Discussion Are you honest with your therapist?

[ZardozOmega]

Do you keep stuff from your therapist and shrink? I do, and it's like a shitton.

 

[Life_and_Death]

hopefully soon i wont. i plan on forcing myself to have a bad high so all the worse possible thoughts come out then go to my appointment and just spill whatever i think. (preplanned with the therapist of course, they cant really help if they dont know. by not sharing youre only hurting yourself (assuming you dont have a "throw them in jail" therapist, in this case get a new one, you need someone understanding if youre gonna get anywhere)

 

[Pen>Sword]

I've only been to a therapist once, and I should visit more often, especially when my college offers it for free. But, no, because if I said that I'm having suicidal ideation, she will call the cops for "wellness checks".

 

[kolski]

I did therapy a few years ago but not for long because the person I had was just horrible, so yes n no?

Like they knew about the depression, anxiety, self harm, n past attempts (not like they cared but that's not the point ahah..) but nothing incredibly personal about me or future ctb plans. Mostly because I felt rlly uncomfortable talking to them, n secondly because I didnt want to be sectioned..

 

[Dr Iron Arc]

I kept a lot from my therapist, usually when they tried to offer me some positivity of some sort. I feel like if I could be more negative around them I'd get better help but then again when I am my true self around people there's usually no getting through to me.

 

[painoflife]

I tell him most stuff and he doesn't give a shit. I guess at this point I am kind of testing what it takes to be taken seriously. Can detail how I am going to hang myself on a specific date to be told "well I hope I still see you next week", guess that means anything goes.

 

[Deleted member 25508]

i can't bring myself to be honest with them. once i start elaborating on my worldview, i can sense the hurt in their voice, which i can't tolerate. this is one of the reasons talk therapy is useless for me. imagine trying to explain something along the lines of efilism to a therapist with a bunch of feel-good decorations hung up around the room. it just doesn't work. they won't get it—their time is going to be spent trying to "correct" your thought process. i need a coping mechanism, not a "correction."

they seem to try to "see the good" in me, which is a futile effort. i don't want to be the one to rain on their parade though, so i just avoid them entirely. i have a lot of cluster-b tendencies and low or absent empathy is one of them. trying to explain this to them would be funny if it wasn't so pathetic (i feel harsh for saying this, but it's the truth), since they feel the need to "be my advocate" for some reason, even though i am basically confessing to being a bad person.

 

[shadowchaser]

No, and not because I'm afraid of getting sectioned. I just can't bring myself to, exactly as @oyasumi put it in their first paragraph.
It also makes me so uncomfortable having people list positives about me. Sort of (okay, most of the time) makes me feel worse.

 

[muffin222]

Yes, I keep my suicidal thoughts locked inside during my sessions because my therapist informed me plainly during the first session that she would get the police involved if I expressed that I'm suicidal. That's the last thing I need right now

 

[moonchild]

I was being very honest at first, because I wanted to really give it a chance. But as we've gotten more into it, what I get back from her is more and more annoying. Or discouraging maybe. It doesn't feel very good to be honest and open about something, when it's always followed by her asking stupid questions and drawing wrong, simplified conclusions.

 

[everydayiloveyou]

When i still went to therapy, I wanted to focus on my anxiety since that's what's impairing my life the most. So I do my best to be 100% honest about anxiety stuff, even if the situations/feelings/thoughts I had were embarrassing and pathetic.

Everything else is my own business, even stuff like my hobbies. Whenever I have been honest about things like my family or my suicidal thoughts, it caused more problems than it helped. So I do my best not to mention it.

It's not like the therapist needs to know everything about your life in order to help you anyways. Especially if those details are not related to the issue you're paying them to help you fix.

 

[WhatDoesTheFoxSay?]

I seem to be in the minority here. I've never been to therapy and counseling for fear of leaving a black mark on my record. Due to trust issues from past experiences, I'm uncomfortable with the idea of divulging my deepest, darkest secrets to a complete stranger.

 

[Makko]

I've never been to therapy, but just as a theoretical experiment: if you're honest, you'll be put in an asylum. If you're not honest, then what is even the the point of therapy?

I seem to be in the minority here. I've never been to therapy and counseling for fear of leaving a black mark on my record. Due to trust issues from past experiences, I'm uncomfortable with the idea of divulging my deepest, darkest secrets to a complete stranger.

Yes. Being a registered nutcase can lead to nothing good and once you're socially designated as crazy, it'll never wash away, even if the paperwork does. It's also rather degrading. I don't get the appeal.

 

[WhatDoesTheFoxSay?]

registered nutcase

That cracked me up!

I imagine I'd be mortified by the kind of remarks they'll make.

 

[everydayiloveyou]

I seem to be in the minority here. I've never been to therapy and counseling for fear of leaving a black mark on my record. Due to trust issues from past experiences, I'm uncomfortable with the idea of divulging my deepest, darkest secrets to a complete stranger.

what country are you from? In the USA at least, this kind of info is protected under HIPPAA. Your employer, family, friends, neighbors, etc have no way of knowing this stuff unless you give explicit consent for your provider to share that information. Im pretty sure not even your other doctors will know, unless you're taking meds (in which case its important that they know that, due to drug reactions).

Personally I've found that living with untreated mental illness is more of a "black mark" than getting help is. It never hurts to try it out, you don't have to talk about anything deep or dark. Sometimes the shallow CBT/ACT/DBT skills stuff is all you need for a better quality of life.

 

[ixkitty]

My therapist actually doesn't mind me telling him about my ideals on suicide. As long as I don't say I have a plan and I plan to inact it soon .. he let's me word vomit all of my feels.. but the plan part is really all I keep from him. He's super understanding and he doesn't try to force good feelings on it.

He actually sometimes just say. "Let's just let this feeling be. Let's not try to fix it just acknowledge it"
I think he's an anomaly

 

[Mouse_]

Sometimes. My therapist knows a fuckton about me, but two things I keep to myself: the sexual abuse I suffered as a child from a distant family member (which I prefer to keep buried regardless) and my gender dysphoria, which she dismissed the first and only time I tried to bring it up.

 

[ixkitty]

Sometimes. My therapist knows a fuckton about me, but two things I keep to myself: the sexual abuse I suffered as a child from a distant family member (which I prefer to keep buried regardless) and my gender dysphoria, which she dismissed the first and only time I tried to bring it up.

Ew.. therapists that ignore/ dismiss GD are idiots.. that is all. Virtual hug? I promise I won't bite... (stupid cat/mouse joke)

 

[Mouse_]

Ew.. therapists that ignore/ dismiss GD are idiots.. that is all. Virtual hug? I promise I won't bite... (stupid cat/mouse joke)

Thanks my friend, hugs are great. And so are cats ^^

 

[ixkitty]

Thanks my friend, hugs are great. And so are cats ^^

Yay! ♡

 

[Trisolaris]

My therapist knows that all I think about is death.

 

[WornOutLife]

I used to. That only made me closer to the psych ward so I started lying. CTB was never mentioned and now I'm finally living alone and I'm free.
Unfortunately, telling your therapist you wanna die, never has a positive outcome.

 

[Kbeau]

Not about ideation - I keep that vague. Enough for them to understand things aren't good, but not enough to get hauled away. Honestly, I'm not sure what the point would be anyway. Presumably they are already doing whatever they think should be done to treat me. My talking about ctb would only get me involuntarily locked up which doesn't solve the problem. It would just give me more.

 

[sorella santini]

This is the reason I am not in therapy. It needs complete transparency and honesty, neither of which I am capable of giving. I was in counseling briefly many years ago and realized then how pointless it was for me.

 

[WhatDoesTheFoxSay?]

what country are you from? In the USA at least, this kind of info is protected under HIPPAA. Your employer, family, friends, neighbors, etc have no way of knowing this stuff unless you give explicit consent for your provider to share that information. Im pretty sure not even your other doctors will know, unless you're taking meds (in which case its important that they know that, due to drug reactions).

Personally I've found that living with untreated mental illness is more of a "black mark" than getting help is. It never hurts to try it out, you don't have to talk about anything deep or dark. Sometimes the shallow CBT/ACT/DBT skills stuff is all you need for a better quality of life.

Southeast Asia. We have similar policies to safeguard patient information from being disclosed without consent, but only after the new Healthcare Services Bill came into effect about a year ago. Although in recent years our Government has upped the ante in tackling mental health issues, even more so during this trying time, I believe it's impossible to uproot entirely a deep-seated culture of stigma. While I think many can benefit from psychotherapy ('healthy' individuals included), the way derogatory labels are slapped on the mentally ill put me off trying. Like the West, I wish our views were more liberal on controversial issues such as LGBT rights and the right to die.

 

[mahakaliSS_MahaDurga]

Do you keep stuff from your therapist and shrink? I do, and it's like a shitton.

I just started therapy again last week, after a long break. This shrink is a certified CBT therapist and I saw her for one therapy session months ago, but I was too depressed to continue. I was completely honest with her last week - I see that as the only way of getting help. Health system sucks ass big time in my country, so she cannot see me again before May. I will see her again in a private session, and pay 50€ per hour, though. That is a lot of money, but I spend as much on trivialities anyway, so I do not regret it. I made a switch in my mind - decided that survival is the most important and that I need to improve my quality of life in all areas.

 

[woknows]

I am not sure you can be truly open to your therapist. Not to mention that things get recorded. I think that if stuff did not get recorder it would be easier to trust. Maybe that is just me.
Not to mention that if you have vengeful or suicidal feelings you might get fucked. Yeah, not easy to be really open.

 

[Lmd]

Sorry but what's the point of therapy if you have to lie

 

[KuriGohan&Kamehameha]

I quit going to therapy as it was making me more suicidal and several of them said they could not help me and that my ptsd was the worst they'd ever encountered. Being honest gets you locked up like a prisoner and completely destroys the expectation of trust and transparency.

 

[Symbiote]

It would be a waste of time and money if the reason I went to a therapist was to lie to them. The part about therapy is that you have to open yourself up to them in order to get the effective help you need. Now if their advice isn't great or it doesn't match up to yours, then you can "fire" them and look for another one. The only part I do lie about were my intentions to CTB. That usually is a one-way trip to the hospital whether you were serious or not.