[confused_77]

Did you ever regret starting therapy? to me it feels as if all the awareness is draining, as if I would prefer just to act out on the impulses and not understand it. its like opening a can of worms and never going back to not knowing. and i dont mean: it gets worse before it gets better type of thinking i think that with the self-awareness i lost spontaneity and the I don't look at human interactions the same way. I analise everything, try to see the logic in what everybody is doing or saying. i feel drained and wish i could just be

At the moment, the only thing I regret about therapy is that I went back last night. I wish I had just stayed away.

[Fernwehxx]

For me, self awareness helps since my impulses are not always always good. Lol.
Actually, I have always been quite aware about others, and I really dont mind it. For myself, I used to be not self aware at all and it drove me nuts becauae I kept thinking all my issues came from nowhere, I was just like this, etc. Now I see the truth, I can work on it.

Maybe you have to become a little more relaxed and sometimes try not to overanalyze a situation. This may need aone training, but in the end, we're all creatures of habit who stuck to what we ahve been doing, so we can change it too.

Just some thoughts...

Oh, and going to therapy for me was the best thing I couldve done, so, no, no regrets.

[nottrustin]

I have quite a few times. Before entering therapy I blocked so many horrible thoughts. Emotionally I was completely numb. I had never once struggled with thought of any type of self harm and drank very minimumly.

[Elio]

Only when it feels like the changes in me threaten my marriage. It can be hard when one is changing and the other isn't.

[zoiecat]

I regret it all the time. I knew I wasn't good before the accident a year ago I knew I had a horrible childhood and early adulthood I suffered with depression and Suicidal Tendencies my entire life and I was barely holding on but little did I know how bad it would become. I started therapy to get over a major car accident a year ago. Since then I've learned that I do feel emotions I used to be numb now I feel painful emotions all the time which really sucks my therapist said this means I'm getting better feeling emotions is better than being numb I hate it. I've also discovered I have DID which I guess in some ways I I knew things were weird with me but I wasn't aware of most of my alters until about 5-6 months ago this is opened up a whole new can of worms. I have flashbacks constantly now which before I was in Pleasant denial and now most of the time. So overall yes I've opened many cans of worms that I can't put back together I've opened Pandora's Box I can't go back the only option now is to walk through hell to get to the other side. I regret ever starting therapy most days.

I ask my therapist last week if he felt I've made any progress and he was shocked at the question and said I've made all kinds of progress and proceeded to tell me everything I I've done that's better than a year ago. So for now I will believe his professional opinion and keep going with the "work". Hopefully I will start to feel the progress soon. At the time being more self-aware for me it's just a big painful pain in the ***.

[BudFox]

I found it thoroughly toxic. It bred self-absorption, rumination, preoccupation with therapist/therapy, helplessness, dependency. It was stressful and exhausting. It amplified existing problems, and created new problems. It solved nothing. It was miserable, pointless drama.

The only benefit was in the deprogramming I did on my own, and that has been very helpful.

I see a big difference between healthy self-awareness cultivated through organic means, and obsession with one's problems and defects as a result of contrived processes.

Ive told my t I have wished I had never met him a few times now... Once I thanked him for ruining my day. He said I was welcome.

I have never regretted doing therapy, even with the duds I've had over the decades. Therapy was been torturous many time, Yet life changing for me in these latter years.

[stopdog]

The woman was mostly useless. The only thing I found a good use for was venting over my sick/dead person. I would not say so much regret. I learned a lot about therapists and their lack of anything useful which is good information for me. I did not learn what the point of the woman ever talking was.

Originally Posted by confused_77

Did you ever regret starting therapy? to me it feels as if all the awareness is draining, as if I would prefer just to act out on the impulses and not understand it. its like opening a can of worms and never going back to not knowing. and i dont mean: it gets worse before it gets better type of thinking i think that with the self-awareness i lost spontaneity and the I don't look at human interactions the same way. I analise everything, try to see the logic in what everybody is doing or saying. i feel drained and wish i could just be

No never Regretted it. Wondered in the beginning when "it" would happen. The "it" being my unrealistic vision of what I expected at that point in! Life.
But otherwise, I just thought doing something was better than how my life had been going and stuck with it. Glad I did. A different something happened. Something better than I could have visualised.

[Marsfx]

Recently I've regretted it a lot. I feel like I've wasted time and made very little progress.
I've taken a small break and feels good to not be in my head more than I already am. It's like I already overanalyze everything, but I have to go back and explain it all to someone else and then go over how I was feeling, and analyzing things as they were happening the first time around. idk this past week was stressful, busy, but positive! But I feel like a session where I would have had to slow down and process things would have just left me stuck in my head.

[confused_77]

Originally Posted by BudFox

I found it thoroughly toxic. It bred self-absorption, rumination, preoccupation with therapist/therapy, helplessness, dependency. It was stressful and exhausting. It amplified existing problems, and created new problems. It solved nothing. It was miserable, pointless drama.

The only benefit was in the deprogramming I did on my own, and that has been very helpful.

I see a big difference between healthy self-awareness cultivated through organic means, and obsession with one's problems and defects as a result of contrived processes.

I can relate to what you sare saying. I found myself so withdrawn from whats going on in life lately because I spend so much time being self-absorbed.
The preoccupation with therapist/therapy is becoming too real and I dive into it more as life doesnt meet my expectations. would I just need to face whats being thrown at me otherwise?... instead I escape into this safe environment of someone who gets paid to take 'all ****'.
Life doesnt work like that, people do get angry, upset, you are in the wrong sometimes and this therapy setting promotes this irrational compassion.

[DP_2017]

the deep closeness i feel to him alone makes me regret it, i HATE feeling close to people and all that comes with it but i am too attached to just stop so I'm stuck right now

[BudFox]

Originally Posted by confused_77

Life doesnt work like that, people do get angry, upset, you are in the wrong sometimes and this therapy setting promotes this irrational compassion.

Yep. If it doesn't model real life, then I fail to see the point.

And I don't think i could ever stomach the purchased caring/interest/understanding again. Here's my credit card, please feign interest in my life.

[confused_77]

Originally Posted by BudFox

Yep. If it doesn't model real life, then I fail to see the point.

And I don't think i could ever stomach the purchased caring/interest/understanding again. Here's my credit card, please feign interest in my life.

but it obviously doesn't model real life. nobody will give you their undivided, unconditional attention so regularly for years. its a contract. some pay to actually resolve issues, i seem to be paying for a 'fake' friend. this is where the transference happens. its all so natural to fell attracked and attached to someone who listens and doesn't judge. but that has nothing to do with what's happening in real life. People judge, dislike, get frustrated. it's a role a therapist plays, even if genuine, its a. pre-set arrangement. it's not real. Yes, they do care and genuinely want to help but it has nothing to do with the connection most of us long for. and it feels deseptive and fake and wrong and gives me a false sense of comfort.

[PsychoPhil]

Insight is the first step to get better. It's something to work on if it feels horrible to speak about.

[musinglizzy]

Absolutely, positively, YES, I regret ever getting into therapy. And now I feel stuck in it. Therapy has done nothing for me but increase my depression and anxiety. It amazes me how one person can somehow have so much power over you (well, in my feelings, anyway), and cause so much pain and hurt. I have/had two therapists I really felt love for. One dumped me with no warning, no termination session, nothing. The other, I've been with for 3.5 years, and her boundary changing has only set me back. This T is very important to me, but has caused me so much hurt as well. Do no harm. Yeah, right. I wish to GOD I had never started therapy. I was much better off without it. But now I'm stuck in this attachment. FML

[Wonderfalls]

No one here seems to ascribe to Socrates's dictum: "The unexamined life is not worth living." I don't see how someone could even read a book or watch a movie with some heft without wondering about their own life and motivations.People obviously care about vicariously experiencing the ins and outs of other peoples' lives. I've appreciated how I've been able to explore ideas I've already had and to gain some objectivity with my therapist.

Also for mistakes I've made it helps to have someone "on my side" who can work with me to reason through and understand them. The idea, for me is that I don't make the same mistakes again because I understand what lead to them in the first place, without hating myself. Stumbling through life feeling numb to our reasoning and feelings surely can't be the way to live life in all its richness, including the bad parts.

[missbella]

I regret it tremendously. My therapy was intense training on how to be a depressive by encouraging me to wallow in my deficiencies and my life’s unfairnesses. It encouraged me to expect the world to cater to me as the special victim that therapy trained me to be. It kept me enfeebled by performing to gratify my therapists.

As I de-programmed—still a work in progress—I decided that self obsession actually is detrimental to self knowledge. The latter comes from what I achieve, how I meet challenges, not sniveling into tissues to elicit my therapists’ synthetic concern.

Do not regret it at all. Therapy certainly did not change my life or healed issues in major ways, it also did not provide mindblowing new realizations and insights. I have always been a very introspective/analytical person as far as I remember, very interested in the inner worlds, both my own and others', so by the time I got into therapy first (at 40 yo), there wasn't too much seriously unexplored ground, I was also in the upcoming phase of some years of very serious personal struggles and setbacks. It did clarify some areas and strengthened some realizations and conclusions though and I benefited in smaller ways, even from the annoying parts of my therapy, given that I was able to stop and not get stuck in it. Therapy was something I had wanted to try for a long time and am glad I did, if for nothing else, because it led me to this forum that I like very much and find way more useful than my actual therapy, or together with my therapy - and it's free. I had two therapists in the past and two radically different experiences, both interesting in their own way, one much more pleasant and tolerable than the other. I think one of them could have been harmful for someone less guarded and resistant than me, but I did not let it get to me too much and beyond what I found beneficial during its time. It was a bit more money spent than its merit, but no regrets really - mostly just another self/others exploration approach out of the many I have tried over time, involving both theoretical and experiential elements, not the best and not the worst.

[Myrto]

No I don't regret going to therapy. It didn't have any major effect the way some people report but honestly I never expected it would be that way for me. I learnt some things about myself, gained some occasional insights. It also did make me suffer a great deal (with my ex therapist) but even that I don't regret. Weirdly enough, I see this as an experience. I also learnt a lot about therapy and therapists which is something I find intellectually very interesting even though I think it's mostly ******** (therapy I mean). All in all, I'm glad I'm no longer in therapy but I rarely regret things so I don't regret my experience in therapy even if it was often pointlessly painful.

[guilloche]

Yes, but I don't think it's for the same reasons as most of the others here.

I just feel like... it's been this long dangling out of hope that has never materialized. Like, it got my hopes up for a reality that just isn't within reach. And after a couple decades of "trying" and not even being able to get a foot in the door (i.e. find a therapist that is able to work with me in any way that feels useful, or that seems to understand me)... I just feel sad and more hopeless.

[ruh roh]

No regrets here. I have never felt stronger within myself and in the world as I have because of therapy. And I am not needing it as much, so able to cut back. And that feels really good.

[BudFox]

Originally Posted by Wonderfalls

No one here seems to ascribe to Socrates's dictum: "The unexamined life is not worth living."

So I can't examine life without being tethered to a paid helper?