[ECHOES]

Do you tell your therapist everything are are there things you keep to yourself?

I know it's important to tell all, but sometimes I think if I say one more thing that makes me look bad it will make her not want to see me.

[jbug]

I did not tell all my therapists everything....it took me a looooooong time to tell someone about my rape. I just told someone this summer while I was in the hospital. I also have just recently been talking about my dissassociations. I think that I have been able to finally build a better trust level with this doc and therapist that I can talk to them about these things.

Jbug

[Brian37]

yes.....everything I know of other than my flatulence problem

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Brian37 said:
yes.....everything I know of other than my flatulence problem

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HAHAHAHAH, Brian.

My therapist knows I have irritable bowel syndrome. hahahaha

Yes, I pretty much tell him everything (in bits, of course). We kind of have a joke about it because every time I tell him something important he will say, "Why haven't you told me this before?" And I will say, "Was I supposed to tell you every single thing on the first session? Of course I never told you before. That would be why I am telling you now."

Each week I get more and more comfortable with him (we have been working together for two and a half yrs. now) and I am really feeling comfortable with telling him mostly everything.

[Kiya]

Nooooooooo way in h***! I could never tell all... there's TONS of things i couldn't possibly say - I don't even know all there is, somethings the parts keep from me.

[MissCharlotte]

I tell him everything I feel like telling him and then he drags the rest out of me because he is a nag.

[ECHOES]

MissCharlotte!!

[Perna]

Only as it relates to whatever we're discussing. If I have a thought that I'm ashamed of or embarrassed about, that gets told or it won't give me any peace.

But some fears don't get mentioned, especially if I "just do it" anyway, despite them. No way I could ever ask to use their phone, for example, but my car broke down and I had no "choice".

[Fuzzybear]

same as Perna.

((((( echoes )))))

[SingDanceRunLife]

No, not everything. I can't because I'm the type of person that takes awhile to warm up to people. Like, there are people that I know I'll be able to trust from the beginning, but even then, it takes time for that to come completely.

[chalmette70043]

Yeah i feel the same way. I watch mine drop her mouth open to many times during that hour. i try to say as less as possible.

[sunrise]

No, I don't tell everything. Some things aren't ready to come out and will make their appearance in due time. I remember after I had been seeing T for about 7 months, I mentioned that my H hit our children and he said, "what??? why didn't you tell me this before?" It took a long time to come out about my H's abusive ways. I guess it was one of my secrets and I was embarrassed about it. All this takes trust. Trust takes time to develop.

I remember once we were sitting there quietly, and I was staring into his eyes and thinking, "wow, he really has beautiful blue eyes," and at that moment he asked, "whatcha thinking?" I did not share my thought.

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No way I could ever ask to use their phone

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">Perna, that reminds me one time I forgot my cell phone and needed to call home at the beginning of a session. I asked T if I could use his phone, and he said it's unplugged (now I know why he never returns my messages), here use my cell. He handed me his cell and I saw the screen on front had a pic of his girlfriend. She is cute as a bug. Not sure I needed to know what she looked like....

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I think if I say one more thing that makes me look bad it will make her not want to see me.

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">ECHOES, that sounds like an interesting topic to explore with her.

[happyflowergirl]

This topic is so funny!

With my new T of 7 mo. I feel I can tell him anything because I have become comfortable with just being me in front of him. He is very warm and accepting and he realized humans are a %#@&#! up race he says! lol

With my old T I was too worried about looking good in his eyes and I focused too much on him instead of me. I was focused too much on our relationship and the mutual attraction between us.

But my new T or I should just call him my T, is so gentle with me, and he has heard it all, so nothing I would tell him would be shocking to him.

[embarassed]

Not everything. When he asks me what I do in the evenings after work the accurate answer is, "Well I spend a lot of time googling you and looking up your family members on myspace and I drive by your house sometimes and fantasize about you being my dad." I don't say that out loud of course.

[Lenny]

Yes...we are only as sick as our secrets.

IMHO.

Lenny

[Sunshine31]

What a great question!!!

As for whether I tell my therapist everything...I would have to say No!! but eventually over time he is beginning to find out everything the more I trust him and the more he probes me.

We are also mod/admin on the same forum so he ends up finding out a lot about me that way as well.

I do agree with Embarrassed that there are things like "I google him all the time to find out information about him and I think about him a lot more than I let on" that I don't tell him. I have only recently told him that I care about him and that was as far as I wanted to go with that conversation.

Again...great question

I am a firm believer that "we are only as sick as our secrets." Everything about me is known to at least one other person on earth. But not necessarily a therapist. As a matter of fact, I would tell my fiancé pretty much everything, but there are some things I would discuss with him instead of with a therapist, or my family.

[Rapunzel]

I figure the things that I don't want to tell are the things that I need to tell. Sometimes it doesn't all make it out there. But if you tell too much about the things that aren't so relevant or important, that's another way to avoid. I don't usually know when I'm doing that, but at times I fool myself into thinking that I am being really open, when all I'm doing is using too much information to avoid really talking about the right stuff. And it can surprise you what stuff is really relevant and what is avoidance. Pretty much any feelings would go in the category of things you should talk about, especially if you don't want to.

PS: This works the same way in reverse. There are things about my fiancé that I know, and nobody else on the planet knows. I think it's cool that way.

[Lenny]

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Rapunzel said:
Pretty much any feelings would go in the category of things you should talk about, especially if you don't want to.

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Did I hear BINGO...someone in the back has bingo,,,please bring up her card...so we can check...

Yep...Bingo it is...

Well said.

Lenny

There's no way I could tell her EVERYTHING. I am so full of worries and anxiety I would never get any where if I told her everything that was going on in my own little internal world. I also have the same fear that if I tell her much else about my disgusting background she'll not see me anymore.

[sunrise]

I realized last session that I was telling a little white lie to T and after I said it, I corrected it. I don't need those little lies standing between us. What happened was asked me how long I met with this child therapist working with our kids, and I said vaguely, "a couple of hours," because I felt kind of sheepish that I had met with her for 4 hours. Then I told him the truth. He was surprised we had met so long, but this was not a major glitch for us. Why did I feel I had to lie about that initially? I'm going to try to do that less. Not just with him, but with everyone in my life.

[chaotic13]

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Rap said:
I fool myself into thinking that I am being really open, when all I'm doing is using too much information to avoid really talking about the right stuff. And it can surprise you what stuff is really relevant and what is avoidance.

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This happens to be a lot. I leave a session thinking wow I talked a lot today. Then when I get home and my head starts to explode with all the stuff I didn't talk about I realize I avoided the hard stuff.

I'm slowly telling more.

[chaotic13]

Sunrise, I realize this week that I have difficulty lying in therapy too.

In my session this week I was expressing that I was upset with myself because I was still having a lot of difficulty talking about stuff even though my T has been very accommodating. I expressed that I thought I should be more comfortable at this point. T said .."you have trouble talking about your childhood abuse even with an old friend who actually shared the experience with you." I quickly replied with, "Well yeah, because I can't lie to my friend because she know the truth, know me, she does bye my BS." Then under my breath I said "it becoming harder to lie to you too." I looked up hoping that the last part was not audible, but no luck. My T was paying attention and looking directly at me. I felt like melting into the ugly couch.

[Dinah]

At this point in our relationship, I've told him every single solitary thing.

The hardest things to tell him were things like

My ringtone at home when he calls is "Hi Dinah, this is Therapist..." that I gleaned from a message on my answering machine.

Or that I compulsively read psych books.

Talking about body issues, money, sex is hard, but I keep no secrets in those areas.