Post therapy session struggles

[Supermum]

I’ve been in therapy over 18 months after falling in a heap 4 years ago. My psychologist has been doing schema therapy with me and we have been doing chair work etc . The sessions can be very overwhelming and triggering and I struggle enormously with the after effects of these sessions. My psychologist is aware and helping to find ways to work through my difficulties but my time with him is coming to a close as it’s with the public health system so I have to find a new psychologist which is daunting and anxiety provoking and I just feel like I just cannot manage all this on top of the constant reel  of traumatic memories and invasive  thoughts mixed with the guilt and the punishment thoughts it’s just a bit much . Any other experiences like this and ways to deal with the after effects of therapy etc would be helpful 

[Eagle Ray]

Dear Supermum

I feel so much for you right now. I get that when you haven’t felt validated before, and then it feels like someone is there for you, and then you feel like you’re losing them again, it can feel huge and deeply distressing. I think your feelings are really understandable.

 I too felt unlovable, especially growing up. I also put on a stronger self to the world than what I’m feeling a lot of the time, telling people I’m fine and good even when I’m not, which I guess is my defensive protector.

But I think maybe if you approach therapy just revealing a little of your emotions at a time, just working gradually to avoid overwhelm, that might help. I too have dissociated in the therapy context, not so much with the current psych I see, but with a previous one I remember losing my words all together and shutting down.

But I’ve gradually learned this is a survival response of my body trying to protect me. I think just gradually becoming aware of that allows you to let go a bit with guarding against emotions and vulnerability.

You have expressed yourself so well here. A few times I’ve written things down for my psychologist that I knew I’d have trouble verbalising. That might be something else you could try, if it feels ok to do it.

I’m gradually getting better at verbalising stuff around my emotions. I think what happens when you haven’t been validated in the past, it’s really hard to express feelings and emotions without fear as it is so outside what you’re used to and can feel unsafe. But it does get easier and it is possible to build a trusting relationship with a new psych too, even if you are experiencing loss and abandonment.

So sending you a big hug and lots of encouragement and emotional support.

[Supermum]

It seems we have a lot in common with your verbalisation of how you feel in relation to myself . I plan on showing  my psychologist my response to you with a few extra points as I feel it explains a lot of how I feel . I don’t think I’ve ever had a person whom

i could connect with that wasn’t sexual in nature . I feel I have thought I’ve connected with people but it’s just been in a very superficial way through sex to make me feel something , some form of connection , support / emotional craving ?

I have found myself embarrassingly thinking of my psychologist in a sexual manner, but it’s not in the at way at all it’s just a incorrect association of a meaningful connection and need for emotional support that thinks that it needs to be sexual but indeed it’s just a connection to another human being . I used to have sexual

encounters that were just a need to feel loved and needed/ respected and cared about . 
 

[Eagle Ray]

That makes sense Supermum. You have been looking for that meaningful human connection but followed that through with sexual encounters in the past when you just wanted to feel loved and needed.

Some years ago now I went through something similar. After losing an important relationship in my life that was non-sexual, I experienced strong dissociation and ended up in an intimate encounter with a stranger that became abusive and unsafe for me. I realised all I was looking for was human connection but was not in the right place within myself at the time and made a decision from a dissociated place. This was because my past experience of isolation and abandonment in childhood was activated which was traumatising at the time.

You are really clear in understanding what’s happening for you including the thoughts about the psychologist. I don’t think it’s unusual for people to develop feelings for their psych. Those feelings and thoughts might be sexual in nature, or experiencing the therapist as a kind of parent figure replacing an absence of a loving, safe parent in childhood, or some other form of attachment. As long as the therapist holds strong, consistent, safe boundaries, which is essential, the therapeutic relationship can be a context for learning healthy attachment.

As so many of us experience insecure attachments in childhood, it can be hard to know and learn what kinds of attachments and people are safe in adulthood. It’s really understandable then that we may be drawn to certain kinds of attachment to try to feel safe and loved.

You have really good insight into what is happening for you which is awesome. Ideally we all need healthy, secure and caring attachments which are not codependent but involve a relationship between equals. I think once you reach a place of healthy attachment in the different relationships in your life it becomes really empowering and life is easier and more fulfilling and enriching on many levels. With the insights you have I think you are in a good place to work through these kinds of things with the psychologist.

[Supermum]

• It’s feels so good to be understood and not feel like an absolute outcast for the thoughts that I have so thank you 😊 My therapist has always held clear , strong  boundaries  which I have respected him for. I don’t see him as a father figure rather just someone who has ventured for the first and only time  into the most intimate parts of my mind and memories , that has pushed gently for me to open up and then dealt with the tsunami of distress and emotion in such a way that  I felt protected. That protection, strength and command to be honest is very sensual and erotic , like being led in a dance where you have to trust that person completely .  I don’t want to give that up , who would want to ? I have 2 more sessions with him and I feel that I don’t want that security and feeling of belonging and acceptance to end . It just feels like every other connection that I’ve lost and that has left me and it hurts.  My logical self knows that It will be ok that the world won’t collapse but my emotional and BPD self is panicking.  
  I hope what you are saying  to me is true and my self critic is happily satin I told you so … your worthless and deserve no one , no one wants to know you , you are to really unloved and deserve to be hurt to feel worthless and then along comes the punisher who then self harms , self medicates and feels she would better be off dead . That’s what frightens me .. those feelings of loss and self loathing. My new psychologist whom I have met x 2 is aware of these intense feelings and has assured me she will help guide me through these tricky waters but sometimes I just don’t have control and the alcohol flows and that’s when things get messy . 
  How do a relay such intimate thoughts and concerns without overstepping the mark ? 
  It feels hopeless 😞  

         I value your opinion please talk

With  me more  . 

[Eagle Ray]

It is completely understandable you would have formed a strong attachment with your psych if he is the first person you have opened up to with the most intimate parts of your mind and memories and he has gently guided you and helped you feel protected.

One way of looking at it could be to see if you can internalise the same qualities within yourself. So developing an inner protector and guide that can self-care and support the vulnerable parts of yourself. If you find the inner critic attacking you and leaving you feeling hopeless, you can bring the caring, protector in to nurture and support you.

I know this is way easier said than done! It’s a process I’m going through myself. But I’ve found, gradually over time, that it is possible to become your own caring guide. This is definitely something the new psych can help you with.

 I get that the out-of-control part is the hardest thing. It is a non-voluntary state that just takes over. But as you gradually build other parts of yourself in a healthy way, and develop healthy attachments with others (the psych being a great starting point), I think the out-of-control nature of the feelings of hopelessness and low self worth gradually diminish and become a smaller part of you.

Apparently our nervous systems don’t distinguish between imagination and reality, so imagining the gentle, caring, protective energy of the first psych is present with you, even if you are no longer seeing him, can be very healing. Combined with the caring guidance and support from the new psych, you have even more healing energy to work with and build feelings of self-care and self-worth from.

 I lost someone I was very close to when I was 18, my first love actually. I recently realised I still have his caring energy with me after almost 30 years and it is a source of nurturance and safety, even though it was a painful loss at the time.

 I think you are doing a great job of processing things and it’s just a case of riding those waves of fear and hopelessness when they arise, knowing it’s just passing feelings and you can get through it to a place of inner safety and self-nurturance.

[Eagle Ray]

P.S. I just realised I didn’t respond to your question about how to relate intimate thoughts and concerns without overstepping the mark.

What may help here is to simply pause before you act/react in a situation, giving yourself time to process and reflect. My psych was encouraging me to do this recently as I have a chronic rescuing tendency, thinking I always have to try to help and support others, even when it may be inappropriate or unnecessary.

I’m practising doing this, just pausing before I respond/react to a situation. So maybe before relating intimate thoughts and concerns you can pause before acting and reflect on how you might be doing it and how it might affect the other person. Then you could think, how can I tell this person about my inner thoughts and feelings in a way that is helpful for both me and them moving forward? Again, this is something you can practice with your psych. It might be rephrasing things constructively which becomes much more possible when the self-care part of you gets stronger and the more reactive, fearful part of yourself becomes less.

But it’s important not to be hard on yourself if you fall back into the fearful part, as it’s only human for this to happen. Just keep practising self-kindness and this can gradually build more resilient and healthy ways of relating with others, including constructive ways of sharing personal information (and also who to share with and who not to, which involves developing a sense of healthy boundaries with the right people).

I hope that might help.

[Supermum]

On reflection I think I’m trying to run before I can walk as they say. I am probably expecting too much of myself to suddenly become an expert in self control and healthy relationships when I’ve spent a lifetime doing the exact opposite .  

Thank you  for your suggestion of just simply pausing , which will be hard to accomplish at times but this might help me process if it’s an appropriate thing to say . This part of me seems to be underdeveloped as I seem to have an all or nothing tendency and find it hard to distinguish on what’s appropriate at times. Often people have said things like too much information….. 

I am a nurse by trade so  the rescuer tendency I understand . It’s something I use to deflect from how I’m feeling or how stressed and overwhelmed I feel, by using/ addressing  someone’s else’s needs before my own .  Any opportunity to highlight and feel my own emotions ! 
You make the self care and self nurturance sound so simple and something that sounds idyllic . I hope as therapy continues I will be able to sit with them comfortably without distress .  I might even show our conversations to him ? But this I shall reflect on more . 

Thank you  again for your always helpful and reassuring advice and guidance 

L x 

[Eagle Ray]

Dear L

I realise the self-care is not automatically easy, as I’m still learning it myself. So I guess I’m working towards that ideal, even though I still struggle with it at times. For example, I’ve had the inner critic beating myself up inside my whole life. But what happens now is I catch myself doing it. It might be one minute or one hour later, but I become aware. So instead of, for example, giving myself a hard time for not achieving my goals for the day, I acknowledge what I have achieved and that I showed myself kindness by having a rest when I needed it. Slowly kinder thoughts are replacing the harsh ones, but I totally agree this is not an easy process and, as you say, you can’t run before you can walk.

I’m learning to sense through how my body feels when I’m being hard on myself again, which is a building angry tension towards myself. This is now a cue for me to change tack, and I’m finding practice is the only way to shift and change. It’s the same with the pausing thing. I’ve still done plenty of knee jerk rescue attempts where I’ve failed to pause, but at least afterwards I’ve realised I didn’t pause, so then I get a little better at remembering to pause next time.

So it’s definitely an incremental process. One of the most helpful things for me has been internalising good energy from good people with wisdom, balance and healthy boundaries. By this I mean learning to treat myself internally the way I see good, wise people acting in the world. When someone else is kind to me I can feel like I want to run and hide 🙈 but I’m learning to try and absorb the kindness and take it in where it becomes a healthy inner self-carer. But yes it takes time and it’s not simple and easy, but I think there can be a gradual inner transformation.

[Supermum]

So tonight there is distinct lack of inner transformation! I felt low I drank , I drank more . I watched a  movie called Richard says goodbye . Made me cry and then feel enormously guilty about having thoughts of suicide. It might be the drink but I just feel guilty about wanting to tap out . I’m tired . But I have a family who would not benefit from my early demise . How selfish of me . So I shall drink to that . 

L x 

[Eagle Ray]

Hi L

It sounds like you had a rough night the other night. I hope you are feeling and doing better.

Sometimes a combination of things can leave us feeling low or in a bit of a spiral. I don’t know if it helps for you, but sometimes identifying what may have activated a downward spiral can help. Then finding ways to redirect things if the same activations/thoughts happen again.

 I often work from my feeling/sensing body to make sense of things, but I know others are helped by starting from their thought processes, perhaps even writing them down to identify them. I used to do journal writing in the past which helped a lot then but I seem less engaged with that now. It’s just where I’m at at the moment. But it can be a way to clarify what’s happening for you. Sometimes it’s trying things out to see what helps for you.

Take care.