Therapy...

[accidentallycrazy]

So. I have a whole load of issues that T has been fantastic in dealing with. They pretty much stem from some horrific bullying that I suffered from the age of about 8 through to 13. Mostly verbal but there was a lot of physical too (never as bad as broken bones, but I remember being thrown down some stairs and dragged along by my hair to the point that my feet were off the floor). I have agoraphobia in varying strengths, depending on my mood and the situation, absolutely no confidence in myself, eating issues (I wouldn't say it's to the point of a disorder at the moment) and a crippling fear that people will leave me if I allow them to see who I really am.

Until recently, I thought I was dealing with my issues fairly well. I moved schools at 13 and ended up in one where I made wonderful friends who brought me a long way in trusting other people again. I was enjoying life and challenging myself quite regularly with new situations and people. I have a fiance who loves me and my anxiety about her leaving had pretty much faded. TTWD was helping me to deal with any excessive guilt I put on myself for not being as perfect as I wanted to be... since one of my rules is that T decides if my expectations of myself are too high and she will help me with more realistic goals.

And then I managed to find one of my old bullies through a facebook comment she left on a friend's page. Not able to help myself, I looked at her page out of a paranoid fear that she had moved somewhere near me. One her page I found a comment from a girl that I had managed to completely repress. I had thought that I remembered everything in horrible detail... but everything to do with her just came flooding back and basically shut me down for a day or two. And now all of the above issues have come back with a vengence. On top of which I've caught myself with thoughts of a return to bulimic behaviours, withdrawal from anything and everything social and... a few thoughts of harming myself again. I managed to dismiss them immediately, but it terrified T and myself both.

So I've agreed to seek professional help. Luckily the university I'm at offers a free councelling service of 6 or more sessions. I agreed with T that this was a good idea and that I should go along for a referal session sometime this week... But I keep stalling.

I'm absolutely terrified of this, I've realised. My instinctive reaction to all of this for so long has been to just bury my head in the sand and hope that it will all eventually go away and I'll just be normal again. I'm not certain I want to talk about all this, even though I'm fairly sure that I need to. I know I need to deal with it this time and pushing it away and ignoring it won't help. But I really don't know how I can get myself to the councelling sessions if I'm this scared of talking. I haven't told T this yet.

I'm not sure if I'm asking for help or just need a place to write out my thoughts. I know a few of you have been to therapy and I guess I just wanted to ask how it helped you, if I may?

[pinecone]

one thing that i know for sure from my experience with therapy is that you are usually allowed to set the pace and decide where the conversation goes. the first time will be just basic information, so you don't have to worry about having to divulge everything right away or go too far into how you feel about things. it's more about getting to know the therapist and lay the groundwork. then you can ease into the meatier stuff in subsequent meetings. therapy is a long process, and it can take a while to find a therapist that clicks with you, but with the right person it can really be empowering. it can help you see your own issues from a new perspective. in any case, i know it's totally scary to go to that office for the first time. however, you may find that when you walk out of there you will be thanking yourself for taking such momentous self-care steps- which is a really good feeling.

[JigsawAnalogy]

You *definitely* don't need to talk about anything until you're ready to talk about it. My therapist pointed out that one part of healthy boundaries is building up trust before opening up about everything. One of the therapist's jobs is to help you get to a point where you feel safe talking about the stuff that's hard, and to help you to keep it from being overwhelming as you process through it. I speak from experience in saying that it's possible to work through quite a lot of "stuff" without shutting down completely or needing to be hospitalized (it might be hard at times, and it might take up a lot of energy, but it doesn't need to leave you completely flooded with bad feelings).

As for how it helped? I don't get suicidal any more. I rarely have panic attacks any more, and when I do, I can generally figure out what the triggers are, and I have ways of helping myself to defuse them. Those casual thoughts I used to think everyone had, like when you're walking over a bridge and you think, "Hm, if I wanted to commit suicide, this would be a good place to jump" and then you reassure yourself that you're not actually suicidal? I haven't had those in going on two years.

I can cope with more of my feelings. I was able to get through my dental phobia and get a bunch of really necessary dental work done. I was able to quit smoking. My relationship with W has been more stable. When I feel sad, I'm aware that the feeling will pass, and I don't feel stuck in it.

I highly, HIGHLY recommend working through stuff. It makes a *huge* difference if you can stick it out for the long haul. (It took me years of therapy, but then, I had a *lot* of stuff that I'd been suppressing for years.)

[altbob]

Just to offer another perspective, I've been to therapy, most recently last year. I have problems with trust, and don't like talking about things in general. But I'm good at making myself do things. Mostly. So I told her I wouldn't be forth coming, but I would answer questions she asked, and tell her if it was too much. This is not the way they usually work. You certainly don't have to do this. But I wanted to speed through and would rather push through the unpleasantness than let the dread linger.
But what you can use from this are : They work for YOU. If you go to one, and you just don't feel comfortable, tell them you want a different one next time. The doctor will be fine with this, they know comfort is something necessary for therapy, and won't take it personally.
And to lighten things up, here's how I explained my view on therapy. It's like getting a colonoscopy . You don't do it because "WHEEE". You do it to take care of yourself and feel better down the road.

Good luck, and in my opinion HOW you deal with this isn't as important as doing something to deal with it.

[accidentallycrazy]

Thanks you guys. I think it's more just the idea of talking - about any of it - that's freaking me out, rather than the amount of talking I have to do... But it certainly feels easier to think about now with what you've all said.

PIP: Yeah, i think that's just what I have to keep reminding myself; that it'll feel good, and be good for me, in the end. I'm really a bit of a wuss when it comes to things like this But I think once I take the first step it won't seem anywhere near as hard. Thanks for the information, I'm hoping I can find someonewho clicks with me fairly quickly, but with my track record of distrusting new people... Well, I guess I just have to try, right?

JA: Thank you :3 It definitely helps to read about your experiences and I'm really glad therapy helped so much. I mean, I knew on some level that it's a good thing and that it'd help... but I'd just gotten it into my head that this was going to be an awful, scary thing to do. I'm not even sure how, haha. I really want to get rid of those quasi suicidal thoughts I don't tend to have them often but when you catch yourself wondering about how easy it would be to hurt yourself or even go further than that... it should be a sign that something's wrong, huh? So I'll definitely try to stick with it.

Altbob: You make me giggle a lot I do hope therapy won't be quite as uncomfortable as a colonoscopy! Mm, your approach sounds pretty good, actually XD I think I might say that I won't be very good at volenteering information myself, so they'll have to ask the questions - at first at least. Hopefully as I get more comfortable, I'll be able to talk more freely with them. Thank you for the advice and the well wishes :3

Well, I actually ended up gathering the courage to show this thread to T. Her first response was pretty much "You silly child, of course I love you." We had a long discussion about it which pretty much resulted in my agreeing to go and email them and T telling me that she understands that I need to take this at my own pace. And that she'll come with me as much as I need her to (which I really want her to, as I'm being pretty clingy at the moment...). We also ended up discussing the fact that I really need to stop keeping my worries to myself like this as I've done it.... many times before I have to realise that T can't help me if I hide the fact that I'm upset. So I'm sitting rather gingerly as I type this since T has now made it part of my rules to tell her if something is wrong. Especially if it's something that she's inadvertantly making worse because she doesn't know it's upsetting me. T has gotten far too good at spanking me since we started this... But that's a thought for another post entirely XD

So anyway, I'm going to email them tomorrow about coming in for a session for them to decide what kind of help they can give me. And I'm not going to stall over this or I think T and I will be having another 'discussion' Thanks again for your responses

[altbob]

Yeah for progress! And yeah for pain!

[JigsawAnalogy]

I'm glad that you've got the support you need to start this.

I do have to warn you that there will be points in the middle of things that might seem hard, even though you've gotten past the initial point of starting. That doesn't mean it isn't working, or that it won't work. It just means you're at a hard, scary part, and you will get through it like you got through the other parts.

[artlover]

"So I'm sitting rather gingerly as I type this since T has now made it part of my rules to tell her if something is wrong."

Sounds like an excellent rule, well implemented.

[accidentallycrazy]

Progress indeed XD Looks like the best way to get a response wil be to ring them during office hours... which by the time we got back from uni and shopping today, it was too late to do So I'm getting up early tomorrow to make lunch and ring the office. Joy, telephoning people -.- I'm SO good at that

And artlover, altbob, thank you for your concern Seriously though, it was... if not 'nice' then certainly needed. And getting take care of afterwards is never something I'd argue with, either~ The rule was definitely one we should have put in place before. Ah hindsight, aren't you a wonderful thing?

JA: Thank you, I will keep that in mind. I hope I won't get to the point of actually wanting to quit, though I'm sure I have plenty of people around who will kick me into gear if need be =3 By which, I of course mean gently encourage me into continuing. Or something similar

[JigsawAnalogy]

Two things to keep in mind:

1: It ****IS**** worth it. The relief of not being in pain (even the pain you stop noticing because you've had it so long and it's become such a part of your experience of being alive) is ENORMOUS.

2: If a therapist isn't working for you, and you're not feeling like you are communicating or getting what you need, look for a new therapist. Some therapists, I knew within one visit they wouldn't work out. Others, it took a few weeks or months. I think my count over 19 years of therapy has been 5 really good therapists, 6 okay therapists, and 12 therapists I stopped seeing within a few weeks because they didn't work out for me.

Good luck.

[pinecone]

that is not great odds! JA, my experience has also been that most of my therapists didn't end up being keepers. it can be so expensive to search around though, especially if your insurance doesn't cover it- it's really a daunting prospect. and sometimes it seems like the community center type/student/budget therapists may not be as good, although i haven't been to enough to be able to draw a reliable conclusion regarding the ratio of good therapists in cheap settings vs. good therapists that cost tons of money. probably in either case it takes a long time to find the right one. but in your experience, have you found any ways to lessen the financial burden of shopping around for a good one?

[JigsawAnalogy]

Two of the really good therapists, and two of the okay therapists, were in free or community-based sliding scale situations, so I wasn't paying more than $10 per therapist.

Aside from that, though I've been fortunate to have good health insurance. When we chose which health plan to use, we kept opting for the annoying HMO that, for all its faults, covered 60 sessions of mental health therapy a year, pretty much no questions asked. For all the negatives of HMOs, they do cover things with very little expense to the people using them, and it was the only way I was able to have as much therapy as I've had over the past six years.

I also know that a lot of therapists offer phone consultations or other ways of finding out whether they will be helpful in general, before you need to pay for a session. This is a good way of ruling out the ones who definitely aren't going to work, but less useful for ruling out the ones who you discover aren't helpful over a longer time period.

I will also say that I have been pretty strongly committed to working within what I could afford, so even though it took a while to find a couple's therapist who worked well for me and W and was covered by our insurance, I stuck it out because it was important to me that money not be a barrier to us seeing her. (I had the same attitude towards my individual mental health therapy, although when my current therapist stopped taking insurance, I did decide to pay out of pocket to see her, since we'd been working together for several years, and I knew that she was making a significant difference for me.)

I pointed out the odds not to be discouraging, but to explain that you do have to look to find a good therapist. You might luck out and get a good one with the first one you see, but if the first one doesn't work, that doesn't mean *therapy* doesn't work.

[accidentallycrazy]

Well, I have an appointment for Thursday. Fingers crossed I click with the therapist. Though I'm not actually certain whether the person I see then for the 'initial assessment' will be the person I see in the following sessions... I guess I'll find out when I get there

JA: Those are some pretty low odds! But thank you for letting me know that pushing on despite them will be worth it :3 The counselling service does say on their website that they are happy to change your therapist if you are not happy with them, so i'll keep it in mind. I'm hoping that I won't have to change about too much, or that I'll at least know that I need to change before I've spent too much time with one person. All your advice is very good and I'm extremely thankful for it I'll try to make sure I keep it in mind before I go, though I am prone to panicking... Maybe reread the thread before I go to the appointment XD

Also with insurance... I'm in the UK so we don't technically need it... But then the NHS tends to have HUGE waiting lists for mental health care Private care really isn't feasible right now with the amount of money we have, so I'm very glad the uni offers this service to its students. I've been told by a friend that it's pretty good, so I'm fairly optimistic... or as optimistic as possible, at any rate.

[JigsawAnalogy]

Good luck tomorrow! (Or today, given the time difference.)

[accidentallycrazy]

Thank you! And it was today :3

I dragged T along with me cause I was really quite nervous |D But it was just an introductory assesment. He got me to talk about why I was there and so briefly about the bullying which... I guess wasn;t so bad. I think when we end up going into more indepth stuff I might get the urge to stop talking though, as I wasn't exactly free about volentering the 'easy' information. I mean, I talked fine in response to his questions but T had to prod me into volenteering some stuff that was relevant but that he hadn't specifically asked for... I need to work on that, really. I guess it wasn't so bad I'm just still... not so good at talking about my feelings. I hope that'll get easier.

At any rate, he's noted everything down and has to take it to the allocation meeting on monday to decide which therapist + how many sessions they're going to give me. So I just have to wait until early next week when they contact me to find out what's going to happen next