Hardest topics

I'm glad to see that many others struggle with feelings for T and ending therapy stuff. I thought I was just nuts.

When I feel like I "should" feel a certain way or when I'm not "perfect" or when I make a mistake. I have been nitpicked and judged my entire life, so when I make silly mistakes or misunderstand something small it is a huge deal, and throws me into a tailspin of embarrassment. That even seems silly writing out, but it's the truth.

Anything that brings up deep shame, perceived failures, that kind of thing. But those are also the topics and emotions that have pushed me into therapy, so I end up talking about them but in a superficial way, separated from the intense feelings they bring up. As an example, my wife and I have been unable to start a family naturally, and it has been so difficult to fully share my feelings about this, even though my therapist and I talk about it all the time. I feel like a failure, and even though I know it's irrational, it's so powerful that I have a hard time really sharing that sense of shame and despair and anger.

Everything?

CSA. Relationships. Feelings. Personal flaws. The past. The present. The future.

All of it is difficult.

Just feeling helpless...

Food and weight and any feelings that might involve him

I thought it would be hard to talk about my eating disorder -- I hid it from her for almost a year -- but after I finally told her it actually felt good to talk about.

Drugs, on the other hand... I haven't told her and I'm afraid I never will, it's too scary and embarrassing.

Sex seems to be an awkward topic for many. My sex life has been so bizarre that I don’t mind speaking of mine, at all. I mean, the statues of limitations have long passed! I don’t feel any attachment to others these days, really.

I’m really surprised to read of these difficult problems that people have speaking to thei5

Oops - I seem to have sent my message without completing it!

I think that I was writing of my surprise of all of the different topics that folks find verboten when speaking to their shrinks. My feeling, very early on is that shrinks were like priests in the confessional — nothing was going to surprise them, and my sins weren’t anything as great as I thought that they couldn’t be forgiven. I no longer confess my sins to a priest but rather to my shrink and she offers my an absolution of sorts.

I’ve confessed my ‘hardest topic’ but I ran with it and found a way to deal with it — with help. But it seems that some people have yet to speak to their shrinks about their hardest topic. For many it seems to be a love interest for their shrinks — and I’ve never felt anything like that.

Anything involving sex and intimacy. I feel like I'm being dirty and bad when I find myself wanting either of those things - talking about them is damn near impossible. Especially intimacy - for me, that's worse than sex because that means much more to me and seems much more impossible to have because I don't believe I deserve it.

I also have a hard time saying anything that I think is critical of him - kinda feel like who the hell am I to be critical of anything he does. On the very rare occasions where I managed to spit it out, his reaction was not positive and I ended up feeling worse for having done it.

The hardest thing for me is also in some ways the thing that I feel like I need to talk about the most--the terrible preverbal longing for affection and caretaking. And how our relationship interacts with that need. God-awful.

I guess for me it would be sex, sexual abuse, and feelings that I feel are weak such as loneliness or longing. Another hard one to talk about was intrusive thoughts because I thought they were pretty bad.

The times I expressed distrust or anger at him, I usually had what amounted to a panic attack, complete with mild heart attack symptoms. Last time this happened I remember shaking my hands out because my fingers were all tingling and buzzing. I said the things anyway, but it was awful.

I did have a lot of trouble saying one thing involving sex, which I had to type on my phone and hand to him. I think that was difficult because I was really connected with my teenage self at the time, as that was the time in my life we were talking about. I didn't have any trouble mentioning the same thing later on, because I think I was in a more adult frame of mind, and it seemed like no big deal.

I talk to my T about everything, even the hard topics. My "secret" is not a secret to my T even though that's what we actually call it. It's also not a secret to my H. Both T and H basically know everything about me.

I don't know that it's necessarily a love interest for the therapist. If there's paternal or maternal transference going on, then that can affect what you share, too. Because there can be this feeling of, I don't want to let this parent figure down, I don't want to be a disappointment to them, I don't want them to judge me. And that can, of course, be stuff that comes from childhood, not wanting to disappoint or feel rejected by our parents.

And sometimes it's just the thought of telling ANYONE about certain topics. Even knowing cognitively that a therapist has probably heard most everything before, there's still that fear that they'll be horrified.

The sexual abuse, and my mother

LT

I agree, It doesn't matter really what the 'feelings' are, talking to someone about how you feel about them, is very hard for some people. For someone like me, it was not something allowed growing up.... we were basically raised to keep everything to ourself. Then you get to a point in life where you try it with a few people, even just simple feelings of you are a nice person etc and they reject you etc so then that becomes a fear.

For me, it's huge that I can even say anything, even though I can't say it out loud and probably never will, telling my T I feel love for him, was incredibly hard and shameful and I still feel sick about it, even though he has handled it well. I just keep going in my mind to a place of being rejected, mocked etc, so I hate that it's out there. I would not say its a love interest for me, love feelings, you bet... but interest? Eh...

I also don't feel any parental feelings for my T. So yes in many cases people do get love interest feelings for their T but it's not always. Honestly, even saying something like "You are really pissing me off" is hard for me to say to anyone. I just can't handle talking to someone about how I feel about them. Everyone is different of course but that's my take on it.

I think they are difficult to share not because we see the therapist as a love interest but because there is a lot of shame involved and many of us want to be like and accepted. We are afraid of the unknown. What if my therapist sees me as worthless, disgusting etc if I reveal this. Maybe they will think I am as bad as I think I am.

Anything body-related, as well as whatever disturbing show I'm binge watching. That last one doesn't seem like a therapy topic, but it has found its way there.

Self harm
Anything around suicide
Our relationship and how I feel about him
Weight issues, which is dumb because he can obviously see that I have issues. I just can't talk to him about it though.