Do you actually open up to your therapist?

[blueclover_.]

I've been on and off therapy for some time now, some are good and some are obviously just in it for the money. I've always made it clear that i just want the meds, their reactions vary and that's interesting. Some try so hard to figure me out, like I'm some sort of science experiment. Some just don't care, they pretend that they do, they know that i know. I think it's funny, at the end i only need the meds in order to cut on alcohol. Therapy is overrated.

 

[mold]

i tell them only some things, but not others. i feel like i'm burdening them too by speaking even though it's literally their job lol

 

[ReallyTired]

I can't afford therapy, as I'm not working at the moment. Unfortunately, it's not accessible in UK, the waiting lists are too long. However, in the past I had a long term counselling. I really tried to open up but I was very selective with the stuff I shared, never really able to overcome my overdeveloped defence mechanisms. I guess I have trust issues. Also, part of me think, it's too late for me. Maybe, the therapy would help if I got help in my childhood or during my teenage years. Even if I could somehow stop the ongoing abuse of a cruel inner critic, it might be too late for me to separate myself from all the abuse that happened in my past.
But, I guess, it would be nice to be able to talk to someone in a real life, not just on this forum about how I feel. To be completely honest about my depression and suicidal thoughts and all the darkness in my mind.

 

[BabyFears]

My therapist is a good woman, she really cares and takes time for me. She's there for me and when I feel better, she is overjoyed at the news. It's really like having a friend who doesn't judge you, who tries to understand you and not drown you with toxic positivity to cheer you up.

I'm not the kind to talk about what I feel, what I think to people so it took me time to really open up to my therapist. I don't tell her everything of course but I told her so much more than to anyone else in my life. It is really about trust between us, I'm telling her the truth and in return she doesn't throw me in a psych ward

I think therapy is good if you find the right person and I know it can be hard sometimes. When you just have a guy there for money, I really don't think it can help in any way, it could even worsen the situation. I haven't read a lot of positive reviews on therapy on that forum so I really wanted to share my experience !

 

[ghost_]

i try and tell my therapist 100% of what's going on with me and how i feel . i feel like i need to have one person in my life who knows everything that's happening. i do often feel like ctb but i know that it would hurt my family and some friends so i feel like i should have someone who knows when i'm becoming a danger to myself . i don't tell my family or most friends because i don't think that they'd understand/ they have expressed that i'm just being selfish. but yeah in short i do try and tell my therapist everything .

 

[Scribble Fan]

No, I've never fully opened up to a therapist. When I try to I just get misunderstood...

 

[OrcWitch]

Yeah. I used to half ass it and omit many feelings/actions, now I just blurt events as they happened and say exactly how I feel or what my issue is. I used to feel insecure and worry about being judged by them.

 

[TriggerHappy]

Therapy :: my story of insanity. In multiple parts.
☆ I share this wisdom, strength and 'hope' so perhaps someone out there remembers, and has the courage to recover. My 1st therapist was a joke :: this typical Oxford professor type :: who put me on meds in my college years. I lied, manipulated and took him hostage to use them recreationally raving with street drugs... Then I wasn't suicidal. It was to figure out why I hated myself so much. Why my dad hurt&hated me so much.
I didn't know how to 'work' therapy (it ain't about talking about your week, baby...) waste of fucking money & time...
Try to be ok with my sexuality (only picked up drugs n guns @22. Conscripted into the civil war as an army sharpshooter. Understand what that means...
(hierdie moffie plaasjaapie kan beklei, bliksem, skiet en donner).
Thus the nickname. Don't talk bout it. Ever. So much fucking internal / external conflict.
ACT-Up time :: all my friends were hated/ & dying of AIDS. I learnt to grieve & love simultaneously (sex n death) and hate myself.
In rehab my councilor became my therapist :: Joanne Brodie changed my life (she was also an addict sexworker). She was incredible: This was what therapy was :: working through the lust, love of danger, shame and fear, internalized homophobia :: not being tough enough. She taught me to "go there" to go into the darkness, and the light. To find connections between my parents' relationship to me (love & hate) &people I loved... to be honest about myself, my fucked-up-ness... Not be a victim. Not manipulate or hostage take those who cared for me. It kinda workd. Became a drug councilor myself. NA sponsor, years n years clean. Got married to a capab ballet dancer who ironically was the spitting image of curt cobain... and headed an agency. He got into raves n drugs, and I followed (yeah advertising in the 90s!). He took his life (revolver), I lost mine. Lost the plot, crashed cars, robbed convenience stores with rentboy friends, smuggled drugs & ended up in jail and then medicated insane /numb in a lithium-haze, shock therapy asylum to reduce my sentence. Got sexually abused. Haven't been back into therapy. But I crawled from the pit, stopped cocaine. Built some semblance of a life.. i feel like a fraud sometimes though. I crawl from the pit every fucking day. I crave every fucking day.
You guys are young, you're strong. But u don't know everything... drugs (all of em) are insidious. Never forget that. I also thought I knew everything... :: I've lived an incredible creative life, but within constraints. Mine. I delude myself and don't deserve anything worthwhile, that's what it breaks down to I guess...
Please learn from my indulgent, isolated narrow-minded vision :: take every opportunity u given. If yr therapist is good, trust them and do everything they tell you. If they not, fire them and find someone else. Go into a 12 step program. Sponsors make incredible therapy friends.
Yeah I'm a heroin addict, I use minimal amounts every day... i dont do psychmeds or even headache tablets (stoopid ironic control). I'm (apparently) successful, am a gymbunny with a wanna-have aneurysm fetish. I have incredible lovers that i don't get attached to (tho they are definately abusive psychopaths, that's what I deserve right?). Have the illusion of a life :: bike's n cars n a farm. International travel. Creative awards, killer clients & international campaigns (the irony is the guy that designed "open happiness" campaign is fucking miserable. I'm empty. I'm a coward :: when I leave commitment ceremonies I've always overmedicated drunk & overdosed, overdone everything.
It fucking hurts and you guys are the only people in my existence that knows my inner stuff. Im scared of scaring friends off, and rejection...
I should have continued in therapy, stayed in mens group, gotten over my sensitive judged ego, and become emotionally valid. As opposed to invalid. To the world im 'well adjusted', but white-knuckling. I'm reckless, rebellious, a handful. But really im the fucked up fearfull fraud whos wasted all opportunities &is hiding the truth & hoping to kill himself in the next months, if not weeks. You can make therapy a valuable tool & recovery resource.
☆ Find the connections and reasons for your thinking & behaviour, find the triggers...
I hope in some small way you see the love, the lesson.
It works if you work it, work it :: you're worth it...

 

[noname223]

I have got a psychiatrist and a psychologist. I told my psychiatrist I want to die, I want assisted suicide in the future but I am not acute suicidal. I told her I am pretty sure my life ends with suicide. Many people think they would lock you uo then. But this is a myth. They only can do this when you are acute suicidal and they obviously have to believe you. This was 5-6 months ago. She is the second best psychiatrist I have met. But she has partly forget it. At least she was worried for a short time. I am not sure how much she remembers. But we act like nothing happened like I never said those words. Maybe that is better. However I think I want to confront her with the fact I want assisted suicide again. Especially if there is a new assisted suicide law in my country. We might get one with our new government.

I never was that explicit with my psychologist. We have a closer relationship. I told him (like my psychiatrist) that already two psychologists have given up on me and they think I gonna ctb due to chronic suicidality and poverty. I told him that might be the truth. (I am pretty sure it is true but I have not said that.)
He also forgot about that. I think he assumes if I was suicidal I would talk about it weekly. Though that is not the truth. I told him once or twice I think very often about suicide and I do not often admit it during therapy. I think he also forgot about that. I leave sometimes hints. But I have learned noone gets them if I do not say it directly.

To those who cannot afford therapy. I am really sorry for your shitty health care system. I had a lot of therapy but it is obvious I am treatment resistant. I just do it because it helps to have someone to talk to. Moreover I like to try A LOT before I ctb. I really don't expect any significant changes.

 

[44nutz1977]

I only had a handful of 'therapists'

Always opened up about everything and am ultra honest.
They key for me was truly wanting to do something about my problems. Mental. Addictions. Everything.

Sometimes you gotta suffer A LOT to really want change. Some people just get addicted to the whole revolving cycle of illness. You make yourself I'll about being ill and around and around you go in anxiety world. Unable to jump off because the anxiety has got you anxious about the anxiety.

That's just me... And my little opinion about acute depression. PTSD and panic about life in general. About feeling comfortable and wanting to live and be a better more contented person.

 

[Dr Iron Arc]

I haven't had a therapist in almost a year but when I did have one, it felt like I just couldn't complain/vent the way I would on like this site for example. Something about them was always way too disarming like I just didn't want to bother even this person who's paid to be bothered by my mental state. Although they were aware I intended to commit suicide when I reached a certain age, I was able to get around that by ensuring that this would only be if I didn't have a girlfriend by the time I'm 30 while in reality my plan is to do so when I'm 28.

Also my therapist never believed me when I said I'm evil. She'd say things like a truly evil person wouldn't admit that but in my opinion a person who's just honest about their evil is still evil enough and I was just manipulative in my way of getting it across…

 

[bed]

for the most part I have. i've told them about some of my traumas but it was near the end of my sessions with them. it always take me a while to open up to people. In regards to suicidal thoughts, they always knew i was chronically suicidal but never that i had a plan or an intent to act on my thoughts. where i live, they won't take you on as a client if you're too at risk lol and plus i didn't want to go to a psychward.

 

[TotallyIsolated]

Yes. It has taken a long time but I have come to genuinely trust my therapist. I think he's the only person who actually understands me.

 

[Aeathelina]

I did once and it all got ignored because I was an alcoholic

 

[MyStateKilledMe]

There's not a single good reason to open up to a the\rapist. They NEVER actually HELP you. All they do is ask stupid, rhetorical questions, like "how did that make you feel?" Or they rub you misery in your face, like repeat your statements back at you, rather than find ways to make your misery go away.

The backslash is intentional. More often than not, all the\rapists do is rape you emotionally. But because it's "just emotional", the MHP industry allows it.

 

[Konjac]

Well, therapy hasn't cured me but I do find it helpful to get certain things off my chest. I'll open up about some things but as far as anything that could potentially get me hospitalised goes, nope. Keeping my mouth shut.

 

[netrezven]

Somehow ya, but not that much and was years ago.

 

[callme]

i tell them only some things, but not others.

Right on, Don Vito himself said the same in the first movie. That's the way to not be suspicious but trustworthy.

 

[Phill]

No. I talk a lot about how losing my brother devastated me, and I kind of use this as a blanket, a blanket that covers all my other issues. I'm still too proud to admit certain things to anyone. I just can't face someone and tell them how loser I am.

 

[waterstrider]

No, whenever I started to open up about how I actually feel and used the baad baad s-word they locked me up. So I learned to never trust anyone.
They just see you as someone they can milk out of money or if it gets too risky for them (after all they don't want a law suit) they put you in a mental hospital.
How sad is that anyways to have to pay a stranger to pretend to be interested in your problems?
This world just saddens me.

 

[N2Narcosis]

I tell my current therapist almost everything because I feel that I can trust her with almost everything. When I say almost everything, I mean everything except when I'm suicidal. I do tell her the rest. I feel that I can trust her with everything except telling her that I'm imminently suicidal because then she'd be required to send me to the psych ward, which would be worse than death. But she's one of the therapists who will literally only blow you in if absolutely required by law, and she'll let me use hypotheticals or the SWIM defense to avoid even that. She truly is the one good one.

As far as any other therapist or shrink, they can all get fucked and I would never be honest with one. Not that I'm seeing or planning on seeing one at the moment. If by some great misfortune I am ever required to see one, I will lie through my teeth and tell them nothing useful. If for whatever reason I have to stop seeing my current therapist, I won't look for another one. This is the only one I can mostly trust.

Hope that answers your question/is helpful to you.

 

[$nowLeopard]

Only to my most recent one. She is in a psychatrict facility I had to commute to everyday (recently finished with that place) and basically the first session I just went on a rant on how I was tired with all this bullshit. And from there I could talk about things Ive never told to to anyone

 

[MyStateKilledMe]

No, whenever I started to open up about how I actually feel and used the baad baad s-word they locked me up. So I learned to never trust anyone.
They just see you as someone they can milk out of money or if it gets too risky for them (after all they don't want a law suit) they put you in a mental hospital.
How sad is that anyways to have to pay a stranger to pretend to be interested in your problems?
This world just saddens me.

My experience was similar. When I talked about things that seriously troubled me, my the\rapist did one of the following: (1) side with the people emotionally abusing me, like my parents; (2) mock or taunt me like my bullies did; (3) pretend not to know what I'm talking about, because it didn't mesh with her agenda; (4) blatantly laugh in my face; or (5) ask me stupid rhetorical questions like "How did that make you feel?" I mean, REALLY, how STUPID does a the\rapist have to be not to know how being abused makes a victim feel. Her justification for her actions was to "I want to help you feel better in the long run" (wording and emphasis hers), only the "long run" never came. I was already wise to her tricks, and pretended to buy into her ideology, just to stop that ***** [female dog] from making me feel even more depressed.

That's why I spell "the\rapist" with a backslash: she basically emotionally RAPED me. But because the rape is "just" emotional, she thought it was acceptable to do it to me.

Lucky for me, I already knew that I wasn't supposed to mention suicide. So I did the opposite: I talked about how I'd rather serve a live in prison and be raped in my ass every day until I die of old age, than commit suicide, because even as a rape victim, I'd at least be alive. Now, that was trolling: I was just mirroring my the\rapist's dogma back to her, to make her sorry ass realize how stupid her agenda is. That was the only time I "won" during sessions. She tucked her filthy tail and started providing justifications for why someone would feel suicidal; it was almost pathetic to watch.

 

[Pallf]

I'm still hesitant on opening up fully to a therapist, but I do get something out of it. I like being able to let off steam that's been in my for a week. They're also my normal meter. They let me know if a certain event in my life was actually normal or not.
For me right now I've decided that I won't be able to fix the big things in life through therapy, but I can fix a shit ton of small things that add up quickly, so that's good.
I have one gripe, and it's worth psych today. The idea that a therapist will totally act like this, or won't react badly to that isn't always the truth. Therapists are people and people are flawed. There are gonna be certain issues that they might not feel comfortable talking about. I would like the magazine to acknowledge reality and not give potential clients an unrealistic expectation for their therapists. You can't expect perfection, but you should expect competence, understanding, and empathy.

 

[m13here]

I've been on and off therapy for some time now, some are good and some are obviously just in it for the money. I've always made it clear that i just want the meds, their reactions vary and that's interesting. Some try so hard to figure me out, like I'm some sort of science experiment. Some just don't care, they pretend that they do, they know that i know. I think it's funny, at the end i only need the meds in order to cut on alcohol. Therapy is overrated.

I have only had 1 or 2 counselors that I felt comfortable to talk to, but yet I have never really opened up to them about some of my depression. It's a huge struggle and no one understands me when I try to explain this.

 

[meetapple]

A little bit. I told her that I use Sanctioned Suicide but I didn't admit to being suicidal. I just said that I liked helping people.

 

[MyStateKilledMe]

A little bit. I told her that I use Sanctioned Suicide but I didn't admit to being suicidal. I just said that I liked helping people.

You were playing with fire there. The\rapists are all pro-lifers, or worse, FixThe26'ers. And they hate this site. "Helping people" in your case is basically enabling CTB'ing. That's good for our kind. But the less publicity we get among the wrong people, the better.

 

[callme]

or worse, FixThe26'ers.

Yup, the 26ers are unforunately leading the series in playoffs. Wish we could turn them around next time we play them, in a 2nd overtime.

 

[Pallf]

I've told mine about SS and I've admitted to being suicidal. I did say that I was not going to kill myself for an undisclosed amount of time. I'm not in the nut hut.

 

[CFLoser]

Yes, I didn't ever tell them about SS but I ended up opening about a lot of shit. Didn't really help but the act of fully opening up did have other benefits for me.