Wasted session 🙄

[LucyLou]

I've just come put of a session and I honestly feel so annoyed at myself
Why is it so f*cking hard?! We spoke about the panic situation at my appt the other day and that was fine....but I mentioned to her about this memory thing, she said she would lean towards ot being true....given my reaction to it but she couldn't help unless she knew what it was and I couldn't do it! At all! I couldn't tell her what it was and I feel so ridiculous, I'm so upset with myself! She wants to start sessions with grounding but I said how that would feel like I'm going backwards, because we did that last year when I first started with her. Then she says how there are other ways and I don't have to talk about trauma, if it's going to be too much but the frustrating thing is that I want to talk about it....I'm just finding it ridiculously difficult and it's not on her, she is amazing....it's me, I've just always had it in my head that I need to talk about things and I don't think that's going ro change but God, it's just hard! I wasted the last half of the session crying and being silent. Why? I feel like I'm not doing enough and I'm not giving her enough to help me properly. She says how I'm too self critical because I was calling myself silly and how it was stupid that I couldn't talk....so she said she will send over some bits on self compassion, she thinks we need to work on that first. She is away next week, Possibly have a session on 28th but if I can't do that, it's going to be 4 weeks! I feel so, so upset right now

 

[Teamwork]

Draw, or collage. One day I was thumbing through one of those adult coloring books and my mind felt a connection to the drawings as it looked a lot like my inner world. So I cut, shaped formed a different picture from different pictures in this book and started coloring it. My self talk helped as I coloured as I was allowing the calm of coloring to interact with what this was all about for me. It helped then to bring it in as a talking point. Also in the cutting and collating and coloring only I knew what this was all about. That privacy was also soothing. Openly coloring something around my family while privately reflecting.

 

[arfie]

Why? I feel like I'm not doing enough and I'm not giving her enough to help me properly.

"why?" is a logical question. alas, feelings are not logical. inside my own ptsd cauldron, they are the most mysterious bubbles in the mix. they go where they go and pop when they pop by logics this natural engineer can't fathom. i have to suspend most of my engineer nature to deal with them. it takes me more times than i consider efficient just to become aware of them. i can't give other people (or myself) enough to help me properly until i build that awareness.

be gentle with yourself and patient with the process, lucylou. you are doing better than it feels.

attempted humor alert
in case you can see the impish grin on my face as i type this, my kids just got a new puppy this past weekend. they named her, "lucylou."

 

[OM_™]

I'm just finding it ridiculously difficult and it's not on her, she is amazing....it's me

Hi LucyLou, I checked out your earlier posts to try to get some insight as to why you might be having a difficult time talking to your therapist before I replied to your post.

I have done about 20-30 therapy sessions with an 'amazing' therapist but felt like I wasted a lot of opportunities because I felt a lot like you do. I thought I went prepared for each session but then when I sat in front of her it felt like hundreds of questions were fighting in my brain and when I mentioned some of them I felt so stupid and I stopped myself from delving deeper.

Eventually, she proposed solutions that were so far away from my issues that I triggered and terminated future sessions and told her that I was all healed (I wasn't) I blamed myself because because I didn't tell her everything.

I have started therapy again with a psychiatrist and she costs much more than the psychologist so I'm making sure to write down notes — password protected, on my phone — after each therapy session. I don't know if this helps but I have found that I'm getting more out of each session because I am not leaving it up to my often confused brain to stir up the catalogue of traumas which can often trigger anxiety (panic attacks) or depressive episodes.

 

[Movingforward10]

I feel your pain. It's so incredibly hard and frustrating.

However...

Even if it doesn't feel like it AT ALL: that session was good. Look at all the things you DID share:
There is a memory
The memory is incredibly difficult to talk about.
The feelings about the memory you showed to her (silence and crying).


All that is HUGE. In addition, she showed you:.
She's there
You trust her.
You know she can help contain this for you.

And that also is HUGE.


Taking about trauma and processing it is so painfully slow and frustrating. BUT, if you can find it within yourself, and maybe as the emotions settle from the session over the coming days, you'll be able to see how well you did today.

 

[Freddyt]

Yup. Sessions where I thought we got very little done, when I look back on them, we got more done than I realized.

And many times because I unknowingly told my T about my roadblocks to moving forward.......

 

[Sues]

I often disassociate in therapy. I sit and don't talk for periods of time. It's so hard to say the words, to talk about the traumas. BUT, sitting there silently crying is huge for me. I never used to be able to cry, to feel safe enough to do it. And having my therapist sit with me quietly is what they call holding space. He is there with me, in the dark pit I'm sitting in, and he's not scared off, he's not leaving me alone. Little by little I am releasing and processing those traumas even when I'm not talking.