Group therapy?

[sinking_ship]

None of them cry though. In fact they all seem love talking about their shit. It feels a bit like a competition between them about who has a worse time.

Weird. I don't know what to do with that, haha, that's so foreign to me. There's probably some middle ground to find though.

 

[sinking_ship]

Oh man, recently I failed an exam and when asking for feedback the lady was all "don't cry don't cry don't cry it's okay" like every two sentences. I wish she had just shut up about that because acknowledging how upset I am made it worse! I felt like something is wrong with me while crying when nothing is, because people get all frazzled about a person crying.

The best interaction that I had when I was crying, the person just touched my shoulder and smiled. Started talking about the nice weather, and I calmed down and stopped. Then she talked about me crying when I was calm. I wish more people handled it like that, you know?

Yes to acknowledging the crying making it worse. If it's someone I know and care about I'll accept a hug or whatever, but just ignoring it would be the kindest option if you don't know what to do.

 

[Snake on the Moon]

Yes to acknowledging the crying making it worse. If it's someone I know and care about I'll accept a hug or whatever, but just ignoring it would be the kindest option if you don't know what to do.

I feel bad if people see me crying and just ignore me, my anxiety monster starts telling me crap like "no one cares" or "you're not worth their time."

To each their own I guess, for me I still like it when my crying is seen as a thing that I'm doing. When people tell me "don't cry" I feel like my emotions are somehow wrong.

Why does society have such a weird thing going on about crying? It makes others uncomfortable to see someone else cry sure but if someone is crying they probably have a reason, so why tell them to stop? That's the part I don't get. Humans are emotional creatures so why does this one part of the spectrum of emotions seem to be so taboo to show? I don't think we should be ashamed of crying if it means we are being honest about what we are feeling, you know?

 

[sinking_ship]

Oh, I don't mean ignore ME. I mean ignore the crying. Like your example where the person acknowledged you but didn't make a big thing of it.

 

[Snake on the Moon]

Oh, I don't mean ignore ME. I mean ignore the crying. Like your example where the person acknowledged you but didn't make a big thing of it.

Oooooh okay. Gotcha. Sorry about the misinterpretation that was my fault!

 

[Innocent Forever]

I hope the next one is better....
Though I would've thunk it would take a year to be comfortable enough in a group to open your mouth (maybe that's just me).
((((hugs))))

 

[Sunspots]

I hope the next one is better....
Though I would've thunk it would take a year to be comfortable enough in a group to open your mouth (maybe that's just me).
((((hugs))))

It's taken me a year to be really comfortable with my one to one therapist so I'm not sure group therapy is ever going to be my thing.

But I'm not giving up yet as it's still very early days. Got to give it a decent go.

 

[Sunspots]

I wimped out of going last week as I felt like such a pathetic wuss the week before. So today I wanted to go even less than last week. But Nick virtually threw me out of the door so off I went. It was a much smaller group this week as a few people have dropped out which seemed to make it easier. Less intimidating with fewer people there.
I did chip in a little when others were talking about things they were struggling with this week which felt kind of good - like offering empathy here on SF.
The psychologist wasn't letting me get away with anything this week and repeatedly asked me how I was doing. Eventually I did manage to say a bit about how I'm feeling at the moment and even managed to do it without crying too much. It did sort of feel good to be able to get some of it out and it was interesting to hear the others responses to me.
So maybe a bit of a breakthrough? We'll see.

 

[Snake on the Moon]

That does sound promising though! Hopefully the next one gets better yet