Published on 12, July, 2020
I have gone through talking therapy in the past and reflected on whether it was beneficial at all. In the short term it was good to have someone listen to me and feel better about myself for a while but then I had to quit when I felt it wasn't going anywhere. I also can't tell if they're being sincere or just pretending to be sympathetic because they're paid to.
I recently started again but now I'm not sure if I can continue. I'm also not comfortable disclosing my most personal issues anymore or having to tell my story again and again each time. I feel like a broken record.
I also feel I can't be myself in those sessions and I now avoid discussing my autism, past self-harm thoughts or sexual repression out of fear of being misunderstood or not taken seriously despite assurances of understanding or non-judgment.
I couldn't bear the uncertainty anymore. I couldn't wait 5 days to tell them. I left an email with my local Mind saying I can't continue with their counselling. Partly due to the agonising week between sessions and also I'm sick of being fed platitudes and cliches about "loving myself" and fake displays of empathy.
So call me a coward, rude, ungrateful, that I'm running away from my problems, I'm numb to the slings and arrows.
Wow, what sort of therapists are you and your friends seeing Iain? Weekly sessions are the absolute norm and if someones really working through some traumatic stuff they may need to be seen twice a week.
BS, who's doing most of the talking in your sessions, you or the therapist? I sad that you feel you're being fed platitudes and cliches, do you feel able to share an instance where you feel this has happened? I understand if you don't. Not getting on with a therapist is difficult, you do feel like you're running away, you maybe told you're running away, but there's no rule that says you have to bare your soul to someone who you don't respect. I wonder if respect is the key word here? It sounds very much like you feel unable to respect them, probably because you don't feel respected by them? I would find it hard to bare my soul to someone I didn' trespect, and I learned the hard way not to do so as ultimately I felt it did more harm that good.
Why the agony? Is it that you're desperate to tell someone whats going on for you? Or is it more a self fulfillling prophesy that says your hurt will be ignored, twisted and you'll be fed platitudes and cliches and that repeating your hurt to people that don't really honour it is another way of beating yourself up?
ExplodingHeads said:So call me a coward, rude, ungrateful, that I'm running away from my problems
Sorry to hear you feel this way.
I'm afraid your problems can run faster than you though so if you can bring yourself to do it I think your best option is to call and ask them to ignore your previous message and continue with the therapy as it is all you have to help at the moment.
1 week between sessions is quite frequent from what I have seen made available to others. I don't think you will get more frequent or better sessions to be honest and if it is the best you can get them make the most of it.
Do you have anywhere that you can go to help "reset" to get over the anxiety you are experiencing?
I know a lot of this may seem pointless at the moment but it is intended to try to help in your current situation.