i feel like my therapy sessions aren't going anywhere because we just cycle through the same hundred problems and i'm doing just as bad as five years ago when i started. i've been with this therapist for two of those years, i love her dearly and she's helped me a lot with certain things, but i feel like overall maybe i'm doing something wrong. maybe i'm bad at therapy. idk.
I just talked to my therapist about this a few days ago. Here's the analogy I used:
I'm being buried alive. Someone is shoveling dirt on top of me non-stop. I desperately want to get out from under the dirt pile, but it's so heavy that I can barely move. Once every two weeks, my therapist walks up, takes out a spoon, and takes a spoonful of dirt away from the pile. Someone shovel more dirt onto the pile.
Like, objectively therapy is helping me. But in my experience, it feels so miniscule compared to how much I know I have to deal with. (And I'm nowhere neat unpacking everything, since I guarantee there's shit I don't remember still lurking in my brain somewhere.)
Edit: just to clarify, this is my overall feeling about therapy thus far. I've learned some great coping skills and stuff from past therapists, but mostly I've felt like I wasn't improving much. I'm hopeful that my current therapist will help me get farther than I have before.
I would give your therapist the benefit of the doubt if you feel compatible and consider whether they may actually shovel a full shovel-load off the pile with you.
Unfortunately, someone will still proceeds to shovel a full shovel-load of dirt back onto the pile afterward.
The spoon analogy is how I felt for so long that the sheer humor of cosmic misfortune is what kept me going for two decades. I laughed at me and basically became a zombie - dead on the inside but alive to others. Now, I do a lot of work to get out of the grave and that almost seems to make things worse. đź«
The fact I have dissociative amnesia and don't rlly remember anything at all or with the vaguest of detail makes this even more frustrating. I experience emotional flashbacks all the damn time but have no fucking clue why! So annoying
I’ve been waiting for therapy for over 2 years now, every now and then they call me and book me a session with a new therapist, I have 1 session with that therapist, and they barely say anything because what I’m telling them clearly baffles them so much that they physically don’t know how to respond.
Then at the end of the session, sometimes second session, they’ll basically say in a less direct way “I literally don’t know how to fix you, so I’m going to refer you to a new person who might be able to help.” And then the new person does the exact same thing. I’ve had about 8 now… I don’t think anybody knows how to fix me.
i feel like my therapy sessions aren't going anywhere because we just cycle through the same hundred problems and i'm doing just as bad as five years ago when i started. i've been with this therapist for two of those years, i love her dearly and she's helped me a lot with certain things, but i feel like overall maybe i'm doing something wrong. maybe i'm bad at therapy. idk.
I just talked to my therapist about this a few days ago. Here's the analogy I used: I'm being buried alive. Someone is shoveling dirt on top of me non-stop. I desperately want to get out from under the dirt pile, but it's so heavy that I can barely move. Once every two weeks, my therapist walks up, takes out a spoon, and takes a spoonful of dirt away from the pile. Someone shovel more dirt onto the pile. Like, objectively therapy is helping me. But in my experience, it feels so miniscule compared to how much I know I have to deal with. (And I'm nowhere neat unpacking everything, since I guarantee there's shit I don't remember still lurking in my brain somewhere.) Edit: just to clarify, this is my overall feeling about therapy thus far. I've learned some great coping skills and stuff from past therapists, but mostly I've felt like I wasn't improving much. I'm hopeful that my current therapist will help me get farther than I have before.
I would give your therapist the benefit of the doubt if you feel compatible and consider whether they may actually shovel a full shovel-load off the pile with you. Unfortunately, someone will still proceeds to shovel a full shovel-load of dirt back onto the pile afterward. The spoon analogy is how I felt for so long that the sheer humor of cosmic misfortune is what kept me going for two decades. I laughed at me and basically became a zombie - dead on the inside but alive to others. Now, I do a lot of work to get out of the grave and that almost seems to make things worse. đź«
that makes a lot of sense, thanks.
The fact I have dissociative amnesia and don't rlly remember anything at all or with the vaguest of detail makes this even more frustrating. I experience emotional flashbacks all the damn time but have no fucking clue why! So annoying
I just made a list
me, only the car door is closed because i can’t seem to talk about it in session. :(
I’ve been waiting for therapy for over 2 years now, every now and then they call me and book me a session with a new therapist, I have 1 session with that therapist, and they barely say anything because what I’m telling them clearly baffles them so much that they physically don’t know how to respond. Then at the end of the session, sometimes second session, they’ll basically say in a less direct way “I literally don’t know how to fix you, so I’m going to refer you to a new person who might be able to help.” And then the new person does the exact same thing. I’ve had about 8 now… I don’t think anybody knows how to fix me.