in marriage counselling is like an exponential intensification of the mind****. It is a horror show. Consider at very least putting marriage counselling on hiatus while you gather your thoughts. It sounds like your marriage counsellor is either not identifying the abuse for what it is or is lacking in some core competencies. It sounds like they have little interest in understanding you.

It sounds also like your CBT counsellor is being thoroughly unhelpful to you at the moment. On the one hand there is CBT and on the other there's Freudian psychoanalysis? Are they fer realz? No, no, no!!! This is the mother of all false dichotomies. There's many, many types of therapy and CBT sounds particularly ill-suited to the problem of being mired in an emotionally abusive marriage.

So would a psychiatrist be useful? Maybe. If they're good. i think though that it will be very hard to figure out if you're mentally ill while you are in such an extreme situation. But it sounds like what would be really helpful is to find a counsellor who knows something about abuse and whose approach is not to undermine the client. Good luck.

ETA: if you're interested, here's a thread about my horrible experience with couples therapy last year.

http://forums.psychcentral.com/psych...emented-t.html

Yeah. Exactly.

There's another thread going about Love and accepting their flaws. I have been a serial monogamist since I was I didn't have such high expectations of the guys, wasn't so choosy. The one I was crazy for, toyed with me (and still has...that's another issue). But when it came to finding a husband, I thought I made such an ideal choice. He was so great. It wasn't until we were married that he started with the sexual neglect, going as far as to say he didn't find me 'as attractive while pregnant'. Our whole marriage became about his stress from his job, therefore his lack of interest in me.

This eventually triggered my crying and then became tantrums, divorce threats, back and forth leaving/returning, what I called torture forepllay.

Isn't it strange that the one man I let be my closest devoted family/love, became an abusive tormentor? Did I somehow cause that? That's where I question everything about myself. How did that happen? He's such a seemingly nice guy. He acts like he loves me so much by always wanting to be with me (outside of bedroom), acting polite like offering to make me a cup of tea, saying he would do anything for me (except the one thing I wanted)

I think I'll go back to the t and ask why he pushed me off onto a separate t. I want to hear him say that he thinks there's something wrong with me due to my emotions outside of the marital problem.

Then maybe i'll walk out and be done with all this BS.

So h perceived what the t said slightly differently than I did. He thought he said that Freudian psy has fallen out of favor and that CBT was the new standard. He did not hear him say it was dangerous. What he did hear him say was dangerous, and I agree (which I forgot to mention yesterday) was the t said posting here was dangerous. But we both differ in what we thought he said was the reason. I heard the t say that it is dangerous because people are using Freudian psy-like methods of talking about the past and that is dangerous. My h thought he said it is dangerous because lay people don't know what they are doing. I didn't hear him say that. I think my perception is correct.

I asked my h what he was thinking while i was crying. I just get his standard 'I don't know'. I asked him why he thought the t referred me to my own psy. Again, crickets chirping.

I'm just going to have to get over it and accept his lack of empathy and understanding. It just isn't in him. He still loves me. That just has to be good enough for me.

Let's see if I can turn over a new leaf.

You deserve better than cruelty and gaslighting.

Cruelty and gaslighting is not loving you. He does not love you, or he wouldn't be cruel and gaslight you.
If he really loved you, he'd be really striving to change. He is not striving anything to change hs antics, but he is striving about blaming you for his behavior.

You deserve much better than that.

Besides, what example do you want to set up to your children ? You want to make them understand that it's ok to be abused by a romantic partner ? That a woman is a pawn of a man, no matter how cruel and manipulative ?
Or do you want to teach them that abuse is not ok and leave your husband ?

If you really want to teach your children that abuse is not ok, divorce is the only solution.
Staying with such husband is teaching your children that abuse is ok no matter what.
What kind of values do you want to teach your children by giving such example ?

If you really love your children, your children deserve much better than such man in your house.

........

My children saw. But it was confusing. They surmised something awful was going on in the bedroom. Mom was angry at Dad and hysterically crying. But they had no idea what was happening. How could I tell them it was about sex and neglect?

They are already all nearly grown and out of the house now. We've lived through it already. My 14 year old is the last one in the house. This last major episode that sent us to this new t had our son crying and saying "I don't care if you stay together or get divorced, just stop this." I told this to the t at the first appt.

Who knows what kind of far reaching effects this all has on them?

One of their friend's mothers committed suicide. Can you imagine how terrified they must be?

Believe it or not my kids say even as dysfunctional as we are they our family is far better than all their friend's families!

I kept telling my boys throughout all this, that this is not normal or how things should be, that we have a problem and it's not their faults, that if someone is abusive to them they need to get away.

Yet I didn't get away.

(Cont'd)

.........

It sounds to me that this therapist is not very good. Crying is a part of therapy, whether it's hysterical or not. Crying hysterically only shows how much pain you're in, not that you need medication.

What am I even saying? How can I forget? The two prior boyfriends (almost husbands) were abusive. In fact, what made me run from the college one was my Great Aunt who was so abused by her h warned me that he reminded her of her h. He was isolating me from friends, antisocial, was stealing from his parents, some really bad stuff going on. The other bf made me so hysterical once that I jumped out of a moving car to get away from him!!!

Healthy people don't jump out of moving cars. I guess the problem is me.

So what?

Do I go to a new psy? Will they help? They'll give me the DBT or CBT workbook, whatever.

Thank you. And again, another person who did not give me one ounce of compassion when I cried.

My apologies, folks. I'm just gonna vent my head off and then die.

Meanwhile, I possibly help some others on here with some good comments about their issues. Or at least you can learn from my issue what not to do.

Have you thought about seeing a sex therapist, to help just with problems in the bedroom? As a couple?

This CBT marriage t is someone who does sex issues.

I'm going to call that other t for me. I am the problem.

It's not so much that *you're* the problem as the false messages about what love should be like that were put into your head by your mother (and others in your life)... Which is why talking to an individual therapist should help you.