On your first day with a new therapist, what did you tell them your reason was for seeking out therapy? Did you just delve right into it, or did they ask first?

Have you stuck to that issue, or did therapy progress to other areas?

[CharlieStarDust]

I did. But I went in thinking I had this little issue, and here I am, 8 years later - going strong... haha.

[stopdog]

I told the woman. She was useless in helping me with it. While I was contemplating quitting, my person was diagnosed with her third round of cancer that had metastasized to her bones and (and then other places) and I did find it useful to talk about that without having to watch what I said.

[Nammu]

I didn't have an issue, I was referred by ER I went more out of curiosity that anything else. In the process I dumped my ex husband and was freed.

[CartDown]

I had an obession with someone for almost 2 decades. It's not like I have a shrine, and I'm not physically stalking them. It's really more about daydreaming, dissociation.

[nottrustin]

I went because I couldn't get over the death of my mon and because I was very overwhelmed by being a parent to 2 boys with ADHD plus my daughter. I told T why when she asked. We morphed way beyond into things I never planned to tell anybody: CSA, abandonment issues and inability to trust anybody.

[speckofdust]

Toxic anger toward my sister started it. That is resolved. I still go to therapy, but for many different reasons now.

[ArtleyWilkins]

My reason was slightly different for each of my three times going into therapy:

1. First time: Depression directly resulting from initial awareness of abuse.
2. Second time: I sort of stumbled into this one as just a discussion with the therapist. I knew him in a different context, and something I said sparked him to initiate more inquiry into my issues. We sort of developed into the therapy mode through this discussion.
3. Third time: Recurrent depression that was bogging me down. I wanted a therapist to help me get past the constant beat-down of depression, whatever it took. I was determined to walk through whatever fire I had to in order to get past my past; I was tired of my history running the show.

[Salmon77]

Depression and feeling like I didn't know what I was doing with my life. Made worse by some career problems and the end of a relationship.

[atisketatasket]

Increasing difficulty in interpersonal communication. From there it turned into other things like leaving an abusive marriage and battling si. Now it’s about setting goals irl and realizing them (depression has made me prone to inertia).

[Merope]

I initially went because I wasn’t dealing very well with a breakup. I only intended to stay for six session. But then a lot more stuff started coming up and I’m still in therapy, almost a year and a half later.

[zoiecat]

With my current T I went to get over a bad car accident so I could drive without fear. I also mentioned maybe working on my mother eventually. That turned into MDD, PTSD, and DID with all kinds of hidden worms crawling out of cans. I doubt I will ever be fixed. It's not the fault of T. I knew going in that I hadcbeen messed up my whole life. I just never thought about fixing it through therapy.

[Louella]

I went initially because my anxiety was getting out of control and I always feel on edge (only a few sessions in ). I didn’t have intentions of talking about past trauma but the therapist somehow knew something else was going on. We haven’t touched on the trauma yet and I’m not sure if I will ever be able to/want to. If I could get a grip on my anxiety that would be great.

[MoxieDoxie]

Bulimia, wanting to die all the time (actively suicidal), self harm......

[ChickenNoodleSoup]

I first went because I was self-harming, suicidal, had constant anxiety and/or panic attacks, was incredibly scared of being abandoned by my friends but was also running to my friends with all those issues. Those friends also recommended I start therapy.

I told my T at our first session, he asked why I'm there and I was honest about it.

Most of these issues still pop up in therapy now after 2.5 years. Anxiety is a bit less since I'm on meds now. But there's also other things we discuss now, most related to trauma.

[Elio]

To get answers on how best to deal with a family situation, such that there would be as least amount of damage/trauma done to the young child in the situation. She never really helped there. I was fairly suicidal at the time. After a few months, the goals changed to stabilizing me (which was probably her goal initially) and then help me to build a support system so that I could better weather life challenges, address my food/eating/weight issues, and deal with depression.

Depression and knowing that there had to be more 'out there' for me.

[SheHulk07]

The very first time I went because I just had an ectopic pregnancy and emergency surgery that I was grieving from. I only intended to go for a few sessions since it was a therapist at my obgyn office. But from talking to her a few times she referred me to an outside therapist to deal with anxiety.
With my current T I sought him out to deal with every day anxiety and depression that I didn't think EMDR would help with. I told him all this at our first few sessions. After a few months, my doctor and T decided that it was more harmful for me to have 2 Ts, one talk therapist and 1 EMDR therapist, so I had to choose which one I wanted to work with. That was back in October when I picked the talk therapist to solely work with, and now several months later I'm seeing him 5 days a week and we talk about anything from my childhood abuse to SA from my H, SH/SI, dealing with a child who has ADHD and other mental health issues.

[Xynesthesia2]

Anxiety and difficulty staying sober stably from an addiction. None of my Ts were helpful with those things at all, in terms of the addiction I actually educated them on some methods of treatment that they had no clue about. Eventually I resolved the addiction on my own and using other resources and my anxiety also improved significantly with sustained sobriety and with acquiring better discipline in general. I've learned some small things from my therapy but did not continue because it wasn't useful with anything significantly enough to be worth the money. I don't currently have any mental health issues that would require professional treatment and also can't easily foresee what I would ever go to therapy for in the future. I can more easily think of what I would potentially see a psychiatrist for and take medication (even though I don't currently have anything that would warrant it) but I really doubt talk therapy would do anything for me. I talk with friends and colleagues a lot about mental health and they tend to be much more knowledgable and supportive than pure psychotherapists I have encountered.

[Anne2.0]

Originally PTSD symptoms, including nightmares, that emerged after a 15 year hiatus. Spent some time focusing on childhood trauma. Then there was work stress, then my spouse became terminally ill and died, then my child hit puberty, then I revisited work stress , then I got involved in a new intimate relationship. Lots of transformation over the past 10 years with the same therapist. Now for me it is mostly relationship oriented, but I don't think that will last forever. But the ongoing "treatment" is self care for me, making sure I'm dealing with the vicarious trauma from my work with traumatized people.

There's a book I just finished, by Lori Gottlieb, Maybe you Should Talk to Someone, written by a therapist writing about her own therapy. Her story is she went into therapy to deal with the sudden breakup with her fiance, but then the complaint evolves into her health struggles and fear of death. It's an interesting read from that perspective; you might like it.

[WarmFuzzySocks]

My initial reason for starting counseling was couples to fix my marriage. I believed that, so that’s what I told the therapist. Eventually the kids’ dad quit because he was “fixed” and clearly I was the problem, and my therapy started addressing issues of abuse and recovery.

[SlumberKitty]

My initial reason for going to therapy was SH. Some friends had a sort of "intervention" and one of them who is a social worker asked me to let her find me a T, so I did. She found former T for me who I worked with for 10 years. We still work on SH but also a whole host of other problems/issues. I found out I'm more messed up than originally thought, I guess. HUGS Kit

[Xynesthesia2]

I always find it interesting how often and how much therapy is focused on relationship issues because I never feel that I would want to involve a third (or fourth etc) party in those in my own life. My Ts actually pointed out that I rarely talk about relationships in therapy but I just did not have those kinds of challenges during that time and I usually really prefer to resolve them with the actual people involved or if not possible, I just end those relationships. I only brought up those things when I talked about my past, in connection with more practical current problems. I think I would also be one of those who would most likely refuse to go to couples counseling.

[nottrustin]

Originally Posted by Anne2.0

Originally PTSD symptoms, including nightmares, that emerged after a 15 year hiatus. Spent some time focusing on childhood trauma. Then there was work stress, then my spouse became terminally ill and died, then my child hit puberty, then I revisited work stress , then I got involved in a new intimate relationship. Lots of transformation over the past 10 years with the same therapist. Now for me it is mostly relationship oriented, but I don't think that will last forever. But the ongoing "treatment" is self care for me, making sure I'm dealing with the vicarious trauma from my work with traumatized people.

I also use therapy for dealing with work stress. In the beginning I was getting triggered a lot by clients' pasts it was a weekly check in question. The last couple of years I get triggered a lot less but on occasion it happens and we process it.

[Xynesthesia2]

Originally Posted by Anne2.0

Originally PTSD symptoms, including nightmares, that emerged after a 15 year hiatus.

Anne, can I ask how therapy helped you with nightmares? I have had recurring nightmares that I can very easily relate to a form of anxiety I tend to have but have not been able to eliminate them stably. They tend to surface when I procrastinate or otherwise slack with my discipline and then worry about tasks, so it is not trauma-related or maybe related to traumas I sometimes caused myself not dealing with practical things consistently. The themes of my dreams is always very similar and predictable and I don't care too much as they only cause discomfort when I am asleep and for a short while after waking, but would love to get rid of them somehow. I talked with quite a few people about them but that does not seem to do anything, only my dealing with things better does.