[benzenering]

I had a negative event happen last week that triggered a depressive episode and severe suicidal ideation. My T couldn't see me Friday, but made an appointment for me on Monday. I went into the issues as I perceived them in my journal (wrote several pages!) including my deepest thoughts on suicide. These are very detailed in my journal as well as my thoughts and feelings leading up to them. I wrote it all in an attempt to vent, and to try to feel a little better about myself.

Unlike a lot of people I express myself better in writing than I do verbally. I'm thinking of sharing my entry into my journal with my T tomorrow because I think it will explain what I'm going through better than I can, but I have all that suicide "stuff" in there. If I edit what I tell him, he'll ask my why I'm not sharing completely and I'll have no plausible answer.

Is sharing my journal with my T a bad idea? I've fought with this question all weekend. Time is short, and I can't make up my mind.

[DP_2017]

Originally Posted by benzenering

I had a negative event happen last week that triggered a depressive episode and severe suicidal ideation. My T couldn't see me Friday, but made an appointment for me on Monday. I went into the issues as I perceived them in my journal (wrote several pages!) including my deepest thoughts on suicide. These are very detailed in my journal as well as my thoughts and feelings leading up to them. I wrote it all in an attempt to vent, and to try to feel a little better about myself.

Unlike a lot of people I express myself better in writing than I do verbally. I'm thinking of sharing my entry into my journal with my T tomorrow because I think it will explain what I'm going through better than I can, but I have all that suicide "stuff" in there. If I edit what I tell him, he'll ask my why I'm not sharing completely and I'll have no plausible answer.

Is sharing my journal with my T a bad idea? I've fought with this question all weekend. Time is short, and I can't make up my mind.

Go for it, I've done it. I am like you, better with writing than verbal. I always have notes or send emails of stuff before.

If you are uneasy about sharing it, you can either have them turn away while you read it, or just hand it to them to read

Good luck

[zoiecat]

I understand your fears about him seeing the suicide stuff.I too do better with writing. What I've done before is take the most important parts of my journal and type it and print it out or you can rewrite it on a different paper if you want to leave out the suicide stuff. I know I'd be scared to death for my therapist to read my journal because it goes detailed into my plan and I don't want to end up in the hospital so I would never let him read my journal but that's me. Good luck to you with your decision.

[Elio]

I have shared my journal for over a year now and have found it an invaluable tool in my therapy. Only recently have I changed the useage of the journal and have found it difficult. A question is do you expect your T to read it while you are sitting there or between sessions and have you talked about that in the past. If you expect them to read it while you are sitting there, you might want to highlight portions that are most important. I have also heard of some T's requesting the client to read it out loud rather than having them read it.

A final thought, is since a big topic in this piece is about suicide, have you talked about suicide with your T in the past, are you aware of how they react around it, how the determine your safety and their responses. Early on, one of my journal entries was about my position on suicide and life in general. I had a meltdown that night (my T reads the journal between sessions) because of not knowing how she took what I wrote.