[here today]

. . .since my problem of dissociated rage first showed up in therapy. It wasn’t with an outburst at first, it was a “change of state” in the therapy when I was discussing an experience with my dad when I was 5. I was seeing the T only once a month, and over the next few sessions I explained how I was feeling rage in that forearm. It was like it was spewing poison into the air, but there in my left forearm it wasn’t actually doing anything much in my social interactions. Then, one day, the therapist double-booked the appointment. I got there first, she came into the waiting room and looked shocked – (clearly) didn’t want me there. She explained what had happened and offered me an appointment the next day. So I left – even though I had had the appointment booked first, and got there first. She wasn’t expecting me and didn’t want me, so I left.

When I arrived at the appointment the next day, she was 10 minutes late. Not a lot, but the rage was now not in my arm only but in me, too. I went in, described how I was enraged, she looked frightend and backed off, I threw my car keys on her sofa, picked them up, and left.

After that I went through a series of therapists, at one point looking for someone who could deal with rage. I found one who said he but he wasn’t very good in other ways, so that didn’t last long. I later found out that he and his wife had divorced shortly after that and he had moved to another state – so my intuition that he wasn’t very good in other ways seems not to be just a poor judgment on my end.

I gave up looking for awhile.

Then my late husband was diagnosed with a terminal illness and I “knew” (or felt) I would need some help. And I went looking again. More failures, down the tube I went, with the results I’ve talked about in this forum before.

I think what’s happened to me is horrible. I know it’s just me saying this – and so, who cares? But I care and I feel enough like a human being in the society currently to say – what’s happened to me is horrible and is probably happening to others who never “recover” enough or find their voices to speak out.

What’s happened to me is horrible. Unjust – I paid my money and got a whole lot worse before I got better. I trusted -- lots of times unwisely, as it turned out, although I guessed right sometimes.

The rage is no longer dissociated. It’s a part of me, now. It's now a feeling, an emotion. But 30 years to get here? And with years of dysfunction and misery in between?

Does this strike anybody else as odd? Yes, the usual defense is to say, once again, that I, the client am odd, mentally ill, etc. OK, I took that – but 30 years to get some improvement? Despite the therapeutic “alliances”, it was really still all just me. Therapists are society’s “architects of goodness” how can there be anything to criticize or suggest improvement about them?

An additional complaint to be lodged against me, why it’s all my fault (yes, it was my “fault” and I went to therapy to try to get some help with that) – I seem so resentful now. Yes, I think the underlying anger toward the therapy system is justified. I am considering trying to turn it into advocacy somehow. Any thoughts or feedback? Alternative views and criticisms OK, too.

I obviously don't know all the details of your situation, but I strongly think it's therapists' discomfort with dissociative disorders in general.

One of my psychiatrists also told me that certain clinical manifestations provoke fear in clinicians (or others). It's kind of like schizophrenia-there are therapists uncomfortable working with related issues. I don't mean the stigma of the diagnoses, but the feelings of others.

Maybe not the best example but all i can think of right now. For example, with last T, I came in session very hypomanic. It was odd; it was probably mania as it was a bit beyond how I've ever experienced hypomnia...nevertheless, he felt angry and agitated at me, which was apparent but also conveyed to me by him in words. I didn't find it rejecting (we had a good relationship) but interesting.

I don't think it's you but rather the manifestation of your issues. I'd probably look for a therapist with experience and interest with dissociative disorders.

I do have a question-was it you that always terminated the therapy? Did you always walk away?

[thesnowqueen]

I'm not sure I have anything really helpful to say - it seems obvious that therapists should be trained (and equipped) to deal with rage and that the many you encountered were not. The additional anger you have in response to this seems justified, but may also be exacerbating your condition? I don't personally have any good way of dealing with anger as I tend to internalise which is just as destructive. I can definitely relate to the wasted decades ravaged by mental illness that no one has managed to properly reverse or resolve. i think many of us COULD have made major contributions to the world if somehow the world had done better by us. And this applies to us handicapped by illness as well as many others let down by inadequate social, economic and political structures. I can only say I admire you for making the long struggle, and continuing to do so.

[here today]

Originally Posted by Skies

. . .
I don't think it's you but rather the manifestation of your issues. I'd probably look for a therapist with experience and interest with dissociative disorders.

I do have a question-was it you that always terminated the therapy? Did you always walk away?

It was mostly me who ended the therapies when it became clear the therapists couldn't help or deal with with me. One said outright that she didn't want to deal with issues of rage. I hadn't been explicit about that in the initial phone call but was at the first meeting.

I held out to the bitter end with the last T, a specialist in dissociative disorders but not personality disorders. She diagnosed me with DDNOS and PDNOS, which I believe were fairly right-on. I expect, also, that the rage issue is more a PD-related issue, not just dissociative. Still -- I certainly have been willing to address it head on -- but the therapists have, for the most part, not been able to.

After a little more than 6 years, we came to an impasse. She said that she didn't have the "emotional resources" to deal with my issues right then and didn't expect to be able to within the foreseeable future. She found me an alternative and another who expected to be accepting new clients in a few months.

I went to the second for a consultation several months ago but do not want to try another therapy at what I consider to be an exhorbitant out-of-pocket fee for an uncertain result.

[here today]

Originally Posted by thesnowqueen

. . . The additional anger you have in response to this seems justified, but may also be exacerbating your condition? I don't personally have any good way of dealing with anger as I tend to internalise which is just as destructive. I can definitely relate to the wasted decades ravaged by mental illness that no one has managed to properly reverse or resolve. i think many of us COULD have made major contributions to the world if somehow the world had done better by us. And this applies to us handicapped by illness as well as many others let down by inadequate social, economic and political structures. . .

Thanks, that perspective helps -- it is what it is. I think the additional anger is destructive, but it has kind of come with the territory of being more realistic about what therapy can and cannot do. Perhaps some of the anger can be let go, however, and yet leave the more realistic view of therapy. Particularly if I don't feel like I'm all alone with this "unfair" (but whoever said that life was fair) situation.

[ruh roh]

Originally Posted by here today

I went to the second for a consultation several months ago but do not want to try another therapy at what I consider to be an exhorbitant out-of-pocket fee for an uncertain result.

It's a lot of money to lay out just to see if it might work. And it takes more than one or two sessions, or even months, to know if it has a chance of working if there is also a dissociative disorder. I have been seeing mine for almost 2 and a half years and, considering the amount of time and effort she puts into my therapy, I am just waiting for the bottom to drop out. It's all a risk, and I don't think it ever stops being a risk. So basically, I get it.

Thanks for clarifying. That's really unfortunate and sounds really painful that your therapist severed the relationship after 6 years. I don't see much difference in treatment of PD vs DD and both result from trauma the same. This is just my opinion-but I think rage could be worse with DD, if there is a difference. It's really common from what I understand. Once you access that part of yourself...but it would sort of dissolve/integrate into your whole self.

Anger vs rage-what are we talking about here? Not sure what you consider to be rage. My therapist said it has an 'out of control' aspect to it. Anger-I have problems with it, that didn't seem to be an issue until I started therapy since it was repressed before, like many of us who became conditioned to not express it as children-it was unsafe. Feeling anger resurfacing this week with my mood changes and gotta own it...but-I'm still not sure how to process it the 'right way'.

How does it get directed at the right people?How does it get processed in therapy? I wish I knew how it worked. I think it's difficult when there are no memories of childhood. And the adult part of ourselves might rationalize "parents did the best they could". Maybe those of us more prone to rationalizing will have more trouble with anger? Just thinking out loud.
My therapist always said people feel better after working through anger.

I don't think we can truly accept ourselves until we accept our dark side, and rage or anger is part of the human condition. (side note-my therapist said that he has an 'angry edge' himself). It is difficult to withstand, from either direction, I understand that too. Think of an infant crying-that is pure rage. We're conditioned to not be able to tolerate it-that's part of the survival mechanism so that we take care of our babies (I'm just making this up but it makes sense!). Some of us have more tolerance to infant crying than others, right-we all have seen this in parents around or taking care of newborns. I don't think all therapists are all adverse to it.

I feel really sincere when i think this--I don't think your rage or anger is a sign of defectiveness (only bringing that up as you have several times)-it's just being human. I do agree your therapists might have contributed to your viewing yourself that way, exasperating the problem. Really sad. I think thesnowqueen said it best.

[thesnowqueen]

Originally Posted by here today

Thanks, that perspective helps -- it is what it is. I think the additional anger is destructive, but it has kind of come with the territory of being more realistic about what therapy can and cannot do. Perhaps some of the anger can be let go, however, and yet leave the more realistic view of therapy. Particularly if I don't feel like I'm all alone with this "unfair" (but whoever said that life was fair) situation.

It has occurred to me that one of the more unique aspects of the suffering from mental illness is the sense of alienation. Impoverished and persecuted communities still have community and physical illness manifests in a visible way and so invites expressions of solidarity that mental illness doesn't. And that is without even taking account of the fact that mental illness often involves driving people away or self-isolating, as part of the symptomology.

While I think there is something to be said for accepting life is unfair - I also think anger is a necessary aspect of our sense of justice and that without a sense of justice we would all be a lot worse. So life is unfair, but it shouldn't be unfair... And how could we advocate for a better world WITHOUT keeping this in mind. (I think a lot of really good activism is driven by justified anger) So I guess I'm agreeing with Skies that anger/rage is not entirely negative, nor is it a 'defect'.

It makes me think of something I read about DBT being based on two principles: radical acceptance (I guess 'it is what it is') and also the drive for change - and that these two - seemingly contrary - processes actually depending on each other.

I find it sometimes helps to keep that in mind, though in some states NOTHING seems to help. In any case, sending

[here today]

Thanks, people, for your responses.

I woke up this morning still horrified, in disbelief, even though I know what happened, happened, and that's the reality.

I brought my dissociated responses out in therapy and they were SHAMED, just like they were in my family of origin. OVER AND OVER again. OK. I dealt with that as a child by dissociation.

And then the TRAUMA AND DISSOCIATION specialist couldn't tolerate it either?

What the F is going on here?

Of course, since I uttered a curse word, in a state that I told the T that I was in, and could have "turned off", I am still the "bad guy". Despite what therapists told me years ago, to get in touch with my feelings. But that was then, after a generation of "social propriety" and inhibition and this is now, another generation of slightly different social propriety.

Nowhere along the way was there any education in social skills or. . .whatever it is that my dissociated social emotions didn't allow me to pick up on. It's better now, but who wants to help me integrate and learn that stuff? Well, I do have a therapist now who has said that he will try to help me come out of my cave of self-absorption, and I will ask him these kinds of things. Maybe he can help, maybe not.

I remain extremely angry at the therapy profession. It was my expectations, true, that they have not lived up to. But I believe that they promote those expectations and certainly do not do anything directly to disabuse us of those expectations.

So, OK, maybe it was idealization on my part. But, once again, over 50 years in therapy on and off, 20 almost continuously, to get to this point! With my life almost over?

Well, look on the bright side. I've got maybe 20 years left, maybe not. I don't think anybody in the profession or the society generally wants to hear what I have to say, at least as I write it right now, with still so much anger. But . . .it's not over till it's over and the future hasn't happened yet.