[DP_2017]

What are the hardest topics in T for you? Was it the stuff you expected going in or something else?

For me... with a guy, I expected the stuff like, sex, periods etc to be tough and awkward but it really isn't. It's actually easy for me. Super casual.

I found the hardest of all though is without a doubt, anything related to my feelings for him and ending therapy. It's way too emotional for me.

[cool09]

Symptoms. No one wants to touch them or make heads or tails of them. And doing what the therapist wants me to do like go swimming, read.

Anything at all even marginally connected to sex or intimacy. It is difficult to even just type the word out here anonymously. I've never been able to speak with anyone (therapist or otherwise) about the subject. It makes it difficult to be helped, since the root of my problems are in childhood traumas of those type.

[malika138]

Balancing between wanting to talk about the painful experiences I've had and trying to manage the day-to-day. I struggle with wanting to trust her and yet not even wanting her to get physically close to me. I want to talk about times when my trust has been violated but I don't want to seem like I am complaining either.

The hardest topic for me has always been the relationship with my parents. It was the most difficult going into therapy and will be the most difficult leaving therapy. I am dealing with it now. Body contortions still happen in session when parents and childhood traumas come up. I was surprised when it happened last week. My life and how my parents fit into me completing the puzzle is a struggle. The five year old has turned her back to them and is holding out, and I am stuck for the moment. I hope I can get unstuck in a timely manner.

[amicus_curiae]

Originally Posted by DP_2017

What are the hardest topics in T for you? Was it the stuff you expected going in or something else?

For me... with a guy, I expected the stuff like, sex, periods etc to be tough and awkward but it really isn't. It's actually easy for me. Super casual.

I found the hardest of all though is without a doubt, anything related to my feelings for him and ending therapy. It's way too emotional for me.

Well. I never had any difficulty with what are usually touted as tough topics in therapy. And, although I was really sad that one of my shrinks, who I’d been with for over a decade, had made a decision to take a research position in middle-America, I wasn’t distraught: we had a professional friendship but I wasn’t completely emotionally invested in him.

The most difficult topic, for me, was discussing the child that I fathered and abandoned. I had to adjust my perception of my long-deceased father as the perfect saint to an all-too-human who had abandoned me for two-years after the death of my mom. And I had to admit that I had — without intention — abandoned my son.

I had severe abandonment issues (BPD) long before I had a child, long, long before I abandoned him. I was hospitalized between April of 1999 and September of 2002 and I think that the abandonment pustule burst in late-2001 or early-2002 when one of my terrific shrinks said, “Do you think that you’ve been thinking that your father would never have abandoned you as you abandoned your son when, in fact, he did exactly the same as you?” (Paraphrased)

I responded with heaving, long, choking, sobbing unlike any that I have ever experienced.

Sometimes it isn’t sex or attachment or other evils that we men do that causes our greatest grief. I feel lucky that I had professionals who were able to complete the 1,000-piece puzzle that I had started.

I keep reading of deep emotional attachments that many here have for their therapists and I don’t understand why.

[retro_chic]

Yes, I thought discussing anything sex related would be more awkward than it is with a male T. He seems comfortable discussing it so that in turn makes me feel more comfortable. Talking about my feelings about him and therapy in general seems to be the most difficult. Telling someone directly how I feel about them is not something I do very often (if at all) so it is still scary for me.

[Argonautomobile]

Pretty much everything. Even mundane **** feels like it's ripped from my intestines.

"What's your favorite color?"

"WHO THE **** WANTS TO KNOW, HUH!?"

incest
rape
cult abuse
and talking about who it was who did those things

[LabRat27]

I have completely avoided talking about my feelings towards him.

In terms of what we've talked about, saying good things about myself in a sincere way has been surprisingly difficult. Like he has me keep a thought record and he had me read the new balanced thoughts out loud and I was shocked by how difficult it was.
He also had me write out what it would mean to love myself and had me read that out loud in a session. I told him I couldn't and tried to just hand it over and hide my face while he read it but he wouldn't read it and insisted that I read it. It took me several minutes to be able to work up to reading it aloud, and I hated every second of it.

[velcro003]

anything emotional, apparently.

surprisingly, talking about self-harm is okay with me. i think it was because she spent an inordinately long time drawing it out of me and making it okay to talk about.

the hardest will be sex/intimacy/sexuality. i avoided it all of my last therapy, and so far in this one, going on 3 years. i think it is heading that way though.

[GeekyOne]

Relationships. Specifically how much I yearn for attention/affection/connection. I can sort of talk about it in the abstract, but getting into specifics like with specific people including/especially her? I just want to melt into the couch.

I don't bring up self harm unless she asks. SUI, oddly, is easier to talk about than SH.

The hardest part of therapy, for me, is staying with my emotions and not retreating to intellectual/academic analysis. Emoting in someone else's presence (who is not a canine) is very hard for me.

I can’t tell anyone certain things about my mother because they sound delusional and don’t matter anymore anyway.

I also quit going to see a previous T because he wouldn’t quit asking me what I had done for fun. I’m suffering from anxiety, how am I supposed to just go have fun?

[LabRat27]

Originally Posted by GeekyOne

Relationships. Specifically how much I yearn for attention/affection/connection. I can sort of talk about it in the abstract, but getting into specifics like with specific people including/especially her? I just want to melt into the couch.


I don't bring up self harm unless she asks. SUI, oddly, is easier to talk about than SH.


The hardest part of therapy, for me, is staying with my emotions and not retreating to intellectual/academic analysis. Emoting in someone else's presence (who is not a canine) is very hard for me.

If it weren't for the fact that I'm more of a cat person I'd think we were the same person

Possible trigger:

I especially want to be swallowed up by the floor when talking about how I partly SH out of a desire for attention/affection/comfort (but then can't allow myself to receive it). I ended up explaining my constant craving by comparing it to Prader-Willi Syndrome, except instead of food it's attention/affection/comfort, and in addition to being the patient I also have to be my own caregiver and lock up the fridge and cupboards.
I probably need to talk to him about how his reactions to my SH affect me and what my thoughts about the subject are. But I don't think I could handle the mortification. Telling him that I specifically crave the attention of older male figures was awful enough. Fortunately he did not acknowledge the fact that he is an older male figure because otherwise I might have died right then and there.

A previous therapist kept pressuring me to emote in her presence, which of course made it impossible to do so. She kept trying to get me to let myself cry in her presence and was like "For therapy to work you have to allow yourself to be vulnerable" and I was like "Hmm, I think I'd rather try electroshock therapy instead then."
My current T mostly doesn't acknowledge it other than to be non-judgemental which helps me feel less self conscious, but I still find that I end up giving him my analysis and reflections upon my emotions and feelings far more than actually letting him see my emotions and feelings.

[ScarletPimpernel]

The hardest topics for me are sex and my secret. It's awkward to talk about our relationship, but it's getting more comfortable the more we talk about it. Talking about my attachment to others is also awkward.

[Merope]

Definitely the feelings that I have for him. It took me months to admit that I see him as a father figure. Yet even harder than that would be the topic of snooping. It's an issue as it's making me feel obsessive and paranoid, yet I can't bring it up--I feel too ashamed and am afraid that his opinion of me would change/he'd reject me because I've been intrusive.

[winterblues17]

I think the hardest thing for me is actually feeling certain emotions at time, or admitting to feeling them to her. Also talking about how I find myself repulsive to her and to the world. Somehow I just can't explain it so much or even say the words.

[MoxieDoxie]

My bulimic acts. Way to shameful and he likes to take things like that and project them on the wall for it to be as clear as day for it to be in my face. OMG I can not even turn and face him. I hide my face in my hands. Just think of the most embarrassing moment in your life and 10 fold that. That is how that feels.

[SarahSweden]

Interesting topic. To me the among the hardest topics will be to admit I´ve never had an intimate relationship as it will make me feel both ashamed and inferior to my T who's married and obviously has a lot of experience from intimate situations.

All kind of critique against my T is also a hard topic even if I´m not showing anger towards her.

Originally Posted by DP_2017

What are the hardest topics in T for you? Was it the stuff you expected going in or something else?

For me... with a guy, I expected the stuff like, sex, periods etc to be tough and awkward but it really isn't. It's actually easy for me. Super casual.

I found the hardest of all though is without a doubt, anything related to my feelings for him and ending therapy. It's way too emotional for me.

[LonesomeTonight]

Hardest for me is definitely talking about attachment (and transference) to him and also how I used to feel about my marriage counselor (was still feeling that way about MC when I started seeing current T). And things tied into that, like admitting the other day that I'd watched a streaming video of him online. Those are the topics that make me dissolve into tears and have trouble looking at him.

Like a couple other posters, even though he's male (and I'm female), I seem to have no trouble talking about sex/intimacy topics with him. It's even easier than with ex-T, who's female, though I had negative maternal transference for her, so maybe it felt like talking to my mother...(she's also my mom's age).

Possible trigger:

For other difficult topics, SH and SUI (I think that's the abbreviation for ideations, right?)

[junkDNA]

Talking about our relationship
Talking about CSA

[SoConfused623]

Originally Posted by DP_2017

What are the hardest topics in T for you? Was it the stuff you expected going in or something else?

For me... with a guy, I expected the stuff like, sex, periods etc to be tough and awkward but it really isn't. It's actually easy for me. Super casual.

I found the hardest of all though is without a doubt, anything related to my feelings for him and ending therapy. It's way too emotional for me.

I can talk about human sexuality pretty easily, but what I find really hard is talking about my attachment to T and my self esteem issues. I usually find a way to put whatever therapist I'm working with on a pedestal, so I never want to talk about my self esteem issues because I hate feeling so inferior!

[velcro003]

Originally Posted by LabRat27

If it weren't for the fact that I'm more of a cat person I'd think we were the same person

Possible trigger:

I especially want to be swallowed up by the floor when talking about how I partly SH out of a desire for attention/affection/comfort (but then can't allow myself to receive it). I ended up explaining my constant craving by comparing it to Prader-Willi Syndrome, except instead of food it's attention/affection/comfort, and in addition to being the patient I also have to be my own caregiver and lock up the fridge and cupboards.
I probably need to talk to him about how his reactions to my SH affect me and what my thoughts about the subject are. But I don't think I could handle the mortification. Telling him that I specifically crave the attention of older male figures was awful enough. Fortunately he did not acknowledge the fact that he is an older male figure because otherwise I might have died right then and there.

A previous therapist kept pressuring me to emote in her presence, which of course made it impossible to do so. She kept trying to get me to let myself cry in her presence and was like "For therapy to work you have to allow yourself to be vulnerable" and I was like "Hmm, I think I'd rather try electroshock therapy instead then."
My current T mostly doesn't acknowledge it other than to be non-judgemental which helps me feel less self conscious, but I still find that I end up giving him my analysis and reflections upon my emotions and feelings far more than actually letting him see my emotions and feelings.

OMG, I would think the same thing if my T kept trying to tell me to be vulnerable. UGH. My T knows I hate that word, and she has never once told me I need to be vulnerable for therapy to work. Ewwwww.

for me the hardest nowadays is the shadow work - looking at the worst parts of me and knowing she's looking at 'em right along with me. and talking about our relationship is hard too.

[coolibrarian]

Hardest for me: even remotely thinking about termination, because I am so attached to her, and anything that has a connection to shame/judgement.