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9 replies

therapist doesn't read me well

butterflywarriorbutterflywarriorMember
ugh..
well i had a more intensive session today that was much more 'trauma-work' oriented and back to the 'meaning making' theme which I have mixed feelings about. It's a good direction for me but one that I'm severe ambivalent about and I'm not sure if that's normal or not.

However today, my therapist said something thatr really REALLY concerns me and I'm not sure exactly how to confront it. I'm not good with direct confrontation in most situations so I'm worried.

Today, my therapist made a comment to me about how I had a lot of intensive work with Holly (last therapist) which I did and that I had a 'full course of treatment' in regards to my trauma/PTSD stuff so she felt that I had really integrated my traumas quite well and that I have gotten to the point of questioning what to do about my relationship with my dad.. not so much issues with procesisng it, etc....

I was saoooooooo taken aback because this is not true. Yes Holly and I ddi intensive work but even Holly made it clear that I had more work to do and I have to agree even though I didn't want to admit it and resisted saying/ageeing to it and wouldn't agree to it to the last possible moment. (lol) I have always struggled with whether to have a relationship with my dad or not before I did exposure therapy in the first place. I still have a terrible time talkinbg about stuff and I still have major triggers, some flashbacks and crap like that.

WEll I tried to bring this up to adrine without sounding neurotic. It's not like i WANT to be traumatized but I do have the intellectual sense to know that my state of internal functioning is NOT normal. I said.. that I would like to have a lot less triggers and her responsew was that she felt my triggers were tied to my depression.. when im more depressed, im more triggered and too for years, I did very well without activation overall of these PTSD symptoms! WOW... yesa, I did. manage... as a lot of people do because it was dang dormant hiding zone because my body/mind wasn't ready to deal with it.. I mean DUH.. I leaned that as a undergraduate in psychology!! And yes, I get triggered easier when I havent slept and I feel more depressed but that's a seperate issue from the issue of triggering thats associated with trauma. They aren't muttualy exclusive and it was as if she just tied them directly together!! So I mentioned that I still have a horrible time talking about it and it's still very hard buit I could sooooo tell/feel that she wasn't reading me or with me or feeling me in the slightest way so I just gave up.

She gave me an assigment to diagram a pie chart type thing describing myself. It seems odd... vcery CBT (Cognitive-behavioral therapy) oriented of course... and I can see where she is heading with trying to help me see who I am today without the lense of depression but I do not feel that my traumas are integrated.. I haven't processed a lot.. there is a lot I question.. i feel a lot of sha me.. oh yeh I said that too....

I have always known that she doesnt quite read me well and that I have had to sometimes explicitly tell her things. Holly read me so well, it was freaky. She read my non verbal nuaunces and just got it but adrine doesnt AT ALL and it's just freaking me out now because I KNOW i need to say something but I don't want to sound neurotic saying.. gee, im still screwed up.... i dont ageee that im as well as you think I am because may bne she will think I want to be messewd up.. ugh. I could always talk to her supervisor bt its not like i want to get her into trouble or i dont know.. that seems odd to me. I might try writing her a letter but writing is really painful for my hands and my printer isnt working. Typing isn't very easy either but I can do much more of it when I push myself. I just know if I try and talk about it, my anxiety levels will be hard to control and I dont know if i will get my message accross. Im really upset/activated by this situation because I feel like even if I do tell her this.... it makes me feel like she doesn't have the competence to handle chronic PTSD issues.... that she isnt aware of how to hadnle my situation where i have had these issues for a long time as a underlying chronic issue but not as severe as some fresh PTSDers but they are still styignificant and I still numb, avoid, dissociate big time... I want to get well but I need someone to recognize this without me having to spell it out to them because even I dont see it happening sometimes.....

soooooo frustrated.... sighhhhhhhhhh

UGH
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Attachment GirlAttachment GirlAdmin
Butterfly, I'm really sorry. Dealing with this stuff is hard enough when your T gets it. It sounds like your T is really not in tune with where you are and I can understand how difficult it is to talk to her, but therapy isn't going to help if she doesn't even get where you are. Can I make a suggestion? Do you have or can you get an email address for your T? You could just send her the link for this post, I think you did a really excellent job laying it all out, and it would be a good place to start discussing the problem. I don't think you're wanting to be damaged at all, what I consistently hear from you is a drive to get better. It takes a lot of courage to accept the work we need to do and you have that in spades. If I remember right, this is a fairly new T right? Makes it all the more important that she knows she's heading in a wrong direction. Wish I could do more to help, I know where you're at isn't fun by a long shot. Hang in there.

AG
Last edited by Attachment Girl
butterflywarriorbutterflywarriorMember
Thank you both---

I sat down last night and wrote out a list of my reactions to therapy ...... i plan to hand it to her next week.... i plan for it to suck and be really increbly uncomfortable and i might just have to being my teddy bear to feel so i can keep myself or try to keep myself grounded and not freak out...... why so much power do we hadn over to them... LOL....

here is what I wrote:

- i dated it and wrote questions/thoughts from therapy
- meaning of intregration of ones traumas?
- full course of treatment? than why did holy really emphasize and push me to continue therapy especial for trauma work we hadn't finished?
- my 'current' what if's and why's have always existed.... especialy in relation to having a relationship with my dad or not.. they are NOT a 'natural' progression of the theraputic progress I have had but just have changed and evolved somewhat over time
- i want to get/feel better but I don't The triggering, numbing, dissociation, flashbnacks, shames, worry, unprocessed and processed, crap is still very present with me.. i don't believe it's supposed to be this way
- no, i did fine for a long time... I wondered why.... all therapists before (Holly and Jeanne) said my mind/body wasn't ready to deal with it yuet so my defences took care of me
- Things i say are seperarte from things I feel....
- yes, the increase in depressed symptoms and decrease in sleep lead to increae in triggeres bu that's not mutually exclusive from the effects of trauma so I don't see how decreasing depression will solve triggeting when what lead to triggering is trauma, not depression.. and i still have probloems identifying my triggers (something Holly aned I never got the chane to work on but were going to) so how is it htat I havr had a full course of trauma treatment yuet many issues still remain at sifnificant though not pathological or crisis or even acute levels?
- I don't expect perfection but I feel that Im not where you think that I am and this scares me... because I dont feel safe
-end-

let me know what you all think please... thanks
butterflywarriorbutterflywarriorMember
yeh well.. problem for me is trust and sasftey... even if she see's and understands and i expect she will tajke what i say very well and seriously but i really question her trauma competency... I think she is so grounded in CBT that she is not comfortbale going outside of that and its not working with me because Im not someopnw that can work only under that method.... what she said to me conflicts with basic knowledge of understanding trauma and this worries me about her ability to handle my situations as a whole so even if she akes it in. how can i feel safe enough to trust her with this crap.... i very much doubt it..

sad, frustrated... angry too
butterflywarriorbutterflywarriorMember
Update-

I gave my therapist the letter but said to p;ease read it latter like next week.. for nexdt weeks session as I prefer to discuss the homework I did... lol

so I sorta chicklened out but not really.. I felt I really needed to have a positive session and I didnt know how the other one would turn out.. even if positive in the end, it would be fraught with much trepedation and given my mental state thhis past Tuesday, I found it would bne better to not work with such an activating topic.. so next week, we shall see how it all turns out and I will update.

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