[chihirochild]

Have you ever lied? Broken a promise? Done something you knew your T wouldn't want you to do?

If your T ended up finding out, how did that go? How did you go about repairing trust?

[Lostislost]

Not really but I'm really curious to see what others say, good question.

I think mine has only asked my to promise to contact him if I felt like I was going to end my life, and sometimes I don't feel worth it so I struggle alone and make things worse for myself. I feel guilty for not calling him when I tell him about in session then.

[stopdog]

I told the woman what I wanted to tell her and did not tell her what I did not. I don't think one need worry about a therapist one way or the other. I did not care if a therapist would have wanted me to do or not do something - it would never come up for me in a thought process - what a therapist wanted or did not want had no bearing on me at all. I don't know why a therapist would get to have any saying on what I did or didn't do. Don't give a therapist that sort of power over you is my position.

[emmaleemochizuki]

Um there's been time where I lied about my eating disorder, but she pretty much knows it straight away, I am genuinely the worst person at lying so...

I mean there are times she asked things like are you eating? are you self harming? are you suicidal? etc these kind of questions, and I always answer no regardless of what the situation is, I think it's just part of the illness. so eventually she just stopped asking these questions, cos there was no point.

But I think after working with her with 2 years now, I am a lot more open, and less pretending that I'm ok. cos she's can only really help if I tell her, therapist aren't mind readers.

[KLL85]

Most weeks when they asked ‘how are you’ and I would reply ‘ok thanks’ even though I had been really really struggling.
There have been times when I have said I’m not suicidal when I have been and they realised the following week that I had lied. They just asked why I hadn’t felt comfortable admitting how I was really feeling, but it was never made a big deal of.

[ScarletPimpernel]

Up to 23 years old, I lied in my therapy. I usually lied about the SH. Though I always told the truth when asked directly. Until one day, a horrible lie I told almost damaged someone else's whole life. I cleared it up and promised myself that I would do my utmost best to never lie. And I've pretty much kept that promise to myself. I'm not always open, but I am completely honest in therapy.

Now, L, T, and my first rule of therapy is honesty, even if it hurts. An example, L really hurt me on Monday. I was honest and told her I wanted to punish her so she'd know what it felt like. I told her I was mad at her and wanted

Possible trigger:

drive my car off a bridge.

She appreciated my honesty.

[jirafe]

Only a few people (if anybody) are fully honest with their therapists, intentionally or just by hiding the truth. Lying at least once or hiding the truth is more common than You think. It is difficult to trust so much and not to be ashamed. And therapists know about it. Your theraphy is for Yourself. And the therapist (if a proper one) will care only about it. What You can expect is at most a gentle discussion.

[Mountaindewed]

I lie about how often or how many pills I take. Although I’ve gotten better at it this week. I am also not honest about SI.

[MissUdy]

If he asks me for example, when the last time I self harmed was...I would not say because it’s private. If I wanted to bring it up, I would. I don’t see that as lying. Although he did ask me what something felt like once, and I lied and said it was good and fine and nice when I really should’ve said how much more it meant to me and helped me, and how much I needed it. I get scared if I tell someone they mean a lot to me, that they will go away or take it from me. In this way, I am aware that people who lie to others are often lying to themselves first.

[ArtleyWilkins]

Not so much as dishonest as much as omitting things that I needed to bring up. Usually that went along with severe depression, but generally I would come around to those things - words were hard when depressed, like thinking through quicksand.

[Omers]

I have not knowingly lied but I have omitted information. When I have come clean T has taken it really well. He assumes that if I have misled him or omitted something that I just didn’t feel safe enough at the time to give him all the information. One of my omitions is kind of an ongoing joke with us at this point... T is an animal lover but doesn’t really do indoor pets... I live on a farm... T wants to know how many cats I have... I consistently refuse to answer So... now he tries to slip the question in when he thinks I will answer it without thinking and I respond with something like “all of them”. We both laugh.

[BarefootBeach]

Yep. I lied by omission, which is still lying or holding back. I did so because I did not feel safe or trust him enough to 'come clean'. When I did talk to him about this, he freaked out and was super upset for his own reasons, which made me feel worse. He had then phoned me for an hour and told me his version of how I felt then hung up on me!!! He was more angry that I did not feel safe than about the actual serious issue at hand and what those implications were. Meaning, he was more concerned with how it effected him, not me; like he was insulted. He then said we need to talk about this at every session and guess what, he never brought it up again or forgot. He really did not care about the "me" part of this issue. I brought it up way down the line again and he yelled at me for not bringing it up to talk about it, as if that was my sole responsibility. He shifted the blame onto me. I called him out on this and he in turn LIED to me, making up a story about why he never brought up my 'secret' again.

[Jd1975]

it took me a while (nearly 3 months) to get to the point where i told my therapist i am a compulsive liar. until then i was trying to gloss over so much of the bs i put my loved ones through.

[ChickenNoodleSoup]

At the beginning of therapy, I lied and broke a promise. I was very suicidal.

Possible trigger:

He asked whether I'd be safe that week and I said yes - having already made plans to attempt - and I promised I'd contact him before trying anything - which I didn't do.

He obviously found out about that one, but he was not angry or disappointed as far as I could tell, he felt very caring.I didn't feel like I had to regain any trust or repair anything, since we'd only known for maybe a month or a bit more total.

Since then not so much. Sometimes I don't mention something, which some people might say is lying by omission. But I try to be up front about the important parts, like I might tell him I am struggling with SH from time to time, but not mention every single instance of doing it if I'm in a phase where that happens a lot. I'm also mostly honest if he asks directly, though sometimes I realize later that we might have misunderstood, but so far that has never caused any issues.

[Taylor27]

I used to be dis honest, but now im very honest with my therapist. I trust her to know she will never judge me or lecture me. I think allot of me being dis honest with previous therapist was because trust was broken and often i got lectured like a little kid.

[The_little_didgee]

Yes, I have. I'm honest but not when I have suicidal thoughts. I don't feel like that very often, but when I do, it is my secret. I won't tell anyone because I fear being forced into the hospital. My therapist, a psychiatrist, has hospital privileges, so the fear is real. She's done it before.

I'm so afraid of ending up in the hospital, because of what happened there in the past. My character was judged harshly. I'd rather die than go through that again.

I was suicidal in July. It was the first time I felt like that in 8 years. I only recently told my psychiatrist about it. She seemed surprised.

[koru_kiwi]

at a time when i was feeling suicidal and whenever my ex-T asked if i had a plan or intent i never fully disclosed to him that i actually did have a plan and had all the items needed in my possession and readily accessible. at that time, i was too fearful that if he had that information, he would have had me committed or would have terminated. plus, as odd as this sounds, feeling as powerless as i did at that time in the therapeutic relationship, this felt like one way of maintaining some sense of power and control over my T.

[nottrustin]

When they ask questions I am always as honest as I can be. I am a bad liar. I have not always been forthcoming with information if they didn't ask. At one point longterm T and I discussed this. She didn't see it as lying. She saw it as that I wasnt able to or wasn't ready to deal with the situation. She trusted me enough to know when the time was right I would discuss it.

As far as breaking a promise, my Ts have not made me promise anything. They have only asked that I try.

[*Beth*]

If I lied to her, there wouldn't be much point to doing therapy.


She has never told me what to do or not do...she's not my mother, and I'm not a child. If I was to ascribe any "role" with her, it would be that she feels like an older sister.

[susannahsays]

Absolutely. Sometimes it's a "lie" of omission and sometimes it's an outright lie. I may or may not come clean about it. Many times it is not a conscious act and I just find myself lying as a defense to being vulnerable. Sometimes I catch myself doing this, examine whether I am being paranoid, and then disclose the truth. There are also times when she has just called me out or not responded to a lie because she knows I'm lying.

I don't feel bad about lying 99% of the time. In your situation, I would probably feel simultaneously guilty and also angry at the therapist for putting me in the position of making such a promise.

The therapist has asked me to promise not to do something really destructive maybe 2 or 3 times, but it's not a promise with an indefinite expiration date. I do still feel somewhat irritated by being asked to promise, as I like to keep my options open, but it being an ongoing discussion where I feel like I'm still in control of what I do helps.

[precaryous]

Absolutely.