I hear you outsider. Therapy is no walk in the park. I don't mean to suggest things you may already know but can you do some things to comfort yourself? Eat something you really like, Breathe deeply, take a soothing shower?? Call a good friend? This is what my T tells me to do. I admit I don't always do it and if I do it doesn't always work or help.

If I have had a session like that I nearly always end up sending him a text, mostly I need everything validated - like, "did I do good" "was that a good session?". Stupid questions like that!!

Hi Outsider,
I know you might feel like you are the worst T client, but I suspect I could give you a run for your money!
I really understand the growing frustration and then diving in you describe and you're right, the aftermath is horrible. But it passes.
I have learned from bitter experience to ask my T to give me a warning 10 mins before the end of the session, I have asked her to write stuff down for me to take away, I have arranged to call her and have her remind me to breathe, i have planned my working hours so I have time alone after the session and even the next day.
I have been furious with my T for "letting me leave" in a state but then I show her very little of how I feel when I do leave.
I am scared of my powerful emotions but I am learning that they run their course... That they feel horrible but I come through them to a calmer place eventually... But it's trusting that process that I struggle with when I have so rarely had the experience.
I do it because I have to and at times I wonder if there's an easier way, but if there were, I'd have found it by now, surely!
I keep telling my T what is happening and trying to ask for help. That. It at least is getting easier. And I recognise how different it is to feel my feelings when connected to my T when I am usually disconnected from myself and other people. If I don't manage to express myself when I'm with her and supress my feelings, I find life more difficult.
Practice. Tiny steps. Asking for hands to hold.

I hope you are feeling a little better.

((((OUTSIDER))))

quote:

How do you all do this?

It's really hard. Do you have any outside contact with your T? Can you touch base with your T when you feel like that?

It is so normal for me to have a bad reaction that my T texts me and asks me how I am....i have never had a session where I leave in a good space. It is really hard.

hi outsider
wise words from iris and others..i have a 'comfort box' (just a nice box with lots of different things at home, to smell, to hold etc - just to help remind me i am in the here and now). Other times I try and slow down over the next few days wherever possible, even if thats like grabbing an extra 10 minutes in the bathrooms at work just to breathe slowly for a bit or going for a walk at lunchtime even if its only round the block. sometimes if I am feeling brave enough I will tell T at the next session that it was rough after and we talk about that and what else she can do to help minimize it a bit the after effects

it does get easier as i am learning that feelings do pass eventually but is taking lots of practice for me anyway. Sometimes the other thing I do if I want to throw up is suck a peppermint or have peppermint or ginger tea which helps with that side of a reaction to T sessions
Hang in there, sending

Thanks, everyone.

I have some work to do in this area.

Liese, I am able to reach out to T any time, and I am grateful, but I feel like I overdo it. So it's no surprise that I turned to my tried and true coping mechanisms before I was able to reach out to T.

Scars, Iris, and SD, it's comforting to know that post-session contact is just a part of your work. Thanks for putting that out there.

There is a very strong part of me that so fears any vulnerability and the other part that is desperate to have connection and thus, willing to be vulnerable. Those parts don't get along well, and the internal war was unbearable yesterday.

I really get that "internal war" Outsider. I really do.

My T is about to go on 4 weeks' vacation overseas and I am suffering badly at the prospect. So that war is raging. I need her help now before she goes and when she is available but I am telling myself that I shouldn't need her and I need to learn how to survive without her. A horrible place to be.

It really is an internal war.

((((OUTSIDER))))

I love the way that was phrased, that outside contact was "part of the work". Some T's don't look at it that way but, really, we can only handle so much on our own.

Hope you are feeling better.