How’s Your Therapy Going?
- Thread starter dandelions
- Start date
yeah and they have many types of sleep issues. like do you have hard time falling asleep or staying asleep? for me, I have hard time staying asleep so its physical stuffs and the psychologist can monitor how my sleep issues affects my focus, if theres new timeline that changes for more than 3 months ++ then its the medical doc side. like say, the psychologist suspected the timeline and my gynae need to treat my PMDD, it got caught that I'm deficient in B vitamins, it can also change again- just balancing hormones isn't easy. stuffs like that. like it can't be solve all problems all at once, I'm really glad psychologist give coping techniques to cope with daytime fatigue while I wait and just to be gentle with my body 
it takes a while to get use to monitoring.
it takes a while to get use to monitoring.
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I met with my therapist today, there were a few things we talked about. I shed some tears, which I hadn't done in probably years. Told him, as vaguely as I could, about the thoughts I had a year ago.
Overall frustrated though, he talked more than I did, including books he wrote, but he gave me a copy of one.
Told me he's retiring at the end of the year, so isn't taking DBT clients. I would like to try DBT again, I started, but quit after a few months. I was stuck, and at that time there was a waiting list for it, so I thought I was taking up room that someone else could use.
I've usually seen him @4-5 weeks, but meeting again in 2 this time, the anniversary of my wife's death is working on me a lot so there may be much to talk about. I'm not suicidal now, but he knows that I would have preferred not to wake up, either.
I see my psych doc April 4, I would like her cooperation to reduce my meds, currently buspirone and lamictal. I stopped taking them a year ago (unsanctioned
), but then re-started. Fucking mood swings. She only knows that I ran out of Seroquel and chose not to refill it earlier.
I found lists of my meds from a few years ago, at one time as many as 5 or 6 psych meds, along with pain meds, muscle relaxer, something for sleep, and the regular stuff, thyroid, bp, cholesterol. Lots of chemicals bouncing around inside me. I think most of the psych meds were necessary earlier, hopefully not as much now.
Overall frustrated though, he talked more than I did, including books he wrote, but he gave me a copy of one.
Told me he's retiring at the end of the year, so isn't taking DBT clients. I would like to try DBT again, I started, but quit after a few months. I was stuck, and at that time there was a waiting list for it, so I thought I was taking up room that someone else could use.
I've usually seen him @4-5 weeks, but meeting again in 2 this time, the anniversary of my wife's death is working on me a lot so there may be much to talk about. I'm not suicidal now, but he knows that I would have preferred not to wake up, either.
I see my psych doc April 4, I would like her cooperation to reduce my meds, currently buspirone and lamictal. I stopped taking them a year ago (unsanctioned
), but then re-started. Fucking mood swings. She only knows that I ran out of Seroquel and chose not to refill it earlier.I found lists of my meds from a few years ago, at one time as many as 5 or 6 psych meds, along with pain meds, muscle relaxer, something for sleep, and the regular stuff, thyroid, bp, cholesterol. Lots of chemicals bouncing around inside me. I think most of the psych meds were necessary earlier, hopefully not as much now.
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Something that I didn't mention to my therapist yesterday, and it might be best to only share here -
I chose to render a method inoperable. It's more symbolic than anything though, there are others available.
Something else was made harmless, but - I didn't see it as a method when I did it, so not actually a conscious decision. That particular day, I didn't need to die, but years ago, I might have recognized the potential, and not have missed the opportunity.
I chose to render a method inoperable. It's more symbolic than anything though, there are others available.
Something else was made harmless, but - I didn't see it as a method when I did it, so not actually a conscious decision. That particular day, I didn't need to die, but years ago, I might have recognized the potential, and not have missed the opportunity.
So, my therapist wants me to describe what exactly it is I’m afraid of when my anxiety gets the better of me, and I don’t really have a good answer for her.
It’s just a general sense of feeling unsafe. I mean, I’m sure I know where it comes from. I experienced a very violent and traumatic event as a kid, and was witness to several more. The thing is, I know that I am not going to experience such an event again. I am simply no longer the type of person targeted for that kind of violence. And I know that the things I saw happen to others are really quite rare, and that I just had terrible luck in being present for it.
I think my brain was just primed to feel fear at pretty much all times, even when there’s no real cause for it. Best I can describe it is this: if I’m alone, I’m safe. If I’m part of a group, I’m safe. If there are people, but I am not part of the group, then all kinds of horrible things might happen.
I somehow found myself a group, and was able to live like a real person for a good long while. Now they’re all either dead or scattered around the world, and the only time I feel safe anymore is when I’m completely alone, hence the agoraphobia and panic attacks regaining control.
But I know she’s looking for something more solid and concrete, something I can “argue” against to gain control over the anxiety when I feel it rising up, some specific thing I am afraid of that I can then convince myself isn’t going to happen, and I just can’t find an answer.
I think this is why cbt never worked on me.
It’s just a general sense of feeling unsafe. I mean, I’m sure I know where it comes from. I experienced a very violent and traumatic event as a kid, and was witness to several more. The thing is, I know that I am not going to experience such an event again. I am simply no longer the type of person targeted for that kind of violence. And I know that the things I saw happen to others are really quite rare, and that I just had terrible luck in being present for it.
I think my brain was just primed to feel fear at pretty much all times, even when there’s no real cause for it. Best I can describe it is this: if I’m alone, I’m safe. If I’m part of a group, I’m safe. If there are people, but I am not part of the group, then all kinds of horrible things might happen.
I somehow found myself a group, and was able to live like a real person for a good long while. Now they’re all either dead or scattered around the world, and the only time I feel safe anymore is when I’m completely alone, hence the agoraphobia and panic attacks regaining control.
But I know she’s looking for something more solid and concrete, something I can “argue” against to gain control over the anxiety when I feel it rising up, some specific thing I am afraid of that I can then convince myself isn’t going to happen, and I just can’t find an answer.
I think this is why cbt never worked on me.
It's taken five years to get to the top of the waiting list for a clinical psychologist on the NHS. I started just after Christmas, once a fortnight. I get 20 sessions and that's it. It's been useful in as much as I finally have a diagnosis of C-PTSD and the BPD diagnosis has finally been removed.
The problem is at the moment my main problem is the emotions and fear around my ongoing divorce. But she wants to continue with the trauma work around my childhood and subsequent abusive marriage. I'm not even sure I would call it abusive - I guess taking the emotions out of it and when I say it out loud I can see why it would come across as abusive but I really don't think he meant it, it's just how he is and I'd go back to him in a heartbeat if he'd have me.
But with emotions running so high at the moment I don't think I'm capable of dealing with all the other stuff. Some of it I've managed to lock away in a box and I don't think I can risk getting it out right now. But if I turn down the therapy I won't be offered it again. What if I let it all out of the box and my 20 sessions are up? I could end up in a worse position that I'm in now.
The problem is at the moment my main problem is the emotions and fear around my ongoing divorce. But she wants to continue with the trauma work around my childhood and subsequent abusive marriage. I'm not even sure I would call it abusive - I guess taking the emotions out of it and when I say it out loud I can see why it would come across as abusive but I really don't think he meant it, it's just how he is and I'd go back to him in a heartbeat if he'd have me.
But with emotions running so high at the moment I don't think I'm capable of dealing with all the other stuff. Some of it I've managed to lock away in a box and I don't think I can risk getting it out right now. But if I turn down the therapy I won't be offered it again. What if I let it all out of the box and my 20 sessions are up? I could end up in a worse position that I'm in now.
Something that has helped me in therapy is acknowledging the divide between the logical and the emotional. You, like me, it seems, are very good at reasoning your way out of why you should feel a certain way. Logically, you know you are safe ("I know that I am not going to experience such an event again," and about the rarity and terrible luck). But emotionally, you still feel anxious/unsafe. Progressing in therapy means acknowledging the emotional truths and emotional reasons for things, even if they aren't logical. Because emotions don't have to be logical to be meaningful, or to influence you, or to make you depressed, or to make you want to kill yourself. And when we "logic away" our emotions, that is invalidating and unhelpful. Which is probably why, as you say, CBT is not always the best approach. It's great for coping with trauma, but doesn't provide the compassion and empathy that actually resolves trauma.