No- it isn't bad. You absolutely need to be allowed to take all the time you need, imo. It will come when enough trust is built up, and it won't feel so awful and horrible. I suspect- it will feel actually, good to be able to have someone to turn to someone you trust with your problems, not to have to carry them so alone. But if you try, say too much before the trust is built- it may leave you feeling yucky because you will be thinking T must hate you and all of that. Has she ever reacted unfavorable to anything you have confessed to her? Has she ever been judgemental or condemning, or has it somehow *felt* that way? If it has, then trust will take longer, yet again to build. I suggest you work on the relationship you have with your T, rather than try to talk about these issues yet...just an idea. Trying (and failing) to put the cart before the horse has been wreaking havoc for me- and I've just finally figured that out. I found all I am able to deal with in therapy at this time, is building a level of trust for my T. Without the foundation or trust for him, the rest will not stand too long. that's my experience. Hope this can help a bit, sweetie.

hugs- you are doing great, really- truly- reaching out and reaching out. That is the biggest thing right now, I believe, and *more* than enough for you to handle.

Beebs

No, it's hard stuff to talk about. I brought up my SI and suicidal thoughts early on with T, before they got intense, but any time he wanted me to elaborate (or even just notify him by text when they were going on), it felt like a battle to do it. It's like, I know he needs to hear it, so I force myself a bit, but the shame over it pushes back so hard that they get way worse than just hiding, ignoring or maybe vaguely hinting that they're still there. I was just talking to T about it in our Friday phone session. It came up, because he wanted to address my concern that he is thinking I exaggerate, lie, get myself worked up on purpose to get attention, or even just am overreacting to the bad things that happened by being in that amount of pain about it. I think a lot of what makes it so hard for me to talk to my T about it is I don't feel like he'll "believe" me, like he will think it's just drama and not real pain. I had that message a lot. So, any time I would push myself very hard to talk about it, I had such a negative reaction (like a voice inside me accusing me of all those things, exaggeration, attention-seeker, drama queen, etc.). And that would keep me sharing those things in check and I would go back to hiding them. I don't know if this relates at all to how you feel. It could be a completely different "message" that is regulating your vulnerability on this topic. What I'm trying to say is, I don't think there is anything abnormal about struggling to talk about those coping mechanisms, for a couple reasons. First, we may have received messages that our feelings and reactions to them were "bad" or "too much" in the past, so we expect that judgment to continue. Second, these thoughts, urges and behaviors are ways we cope with extreme amounts of pain. Maybe there is a bit of fear that if we don't have that outlet, the pain will be so overwhelming that we will be in agony with no ability to manage it? That is just a guess. It may not relate to you at all. ((((((((((kashley)))))))))) Take it easy on yourself, if you can! You're doing the hard work and it's OK (healthy even) to pace yourself with what you can handle in therapy.

Oh, I forgot to add- that what trying to build trust with your T may look like, would be you asking her questions. Some things I may ask my T, and very carefully listen to his tone and the feeling of his response, and if the connection is good I may watch his face a bit too. Try, writing some questions down that you have about her as a therapist, and what she thinks about you. It may help to loosen some of that stuff up, and get you talking a bit to her at the level you are at, rather than trying to do too much. Of course- take this with grain of salt, but it does sound like a trust issue to me. Not that she is unworthy of your trust- but that you need to find ways to be *able* to trust her. If that makes sense.

Thanks so much for your replies, BB and Yaku.

BB, you are definitely right that it is a trust issue, and the way you describe it is exactly right too. She is definitely worthy of my trust, but I have a very hard time allowing myself to trust her. She has never been judgmental at all, but I'm sure I've taken it that way. I think I'm just scared that, one day, I will get to a point with her where she finally will be judgmental. Cognitively I know that won't happen. And cognitively I know my T likes and cares for me (well, mainly because she's said it). And since she already knows the simple fact that I have trouble with these coping mechanisms, it seems like I should be able to be rational and realize that if she was going to be disgusted with me, then she already would. But I can't convince myself of that. Even after she's explicitly told me that she's not disgusted.

Your suggestions about asking questions to gain more trust is a good idea and a definite sticking point for me. I'm afraid to ask her things...probably because some questions imply that I have an opinion, and I'm deathly (not quite, but almost!) afraid of having an opinion. I'm also afraid of making eye contact with her. If it's about trivial things, like classes or something, then I'm fine, but anything more than that and I'm staring at the floor. Sometimes her facial and other nonverbal reactions themselves scare me. And not because they are scary, but because it's the reaction that I've (secretly) been looking for. I've been with her for a year now, and I can count on one hand the number of questions I've asked her (at least ones that have anything to do with my therapy). Luckily for me, she's told me most everything that I would ask about. A lot of times, she picks up on the questions that I'm wanting to ask but am too afraid to do so.

Thanks for sharing your experiences with all of this, Beebs. ((((BB))))

Yaku, I relate to what you said so much that the words could be from my own mouth. A few months ago when I was having some pretty serious suicidal thoughts, T said that she wanted me to call her any time that happens or any time I wanted to SI. And the wall we kept/keep running up against was me not knowing what was "real" and if it warranted calling her. Even this past session when we discussed some dissociated feelings/memories that have been coming up, she said that I can always call her and I told her (for the billionth time) that I just never know if I'm making it up or not. The difference is that I'm still not able to force myself to get in touch with her. I just become paralyzed by the not knowing and the thinking that I'm a drama queen, etc. I know I am definitely scared of giving those things up, as ashamed as I am of them. And then the shame just doubles and triples and quadruples because I feel like I'm so bad for not wanting to give them up badly enough.

Thanks to you both for being so thoughtful and understanding.. hugs to you both.

Sorry DF, we cross-posted.

quote:

It sounds like she is slowly easing you in to it by even making mention of them being in the background, etc.

That's a good point, and I hadn't thought about that. And talked about the shame seems like a good direction to take, too. I'll definitely keep that in mind as time goes on. I think something that I'm repeatedly faced with is the reality of how hard it is for me to trust. Until I started therapy, I don't think that I would have said I had trust issues at all, but I think I do. A lot. And so the fact that it's taking me so long to trust her sometimes seems so ridiculous because of my earlier belief that I don't have any problems trusting. In reality, I'm not even sure if I can remember one time that I've ever trusted anyone. Although I'm sure there had to have been some point.

Anyway, thanks for your response, DF. And thanks for reminding me that it's brave to continue going even while she knows these things. I think the only way I manage it is to somehow trick myself into thinking that she doesn't actually know!!

quote:

I'm afraid to ask her things...probably because some questions imply that I have an opinion, and I'm deathly (not quite, but almost!) afraid of having an opinion. I'm also afraid of making eye contact with her. If it's about trivial things, like classes or something, then I'm fine, but anything more than that and I'm staring at the floor. Sometimes her facial and other nonverbal reactions themselves scare me. And not because they are scary, but because it's the reaction that I've (secretly) been looking for. I've been with her for a year now, and I can count on one hand the number of questions I've asked her (at least ones that have anything to do with my therapy).

And THIS could have come out of my mouth. If it helps, about 75% of the time, I cannot tell T when the thoughts and behaviors actually arise. I have to tell him after they've passed or I've already failed to stave them off and get through some of that shame on my own. Even then, it is really hard to do. Sometimes, I don't admit to it until T says in a session, "You seem to be doing so much better," and then I feel so guilty that I have been ignoring it. I'm hoping it just gets better with time. It is not a matter of trusting T more than I already do, because I honestly trust him more than pretty much any living person in this world...except my H. It's just a matter of having internalized a message that my pain isn't real or valid and so it feels so wrong to share it with others. So, it's not like I am thinking, "This pain is real and T will think I'm lying or exaggerating." It's more like, "I don't know if this pain is real. It feels so real to me, but I've been told in the past that I'm full of $#!+ and a bad person for struggling or feeling this way. If it isn't real, T is bound to see through me and hate me for being so much drama! And if I find out it for sure isn't real, I will hate me too." I may just have basically said the same thing you did.

One of the things that I have a hard time with is knowing why I think in these ways or whatever, because my memory is very spotty. But I definitely have the same internal message that you do. I don't know if what I'm feeling is real (although I don't know why I think that), so I don't tell T.

quote:

I have to tell him after they've passed or I've already failed to stave them off and get through some of that shame on my own.

I do the exact same thing. Sometimes I will end up telling T, but sometimes I don't. And, recently, I've actually been telling her less because I'm worried that if the same things are brought up (like with suicidal thoughts or thoughts/actions on SI) then she will think that I have to be making it up for the same things to keep coming up again. Especially with the suicidal thoughts. Maybe I should try and talk about this with her..if I can. It seems weird to me, but I also think that holding things back for fear of being too much of a drama queen also makes me a drama queen, mainly when I tell T that that is why I'm holding it back. Definitely a no-win situation!

Kashley,

I have difficulty discussing my ED with either of my Ts. I can talk around it, meaning I can say vague things about behaviors but when they want to start talking specifics like what types of food I binge on, etc., then I snap at them and say I dont' want to talk about that. its only safe for me to talk about it on a surface level. When we go deeper, its just too scary for me.

I've found that I do feel more comfortable over time with telling them more details, but it has to come out in very small doses.

Just be patient with yourself, challenge yourself to open up from time to time, but don't cause yourself so much distress that it makes you not even want to go to therapy. Little bit at a time. Baby steps. That's what works for me.

Hi LG, thanks for your reply. I'm afraid to even allude to my ED, because I still don't want my T to know too much. I think my imagination goes kind of crazy the more she knows. Because when I imagine telling her something else about it (or about any of my coping methods), I think of her imagining what I do in my time away from therapy, and it isn't a pretty picture. Not what she's imagining -although that isn't great either- but rather the fact that she's imagining it at all. Because then I think that if she ever imagines that, then she'll think I'm horrible or disgusting or something. If any of that made sense!!

I have a hard time knowing what my baby steps should be or even knowing how much is enough and how much is too much. My T always tells me that I work so hard in therapy, and I feel like I should always be doing more. So I know I have a very distorted vision of what challenging myself means. I think that's why I'm asking this question, because I honestly don't know how I'm supposed to know when I'm not pushing myself enough if I always tend to push myself too much.

DF - best of luck at your session tomorrow. Your comment about Egyptian pharos made me laugh. I remember you saying something about your T and how she reacted when you first said something about your ED to her. Here's to hoping she's learned a little more about it in the meantime, yeah? My T is kind of like yours in that if she sees an opening, she will ask another very gentle question. But even before she does that, she will always tell me that I can tell her to shut up if I don't want to talk about it. Of course I would never tell her to shut up.

I think it's so great that you're taking such brave steps forward, even with how scary it all is. I really hope your session goes well tomorrow and post an update if you can and feel up to it. ((((DF))))

I just want to thank all of you again. I have another session tomorrow, so we'll see what happens. It's hard to predict what's going to happen in session lately since I've had all of this dissociated stuff pop up whenever it wants.

Hi PF,

I'm sorry I didn't respond sooner...I needed to "recover" a bit after my session yesterday. We didn't discuss anything about what I've said here on the thread, but that's partly a good thing, since it means I'm still working on giving the relationship time to build and for my trust to build before I say much else about my coping mechanisms.

Ugh. A food diary sounds dreadful, although I'm sure the day will come when my T will ask me to keep one as well.

Ok, I lied. We did talk about how much pressure I put on myself, but we only talked about it in terms of my schoolwork. I don't think we ever figured anything out. I just said that I don't know what "less pressure" would feel like, because it would always feel like I was doing something wrong (even though we agreed that I'd probably do just as well, if not better, with less pressure).

I think, for now, I'm just going to try and trust that my T will help point me in the right direction and that I don't have to have everything worked out on my own. I'm bad about that.

Thanks all.