[Fernwehxx]

What were your ups and downs in therapy 2017?

My ups:
- starting therapy
- finding an awesome T I totally click with
- realizing why I have been depressed all my life
- realizing there is hope
- really feeling understood by my T
- realizing (after years of ignoring it) how much I love psychology and re-thinking careers

My downs:
- Totally attached to T, which itself isn't bad, but it shows me how badly I long for someone to fill the void
- Not proud how I handled our medication discussions (the so stubborn me took over and wasn't super nice), but I did turn it around. So I learned from that one.
- wishing I could see her more often than I actually do

All in all, it is definitely positive.

How about you?

Ups: Starting therapy

Downs: Starting therapy

[toomanycats]

My downs have to come first.

Downs:
-S --my long-term T-- telling he was moving across the country for a new job
-the horrendous and traumatic end to our therapy
-S getting dx-ed with cancer
-S actually leaving
-everything...everything falling apart

Ups
-Finding J...and Group T...and then C..
-Very positive termination with J and transition to working with C
-Finally trusting C
-Going on my cowgirl retreat
-Finding myself again - outside of my relationship with S (exT) - outside of ALL of my relationships, actually
-Therapy no longer being an obsession that takes over my life
-Beginning to securely attach to C
-Finding a sense of security I haven't experienced before
-Successfully transitioning to an ok, but surface-level and "heart-guarded" friendship with S (exT)

[Fernwehxx]

OMG, cowgirl retreat sounds like a mega UP. Yeehaw!

[DP_2017]

I think the only down I had really is shutting down too much

Ups there was a few
Getting comfortable with hugs thanks to my t

Crying in front of someone

My t making me feel like i matter

[stopdog]

I never had an up around therapy or the therapist.
She was useful to use as a venting space with my sick/dead person.
Downs - she started talking again and I just did not have the energy to keep telling her to stop. I quit (not really a down -just a result of the woman talking and saying things designed to treat me like a moron)

[LonesomeTonight]

Hm...interesting topic. Looked back through some e-mails/postings because I couldn't remember if some things were in the past year or not! (The joys of getting older...)

Ups:
Finding the strength to realize that it wasn't working with ex-T and leaving her
Finding new T and clicking with him
(very early in year) MC being very reassuring in an e-mail to me about the office move (even though, I realized later, his wife had passed away a few days earlier).

Somewhere in between (good in the long-term, but really painful/difficult in the short-term):
Standing up to MC regarding his unclear, shifting boundaries

Downs:
MC's reaction to my "I love you" e-mail that ultimately led to a very difficult phone call and then his request that I limit outside contact
MC questioning whether other kids were at the bar/restaurants and taprooms where we take our daughter (Yes, she's not the only kid there!)
(very early in the year): My selfish reaction to MC's wife's passing--questioning him about why he wasn't planning to tell us (and wouldn't have been honest if we'd asked him)
Ex-T implying that I hadn't made progress because I still had issues with anxiety and depression

[atisketatasket]

Ups:
-finally got some resolution with a previous therapist (No. 3) after she botched the termination process (by her own admission)

Downs:
-seen three therapists this year, not counting the 3 or so I saw only once or twice
-left two of those therapists after big painful mistakes on their part
-the therapist cited in Ups then managed to ruin any resolution she gave me by communicating with me against my wishes a few months later
-current therapist, eh, dunno about her
-and in the midst of all that no benefits were accrued from therapy

[awkwardlyyours]

Ups: I recently realized that (from however far back that I can remember) I'm not looking at the future with absolute dread and the lack of dread is not tied to achieving any specific academic / professional goal of sorts (my usual way of warding off dread which a while ago had started to fail me).

Downs: That the above has happened in therapy with a T who gives me pause a non-trivial amount of the time.

[NP_Complete]

Ups:
Having him be a witness and having his support while my life slowly imploded.
Various times he offered phone check-ins while he was out of town.
More than once, being told that he cares for me.
The letter he wrote to me to be opened when I'm having a dark day while he's on a 2-week vacation.

Downs:
The day I had to tell him that my husband threatened him.
Him telling me he couldn't go to court with me. That one stung a bit.

Wow. Did all this stuff really happen this year? It's been a long, terrible year.

[ChickenNoodleSoup]

Ups:
- finally finding a T I can work with and sticking with him for the whole year
- significantly reducing most of my issues through the work in therapy
- learning more about myself and understanding what I was experiencing

Downs:
- having to go work far away for three months and not being able to go to sessions every week, as well as not being able to get emergency appointments if needed

Many, many ups this year. Have made so much progress and have been working really hard.

[WarmFuzzySocks]

Ups:
Having a place to dump all of the ugly. It has been an ugly raw year and therapy has been a safe place to be honest (with myself too) about the abuse that had happened and was happening in my home.

Finding my voice. Seeing clearly. Giving words to what I couldn't articulate.

Having a place to think through the choices, and support when I made really hard and unexpected ones. Honestly, I think even my t thought for a while that the choices I was making were too much for what I was facing, but if she did think it she kept it to herself and just asked lots of questions.

Rediscovering my shape, my sense of who I am, my curiosity. Reconnecting with my spiritual self.

Downs:
It's hard. I don't think I've cried as much over the previous ten years as I have over the past year.

There were a few sessions that were disjointed and odd. Still not sure what happened there.

[MessyD]

Ups: I’m starting to feel my feelings little more
Downs: I’m starting to feel my feelings little more

[Tbhimscared]

Ups:
Started therapy
Terminated unhelpful therapy
Managed time away from therapy and was okay
Found a new T I clicked with more
Learned some new things about myself
Became more independent
Downs:
Haven’t opened up about most things I’d like to talk about in therapy
Had an attached relationship to a T that it wasn’t working with but I didn’t want to say goodbye
Lied countless times to my T

Downs: Nothing

Ups: therapist helped me with another major piece of my journey.

[ListenMoreTalkLess]

Ups: halfway through the year, went down to every other week for the first time in like 8 years. Spent some time on the complexity of my relationship with my mother.

Downs: deeper into grief work since the death of my perpetrator 2 years ago. Kinda tired of it.

[LostOnTheTrail]

Ups:

• Realising that I can trust R with anything
• Her note with 'I'm with you', and her Christmas card
• Beginning to face up to the damage done by the people who caused my trauma, and also by P (former counsellor)

Downs

• Feeling guilty for two weeks over an email that she had not yet read
• Realising how dependent I feel on her during this period of upheaval
• Inability to help others understand why I need to deal with this

[bookgirl667]

Ups: continuing to work hard within a solid alliance with a t that really knows me and is committed to helping me. Reduction in PTSD symptoms.

Downs: having to do the hard, hard work of working through my grief and PTSD at my father's sudden death. I always look forward to therapy, but I know I will be put through my paces