DO I NEED THERAPY?

i was talking w/a psychologist once who began quoting something from a poem by Jewel, which led me to think that maybe i was not getting my money's worth

finally found a way to do this outside of work hours affordably. v strange experience, it really is like on tv. genuinely a few "let's talk about your mother" or whatever.

overall it's good i guess, slightly scary experience in that i have found myself get very upset really suddenly few times, which was like a type of emotional catharsis i've never experienced before, but i guess that's why i'm going.

glad for you- hadn't you tried it before?

heh like five posts ago

yeah i had to stop cos i got a job and that slot was in the daytime. took until now to get a post-work time... i thought the guy was shit the first two weeks cos he literally said nothing, but now he is started dropping these questions that make you realise or see connections between things, without any heavy handedness about it.

i would heartily resent that, i think

i found the silence worse, made me think he was all "why the fuck is this guy even here?"

though as i said, it is a bit scary thinking you're okay then seeing sort of unhappiness come out in an uncontrolled way, it's like puking, it does make you think "oh shit" in that way as if you'd noticed some medical prob you never knew you had via a weird physical reaction.

Do you feel like it's helping you at all? Everyone who's recommended therapy to me haven't changed much at all, even after years of it, so I'm a little skeptical. Feels like I've already made the parents/early life connections to behaviors, world view, etc., but also won't discount checking it out.

^

had three sessions now, so it's too early to say. but i guess it is helping in the sense that i am getting rid of some bad stuff from my past mostly related to being sick. i mean, if it's true that talking about things is good then yes it's definitely helping.

as in, i'm constantly aware of having a majorly fucked upbringing, but at the same time i'm pretty level and cool with who i am, but the odd time i think 'jeez imagine how awesome i COULD be tho'

(xp)

Yeah, I imagine there's this extra level you can unlock by going to therapy. I've gotten the most out of just thinking about things and figuring shit out on long walks along rivers and through vast, empty fields, and there doesn't seem like there's much territory left to be mined out of that. Maybe the talking thing's valuable in itself, feels weird to ever mention any early life stuff to people when they ask... mostly because it's just odd in itself, and gets uncomfortable responses. Telling it to someone in a corduroy jacket and wire-frame glasses probably eliminates that.

Lol otm xp to d

i'm not lolling tho i'm ;_;

i wish ppl would realise that when they read my posts.

i'm ;_; goddamit

I took the plunge about a 6 weeks ago, 3 free sessions through employee assistance program.

Had been having weird emotional outbursts, ie crying jags, etc all kind of resulting from conflicts and/or fear of them.

Just talking out where my fears maybe came from, and having her give me some simple tools to adjust my reactions, has already made a huge difference for me.

Right now my plan is to see how I go once I visit home in April, and if shit comes up after that I can go see her again.

I felt v guilty at first, and very awkward about talking about my family to a stranger, but omg just lightening the load was the best feeling, and figuring out more parts of the jigsaw puzzle...I am not much of a personal-problem-talker at all, but I cant recommend it enough, even if it's just a few sessions.

I'm kind of viewing it as taking the car to the mechanic - no shame in getting a tuneup, right? And good to know I have someone to call if/when shit gets real now, instead of shoving it all away all repressed-like

why did you (all) select a therapist of the gender you did?

EAP programs are there for a reason. Glad you took advantage, Veg. I think it might be time for me. I have beat my last round of anxiety attacks, and now I just feel pretty bored overall :/. dunno which is worse really.

well...tbh i don't feel bored when I leave teh house and socialize (which I did a lot this weekend), but it'd be nice to be able to enjoy a relaxing night to myself without feeling flat emotions.

I'd think itw as the meds except I was like this before them. this is just how my brain works. it shuts off and I fake emotions until they come back.

i chose a female therapist with the assumption that i would be more comfortable divulging things with a woman. but not sure if this is actually the case.

my therapist doesn't remember half of what we talk about. she recommended me a book yesterday as though she had never recommended it -- but she had, twice! but this time she asked me, "if i recommend you a book, are you going to read it"? so i was like, well why don't you tell me what it is first! (and then i wondered in my head if that's the only book she ever recommends to her patients, and what, does she know the author or something? i told her i was waiting for it in the library queue and she said i should totally buy it)

i think i need a therapist who is less FRIENDLY and trying to be FRIENDLY because it makes her therapeutic pronouncements seem passive aggressive though this could be just me projecting...

or maybe it just maybe makes me not trust her because i feel like she's being fake to me?

is this things other people feel w/their therapists or just me?

I just went with the first therapist they assigned to me, I told them I didnt have a m/f preference.

My therapist turned out to be a woman around my age, a little older...she's been a good fit. I felt like she understood my issues pretty quickly, and always seemed to get to the nut of a problem with just a few questions. I told her way more than I ever expected to

Still thinking about checking out some therapy, but these two books helped me out a lot:

www.amzn.com/0553381407
www.amzn.com/0671708635

I went from perpetually anxious, angry, and emotionally dead ... to the degree where I couldn't stand leaving my apartment or I'd shuck off relationships, to almost never anxious, cool with things, and fairly level headed with some help from those texts. Most of the work comes from introspection and the sheer will to get better no matter how much work or pain's involved. Not being anxious anymore and feeling emotions is the greatest thing in the world after dealing with it from my teens through 20s.

Was going to fire my therapist today and she therapied me into making another appt.

tricky bastards

they're good when they want to be

about 10 weeks in now, it's a fucking incredibly hard thing to do i have to say. for 2/3 weeks i felt it was having this huge improvement and probably invested too much in a bounce that could have been to do with anything, then for the last week just been back to feeling fairly bad, with the added sense of questioning more of my perspectives than ever, and the realisation or worry that you know, maybe you can never really be happy. i think so far therapy has made me accept some things that i didn't before, but in the process made me then think "well if i am wrong about this then who knows what else in me could be totally skewed and messed up"

so you feel more like it's snowballing your bad feelings, than helping you build on the good?

i think overall it's positive, just i am probably going through a big overhaul, and maybe i am worse off than i thought when i went in. not in terms of being more depressed, just maybe more stuff buried, tangled, etc. it's been pretty confusing cos i am basically trying to unpick a physical prob from a mental one.

well make sure you're saying these things to your therapist. the only way they know how to really help is if you do a bit of flight-control from time to time, if talking about certain things is sending you off on a bad tangent, let him/her know, and say you want tools to deal with the bad feelings you're having now, rather than talking about things that are already past, you know, be a little proactive.

but your first time through therapy is definitely weird, I can totally relate to having similar feelings myself, and sort of feeling like you've pulled out all the yarn out of the box but it's all still tangled arrrrggggh now what

^^^ the yarn analogy is spot on

I'll drive the yarn analogy into the ground now...

the way I decided to approach it was, okay most of the yarn is going to stay tangled. I'm not using it right now, it's not causing me major problems. I just need to untangle this one ball of yarn that I need to use. As I go, I might find it's tangled with another ball of yarn or two, but I can't worry about all of it. I'm still mostly okay in myself, I'm me, this is who I am. I just need to be able to cope better with these (x) things.

You know? Making it about smaller goals is okay to start out with.

I only spent a few weeks in therapy, and it was mainly because I was having trouble dealing with conflict. My short timeframe allowed my counsellor to really hone in on that, and try to give me some tools to help me with it and unpack where my fear of conflict came from. In the process I dragged up other bigger things along with it. But just being able to feel like I'd tackled this one thing that fed into so many parts of my life, actually made me feel okay about leaving some bigger things unsolved for now. A narrow focus might seem shortsighted, but if you have a lot to deal with, you can only deal with them one at a time. Don't stress yourself out trying to deal with everything, you know?

okay I 'll stop now, I don't want to sound too preachy

I definitely had the same experience - a mixture of prioritisation ("OK what do I need to deal with now so that I don't explode, and what can wait for a bit?") and dividing problems up into smaller goals ("How can I make 'not being angry with everyone all the time' into more manageable sub-goals?").

The best thing about therapy is when you have sudden, powerful realizations about past events or particular interpersonal relationships which have colored your thinking or behavior. Things that no amount of bouncing things around in your own head would ever uncover. It can sometimes take a while to get to that point, but it's worth the slog.

^^^ this

dug through all kinds of family stuff in my sessions, stuff that I'd never really talked about, and most of my conflict stemmed from early Mum issues. Then a month or two after I'd stopped my sessions, I was skyping with my Mum and I just had this moment where I was like, she's just a person. see? just a slightly older-now lady who loves me. and it changed EVERYTHING.

it was kind of great. just seeing who she IS now without seeing who she was.

Yeah, I was starting to have some similar revelations about my dad (DIFFICULT relationship, there) that I was unfortunately unable to resolve before he died. The lesson being: the sooner you deal with this stuff, the better.

about 10 weeks in now, it's a fucking incredibly hard thing to do i have to say. for 2/3 weeks i felt it was having this huge improvement and probably invested too much in a bounce that could have been to do with anything, then for the last week just been back to feeling fairly bad, with the added sense of questioning more of my perspectives than ever, and the realisation or worry that you know, maybe you can never really be happy. i think so far therapy has made me accept some things that i didn't before, but in the process made me then think "well if i am wrong about this then who knows what else in me could be totally skewed and messed up"

― I'm going to allow this! (LocalGarda), Thursday, March 29, 2012 4:54 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Realizing how wrong you were about everything is the first step to making a new life for yourself. It's a little crazy at first, but this is it, man. The moment I realized how skewed and twisted my worldview was, I was able to just throw all it all in the garbage, incinerate it, and move on. It's a pain in the ass, but it's totally worth it, no matter how difficult or strange it is, and how many twisty interconnected webs of shit, infinite loops of bad thinking you gotta break, and painful repressed emotions to relive. I did it all w/o therapy, so not sure what your approach is, but you can totally be happy. There's a life after all the bullshit, human beings are incredibly adaptive creatures... I mean, we survived the ice age.

Good luck to you, Spectrum, that is really brave to realize that! I hope you have a rewarding future.

Thanks. I had two Joan Crawfords for parents, united in their Crawfordiness, plus a good dose of sadistic bullying, so it was pretty much imperative to face all that shit to live a halfway decent life.

otm, semi-been there

The best thing about therapy is when you have sudden, powerful realizations about past events or particular interpersonal relationships which have colored your thinking or behavior. Things that no amount of bouncing things around in your own head would ever uncover. It can sometimes take a while to get to that point, but it's worth the slog.

Definitely agree. I've had this a few times already and it feels great. I maybe overstated my despair above, think I just need not to think "I'm cured!" after these revelations.

About two sessions ago I realised that for years I've sort of internalised my physical health probs as part of me and who I am, along with all the experiences they've brought.

I suddenly realised how unfair and wrong this was, to adopt this awful thing as a part of me, something entirely negative, and to let it grow through me mentally, whatever about not being able to get rid of it physically.

As I say this felt so big that I think I got a bit eureka about what's prob still a long road/process.

probably invested too much in a bounce that could have been to do with anything, then for the last week just been back to feeling fairly bad

this happens to me too, and every time i'm like why did i let myself get fooled!! it's a very disappointing thing.

Feeling similarly... falling back into old patterns and still realizing how much work there is left to do. It's so easy to make one inch of progress and think everything's great (more like denial, I guess, nobody should want these things to be real about themselves). Just got a nice in-house writing job for a fairly well-known company, so that triggered it I'm pretty sure.

Now that I'll be making better money, I think I'll give a real therapist a shot. The hardest part right now, aside from teaching myself all the crap my parents didn't (how to work, take care of myself, relate to people, not freak out, etc.), is this feeling of resentment and insecurity at people who just seem to glide through life. I feel like such a loser sometimes, but some people are luckier than others that they don't have to do this work. But count yer blessings, etc.

You'd be surprised - the people who are gliding through life might have already been where you are now. Don't let those feelings take hold, or intimidate you into thinking you're alone/isolated/etc. A lot of what ppl project publicly is so masked - try to turn it around for yourself so you can move forward, ie you're being brave by giving a therapist a real shot, because so many people don't. And that's not even 'turn that frown upside down' wankery, cos it's true :)

Thanks, I appreciate that. It's a lot easier to just wish it all away as opposed to doing something about it, especially when our culture looks down on people, especially men, for going to therapy.

I'm sure others are out there who've survived and are living good lives, probably without me knowing it... this isn't exactly good water cooler talk. But my lord, doing this takes so much inner strength, intelligence, creativity, and utter will power that if the people who are gliding can keep this soft attitude and look of obliviousness, I have no idea how they do it. The people I've met in the career world who are survivors have been utterly miserable people, bitter, nasty, with a horrible mean streak, or prone to totally mistreating people, and I have absolutely no interest in living like that... though I recognize some of those behaviors in myself from time to time. Breaking the cycle, etc.

This feels like tearing down one life and rebuilding a completely new one. Maybe that's my personality more than anything, but I don't see any other way.

i started posting on ilx as "al" shortly before November 2001 so every time this thread is revived i do a double take wondering if i started it

xpost ehh, just ignore that big chunk of text I wrote. On further inspection, I think you're right.

Man, do I ever know that feeling of looking at others and feeling bitter that they have it so damn easy. It's true most everyone has a story (eg Veg OTM); OTOH some definitely have had it easier than others.

It can be real tough when you're trying to turn things around to see any of the progress you've made. Therapy takes a lot of effort and working through feelings and experiences and shit can take years and years. That you're doing it is courageous. You're planting seeds now that will be harvested in the future. It's hard to be patient, but keep going.

Also to the world that says therapy is for losers (esp men I guess, wtf?), I say, "Fuck that." Thousands and thousands of people do it every year, and it helps make people better. It's a better use of time and money and energy than dozens of inane things society approves of, like shopping.

I want to say I support you and your feelings are real and ok!

I'm going back into therapy as soon as I have the money or insurance (whichever comes first) to do so, even though I'm generally in a better place mentally than I've been in almost two years. It's like doing upkeep on a car: you let that shit slide too long and you pay through the nose when you have a breakdown.