[Longingforhome]

I have 2 Ts - one for attachment stuff, the other for more somatically based work. It’s a good combo.
I’ve had ongoing issues with #1, mostly around feeling a bit uncomfortably about his style & what has felt like lack of respect for my therapy ‘rules’ around self disclosure of any kind (I don’t want any. Period).
Last week, I finally told him about something that had been bothering me since late last year. I thought it would clear the air. I also told him I wanted to be less rule bound and more trusting. It took a lot not to cancel that session. And the session before. This week...I am so damned anxious, I just want to be done with this already. I want to cancel AGAIN, for about the 8th week in a row. It feels futile and pointless to turn up yet again to talk about not wanting to be there. I would cancel (I’d have to pay), but I’m afraid that if I cancel I won’t want to ever go back, and the work we’re doing is stuff I have been avoiding, but needing to work on, for a lifetime. The anxiety is so bad, I feel like it’s going to destroy the productive next 6 hours of my working day. I want to cancel so bad, just to make the anxiety go away, but if I do, I’ll still have to face the decision to go/not go next week and have a whole week of this to contend with. I feel like there’s no right answer: I go, I end up wasting another session (and I worry, frustrating him) with the I-don’t-want-to-be-here conversation, or I don’t go, have to explain myself anyway, and be wound up about it for another week. Anyone have any way out of the loop I’m stuck in? I feel paralysed and unable to even know what *I* (rather than anxiety) want.

[zoiecat]

I don't know much about somatic therapy but it may be a question to ask your therapist you do that with for their advice. It sounds like your first therapist is causing you nothing but discomfort and more anxiety it would probably be best to find somebody else or quit that therapy all together.

[koru_kiwi]

how is your somatic therapy going and do you feel comfortable/safe working with that T? i wonder if it might just be time to take a break from 'relationship/attachment' T and take time to only focus on the work you are doing with your somatic T and trying to calm your dysregulation. when you feel more regulated in your body, not triggered or overly anxious, and calm, then you should be able to focus on the specific work with attachment T.

[PurpleBlur]

Originally Posted by Longingforhome

I have 2 Ts - one for attachment stuff, the other for more somatically based work. It’s a good combo.
I’ve had ongoing issues with #1, mostly around feeling a bit uncomfortably about his style & what has felt like lack of respect for my therapy ‘rules’ around self disclosure of any kind (I don’t want any. Period).
Last week, I finally told him about something that had been bothering me since late last year. I thought it would clear the air. I also told him I wanted to be less rule bound and more trusting. It took a lot not to cancel that session. And the session before. This week...I am so damned anxious, I just want to be done with this already. I want to cancel AGAIN, for about the 8th week in a row. It feels futile and pointless to turn up yet again to talk about not wanting to be there. I would cancel (I’d have to pay), but I’m afraid that if I cancel I won’t want to ever go back, and the work we’re doing is stuff I have been avoiding, but needing to work on, for a lifetime. The anxiety is so bad, I feel like it’s going to destroy the productive next 6 hours of my working day. I want to cancel so bad, just to make the anxiety go away, but if I do, I’ll still have to face the decision to go/not go next week and have a whole week of this to contend with. I feel like there’s no right answer: I go, I end up wasting another session (and I worry, frustrating him) with the I-don’t-want-to-be-here conversation, or I don’t go, have to explain myself anyway, and be wound up about it for another week. Anyone have any way out of the loop I’m stuck in? I feel paralysed and unable to even know what *I* (rather than anxiety) want.

do your best to go. go and talk about not wanting to be there. that is what i did. i did it for a year, and even now 2 years in right before my session i am overcome with anxiety and dont want to go, but she just tells me that its ok, and to come anyway, bc so far the part of me that wants to come is stronger than the part that doesnt, because I show up consistently despite the anxiety about not wanting to.


so- show up, it will get easier. if you dont go youre moving in the wrong direction- away from facing your anxiety. you CAN do it. you got this.

[stopdog]

I found breaks very very useful. Sometimes just one week but usually 2-3 weeks to regroup helped me.

[Anne2.0]

Yesterday the leftover cake on my counter was calling my name, but I'd already had plenty over the weekend (and I baked it, very time consuming, for a friend, from scratch and it was indescribably delicious). Can't just throw it in the trash, that would be wasteful. Well, eating it when I didn't really want to was wasteful too, just a different kind.

So you will pay for the session whether you go to it or not, but if going to it and paying for it will actually have a negative effect on you, why not just cancel and then pre-empt the problem by telling the t you will reschedule when you want it? If you will pay either way, why not do the thing that feels right to you, and if canceling is what feels right, do it. Save your time and your gas.

I have sometimes wanted not to go and gone and told my T this. He says that stereotypical T thing (something of a rare occurrence for him) that usually this is an important sign that you really have something important on your mind. Maybe that's been true a time or two, but sometimes it's been just okay, just like all my other sessions. But I don't find therapy or my therapist aversive in general, so maybe things work differently for me.