Katskill,

I did this just this week - the stepping back thing, and it felt like a full 3 steps back, and it freaked me out. After I'd been home with my 'rents, I got all anxious and not-wanting-to-go-outside again, a real return to how I was over this summer.

I talked to Tfella about it, and it helped - we went over what I did right to deal with the issues, and what probably set me off about it all.

So maybe I get a few steps forward from that. But yeah. 3 forward, 4 back, 2 forward, 2 forward, 1 back, 3 forward...

s'like Chutes and Ladders, I think.

quote:

As we progress and make changes within ourselves, can we fall backwards. I mean the 3 steps forward 1 step back sydrome.

Hi Katskill,

It sure feels that way sometimes. But falling back sounds like regression and that does not usually happen. It feels like a step backwards I think because there are so many different levels we are working on at the same time and most of it is being done neurologically where we can’t see it. So while we make all this progress I notice that it feels like I am working on the same stuff and will remark “I thought I already worked through this!” My T always reminds me that we did, its just a new layer. –That’s my experience anyway. I believe that we reach a point of no return in our therapy. Once we've come to know that there is something different, something better, we will never go back. Not that we can never have upsets or set backs, but I believe those become more temporary. You know what I mean?

I am glad that you are able to reach out like this. It is a pleasure to have you aboard with us.

JM

One more thing: I also think in the beginning we sort of wobble back and forth like an unsteady toddler learning to walk as we explore our new found sense of ourselves and others. So that can feel like stepping forward and stepping back. But just like a toddler learning to walk they fall down some, but they learn to get right back up until they master it.

Therapy becomes a centrifugal force in our lives where we learn to move forward. I hope this sounds reassuring.

quote:

s'like Chutes and Ladders, I think.

To me it feels more like a combo of Chutes and Ladders and Twister.

My T says that progress in therapy is anything but linear, in fact it is all over the map. It is a very messy organic process. Hearing her say that made me feel better since it was exactly how it feels to me.

River I can relate to that feeling of progress being all over the place..That is how I feel. In that regard how do we know when we have truly made progress

Katskill

I believe ShrinkLady has an interesting post/page on this: Tracking Progress in Therapy. Personally, the only way I've managed it is by keeping a journal - an honest-to-goodness, mostly-only-about-therapy-stuff daily journal. It's been going for four months now, and wow! It's terribly useful for gauging progress.

'Cause like the page says, once you get better at something, you kinda forget that you were bad at it.

I just want to add one more thing to alot of good responses. When we are dealing with issues from our childhood, often the emotions are primitive and intense and remembering them can make us feel very young and like we don't have access to some or all of our adult resources. And that can make it feel like you've lost ground when you really haven't. I think of therapy like peeling an onion, you keep circling around but going to a deeper level each time. And by the time you get to the center you're pretty smelly. (Sorry, couldn't resist the last line.)

Thankyou everyone for your responses. This is starting to make more sense.

Katskill

*rant alert*

We seem to go round and round on how hard therapy is. One of us (sometimes all of us!??!) have a bad session, we come back here, we barely sound like human adults, we're reduced to gibbering masses of affect and barely comprehensible words.

And then we get ready and hype ourselves up into an anxious state and get all bothered and go back for some more.

And most of us _pay_ for this.

Sometimes I don't worry about making progress; I worry about having been crazy enough to sign up for this business in the first place.

*endrant*

Love your rant Wynne.

It isn't bad enough we used to get treated badly w/o "monetarily" paying for it, but now we dish out exuberant fees to feel this way all over again. (dang!)

The only thing worse than going to therapy is NOT going to therapy.

JM's right though, good rant.

Very good Wynne

wynne

you know when you "can't put your finger on it"? well, you got your finger on it now!!!it's absolutely the truth!!!

but so is AG's post: the only thing worse than going to therapy is not going....

Dr. LaCombe's quote regarding change in therapy that "the processing has been non-conscious...almost as if you were the last to know" makes a lot of sense. I've read this elsewhere, too.

I've always hoped for some sudden, dramatic epiphany about myself that would melt away all my suffering and make me well beyond my wildest dreams, but it just doesn't work that way. It happens, but it kind of sneaks up on you.

"Maybe it no longer bothers you to ask a stranger for directions." This is a perfect example of a subtle but profound change. You just do it without thinking about it. Then, you might think, "wait, did I just do that? Whoa."

That's change.

I agree Russ. I printed that out so that I could keep reading it over and over again yesterday. It's like wow, I have changed and 'I am the last to know.'

There's a book by Nick Hornsby called "A Long Way Down" about four people who meet because they all went to the same rooftop in London on New Year's Eve to commit suicide. The rest of the book is a subtle, funny, really insightful look at how we change each other sometimes in very unexpected ways. There are no grand resolutions or thunderous revelations, it happens like it does in real life. They each gradually shift infintesimal bit by bit until they're somewhere else, a place where they want to live without knowing how they got there.

It's beautfully summed up by a scene at the end of the book. They all go back to the rooftop and from there you can see the London Eye, the giant ferris wheel on the bank of the Thames. One of the characters looks at it and says, "that's funny, you can't see it moving from here, but you know it's moving." I thought it was the most perfect analogy for therapy I ever heard.

AG

AG,

That sounds like another 'must read.' I looked it up real briefly on AMazon.com and it gives me the sense of what coming here is like. All of us having some sort of agony and triumph to share. Touching each others lives and changing each other for the better just for being there when you thought you were the only one who was desperate and in need of help. I think I willhave to order that one. Thanks.

Just Me,
It was an awesome read, I read it cover to cover in like three days. He's a really good writer with what I consider to be highly keen insight into the human condition. His characters are all three-dimensional and have both good and bad about them. And he is so funny! I actually found myself laughing out loud while reading it, I really think you would like it. Let me know when you read it, I'd love to hear your thoughts on it.

AG

The kind of falling-back that I'm worried about is when it seems that suddenly I'm feeling all down and horrible about myself when it sure didn't seem like I was that way before. Like, now I have periodic bouts of feeling worthless. I don't remember having those before. That kind of thing doesn't seem like a positive bit at all. And I know that things and feelings can get worse before they get better (I mean, I read that, and ya'll have said it), but ... Grr.

And I can't use the techniques that ShrinkLady's page advocates, 'cause when I read back over my journal I didn't use to talk about myself that way, and now I do. So...I can haz progress, plz? kkthxbai.