Am really not able to communicate..well what I would like to know or to have help with.. so if this comes out wrong.. am sorry ahead of time...

My Dx is DID...PTSD.. anxiety.. depression..

For me... depression... comes/goes/ gets better/gets worse in my life...

and I feel that my T does not deal well with that... he gets "angry".. and trys to "snap" me out of it..

he says things like.. "next time you come in you won't be depressed, I've seen it"

I feel that the last statement is true.. because he reacts so strongly to my depression.. that well.. no I put on a "face" that he likes... rather than have his anger and disaproval... and...his invalidation... that "next" time I come in I won't be.. feels like my depression is meaningless...

Does anyone else have feelings like that about their T? that they don't really deal well with depression...

[purplemoon]

It might be his own insecurities. My T has dealt well with my depression so far, I am very very thankful for that. He did tell me of a time in his life that he went through a pretty hard bout of depression, so maybe that is why he is so empathetic about it. I am depressed a lot. Even though my depression has lifted a great deal I am still very depressed and he deals quiet well with it.

Have you asked your T about his reaction to your depression? Does he realize how he is being perceived.

I am sorry that he isn't supportive about it. Maybe tell him what you would like from him regarding this.

[Perna]

I think depression and things like that can be frustrating for others to "deal" with. My T once used the phrase, "Not with that attitude!" to show me how there wasn't a whole lot she could do to help me if I didn't help her too.

How would you like your T to react? I do that with myself all the time, ask myself "How would you like to feel in this circumstance" -- usually I'm feeling "appropriately" or, if I think about it can think of ways to help myself feel better or do something to distract myself for a bit, etc.

[Caramee]

Was is this T (the one who gets angry) who gave you the diagnosis of DID, PTSD, anxiety, and depression? If so, he is not showing an accurate understanding of how severe those are by behaving so insensitively.

I once told a pdoc that I've had been yelled at all my life; tough love and "snap out of it" statements were only going to make me worse -- what I needed was understanding and patience to get better.

[ECHOES]

I wonder it that is simply an observation rather than the judgement you are hearing.

I'm not depressed each time I go in. Sometimes I am so depressed and held back I can hardly speak. Other times I feel at ease and can speak easily. It depends on what is going on in my life, and that can be little things too; the way I interpret something someone has said, or if I decide I can know what another is thinking, for example.

What's important is what it is I'm reacting to, how I'm reacting, and where that reaction might have originated. We talk about those things.

Do you ask him more about statements like these? Ask to say more about them?

Could you say, "Yes you're right sometimes I don't feel so depressed. I think it's because... " Or, "I don't know why that happens." Or, "I wsh I could communicate easier or better." Or, "It seems like you feel angry when I feel depressed. Why is that?"

Explore, explore, explore. Keep working at the communicating. I think you communicate very well here and I wonder if you are communicating fine there too but you don't think you are.

Just my thoughts and I hope you feel better.

[sunrise]

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freewill said:
he says things like.. "next time you come in you won't be depressed, I've seen it"

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It sounds like he is having trouble being in the moment with you and dealing with what you are experiencing NOW. Who cares about next week's therapy session, what about today? It may be true that next week you may feel better, but what is the relevance to today? Do you think he believes that by telling you it could be better next week, that this will cheer you up?

If I come to my T and tell him I am depressed, he basically gives me some loving and it does make me feel better. He takes it very seriously. One of the best things he does is give me hope. Maybe your T is awkwardly trying to give you hope things will improve?

I think when you do feel better, try to talk to him about this. Let him know you perceive his reaction as angry and you are curious why your depression makes him act that way. Tell him that his reaction makes you feel like your depression is meaningless (that sounds like a recipe for more depression to me). I hope you feel better soon, freewill.

i used to have something similar...

see... from an objective (other person) perspective i vary a lot in my moods. 'labile', it is called. what that means is that i can be in a fairly intense emotional state anywhere from a few hours to a few days. it invariably shifts (from an objective stand-point) within a few days. so... from their perspective i'm not really depressed because i snap out of it.

but from my subjective perspective, while i vary a lot in my emotional state that really doesn't help me when i'm in an intense emotional state. when i'm distressed or when i'm depressed it feels like it is so intense that it is going to kill me. i can only remember other times that i was in that emotional state (state dependent memory, it is called) and i simply can't envisage it ever lifting. from my subjective perspective i am doomed to experience intense distress or intense depression FOREVER.

if someone were to tell me (as many a therapist did) that i wasn't 'objectively depressed' that would be very hard for me to take. i felt like they weren't LISTENING or they weren't SEEING my very real state of distress. they might say things like 'you will snap out of it soon' or they might not be very concened about me, thinking that i would snap out of it soon. from my subjective perspective that really didn't help me at all. in fact... it harmed me.

i've seen some clinical materian written where it is emphasised that while from an objective perspective it can seem as though the moods are labile and pass fairly swiftly... that from a subjective perspective it is intensely distressing and feels never-ending. they said something about how often clients maintain that there base level mood is very low indeed. dysthymic. interviews with people with dysthymia reveal that while objectively the depression is regarded to be 'mild' people self report their depression as 'intense and very distressing'.

so... there may be an a-symetry between how you feel and how you present. the difficulty is that in the face of invalidating / unsympathetic responses from clinicians the temptation is for one to emphasise or dramatise or escalate in ones presentation in order to receive the validation and sympathy that one really genuinely does need.

i got stuck in this cycle for many years with many different therapists :-( it surely did suck and it surely made me feel really really really really bad. really really bad about myself (i started to worry that i might be feigning symptoms or lying or being manipulative or attention seeking etc). i really was in a lot of pain, though, it was just that unsympathetic responses made me worse :-(

is there any way... that you can try and tell your therapist how you really feel? sure there is a risk involved... but... i don't know... sucks to be caught in a cycle, huh.

(though of course your experience may well be different from mine)