Finally found a therapist, now I'm apprehensive. - Potential Trigger Warning

[zen_racer]

I have off and on tried to find a therapist.  Several years ago while I was in Pennsylvania, I tried Better Help or something like it.  While the therapist was nice, they weren't effective.  The online only dynamic made it seem more like a tv show or game in a sense.  And once I stopped seeing them, it took a lot of calls and threats to get them to stop billing me.  I've since tried finding a real therapist, and have been largely ignored or brushed off, and the only person that offered help was a psychologist instead that wasn't interested in offering any therapy, only drugs.

I have finally found a therapist.  To top if off, they specifically have experience with cptsd and trauma, and offer the types of therapy I've seen mentioned for cptsd, and he's only 15 minutes away and between where I live and where I work.  He was nice on the phone.  I see him for the first time in a couple weeks.  It's a relief, and feels like such a huge milestone.  Just thinking about that, and the potential of finally working on my issues gets me to start feeling a bit emotional, like there's a dam that's about to break.

So ... I don't really know how to approach finally starting therapy.  I'm sure the therapist will have a better idea than I do.  Should I know what I'm trying to accomplish?  Should I know what about my past trauma is affecting me most?  It seems so foreign to me because if I'm not feeling bad or manic, then I actually feel pretty good and gaslight myself into thinking I'm making a big deal out of nothing.  At the same time, I've recognized by reading a lot of stuff on this forum that I must disassociate a LOT.  I look back through my memories, and I don't remember things as being traumatic.  I tell myself that I had a normal childhood with just a few typical problems.  But then I read about symptoms and causes and the different types of causes and it reminds of things like how much my parents fought and how as a kid barely able to see under the hood of a car, I had to learn how to disable an engine so my dad couldn't drive drunk after the screaming and storming off.  I had completely forgotten how much I used to self harm, even though the scars are still on my arms.  I'm reminded of the time that I started drinking because of family trauma and having to be around them and how it turned into a 3.5 month drinking binge where I almost died twice and forgot a year of my life (and only know because I kept a journal during that time).  In my memory, those were just uncharacteristic minor issues, but they are only a couple examples of things that just kept happening.  It's weird how these memories are mischaracterized in my own brain.  I've read about someone else's experience here about an anesthesiologist saying something like "Can't you just keep that in your past?" and I think that's horrible, and I'd never say that to someone else.  But I DO say that to myself about my own past.  I'm not sure how to approach talking about any of this to a therapist.

[TheBigBlue]

... I'm not sure how to approach talking about any of this to a therapist.

=> by slowing down, zen_racer 😊

"Patience you must have." — Yoda, Jedi Grand Master 😄

At the beginning of my now ~80 CBT session journey over the past 14 months, I liked to bring a detailed agenda into sessions and felt like I had to explain and understand everything immediately.

With the little bit of wisdom I have now, I think I would tell my earlier self that the most important initial agenda is probably just this:   Slow down. Build safety first.

You do not need to have your whole trauma history organized, correctly labeled, or intellectually understood before starting therapy.

And honestly, some of the things you wrote, especially minimizing really serious experiences as "minor" or "normal", sound very familiar to me and to many people with CPTSD.

I think a good trauma therapist will help you slowly notice and untangle these patterns over time. You don't have to carry the whole thing into the room all at once.

And honestly, the fact that you already noticed "this feels like a huge milestone" and that emotions are starting to come up around it feels important to me.

I'm really glad you found someone who sounds promising. 💛

[NarcKiddo]

I am glad you have found someone that seems promising.

I don't think it is necessarily realistic to know what you are trying to accomplish. In my experience that changes over time anyway, as you get deeper down. I have also found that aspects of past trauma affect things differently as the situation changes. I sometimes think I have finished with an issue only for it to pop up again later, in a slightly different context, enabling me to connect more dots.

I would imagine the therapist will have initial questions and will likely want to do some fact finding. However my therapist tends to be very focused on what I want to discuss. This can be disconcerting at the start especially because it is easy to fall into the trap of pleasing the therapist by having a load of things ready to discuss. If you do not have a list of problems, don't feel bad about that. Your post above is a perfectly good starting point. If you think you might feel a bit overwhelmed you could maybe print off the final paragraph of your post and take it in with you. You can give it to the therapist to read if you like and take things from there. The content of that alone is food for plenty of sessions, but once the therapist gets a flavour they should be able to guide the session a bit.

Alternatively, if you know for sure that you are struggling with particular aspects of life now then you could make a list of those as early discussion points. You mention dissociation. In my case I really struggled with getting emotional distance from my mother while remaining in contact and that was my starting point.

You may find that you dissociate during therapy sessions. I always try to make a note of what was discussed as soon as the session ends as I can usually remember most of it even if I was dissociating. But the memory leaves me very quickly if I was.

[zen_racer]

Thank you.  I guess you're both right.  I didn't necessarily think I'd go in and get anything accomplished in one visit.  I guess it was more being conscious of the fact that I tend to freeze, and might not think of anything to say when I first go in.  Maybe I will go ahead and copy that paragraph into my Obsidian note taking app just in case I need that.  I think before the visit, I might make a list of the symptoms that I'd like to address.  Things like freezing at any confrontation, sabotaging relationships and my inability to trust that anyone has good intentions, my constant rumination and playing things out over and over and getting stuck in that loop.  I know he mentioned learning more about my background, so I imagine he's going to have his own questions which will probably lead to things we'll address down the road.

Is it rational to think I could eventually go from consciously deciding I don't want anyone in my life to learning how to trust again?  Does therapy help overcome issues, or help with acceptance of things that can't change?

I know, I need to slow down.  Wait for the visit, and then give time for therapy to start being effective.  As a joke for that, I'm reminded of a phrase I've used to mock that need to slow down.  "But I wanna be impatient NOW!" LOL

[NarcKiddo]

Is it rational to think I could eventually go from consciously deciding I don't want anyone in my life to learning how to trust again?  Does therapy help overcome issues, or help with acceptance of things that can't change?

Yes, it's completely rational. In my personal experience the issues have tended to get addressed gradually in the background without my always noticing. For example I have had several occasions recently where things have happened unexpectedly that are remarkably similar to things that happened a year or so ago. On the earlier occasions I had a terrible emotional reaction and several therapy sessions were devoted to talking things over. I filed them away under 'things that make logical sense but which my emotional brain simply will not agree with'. Only to find when the similar things happened recently and I braced for impact, no impact came. I simply reacted to the issue in a rational way and got on with my life. On a more frivolous note I have also unexpectedly discovered that I am no longer abjectly terrified of spiders. I wasn't even factoring spiders in when discussing fear issues with my therapist.

Again, a personal view, but I find that when dealing with trauma it is better to concentrate on general issues, especially at the beginning. My emotional brain does not respond at all well to being given a particular assignment. What has helped me the most is to discuss what I don't like about my behaviour and reactions and how I might reframe things to suit life now rather than life as a terrified child. My emotional brain will work behind the scenes to decide how best to use the information. So instead of 'how can I enjoy spending time with my mother?' the questions for me are 'what exactly is making her so unpleasant to be with and can I reframe my thinking, or the timing of my visits, or the subjects I avoid in order to make time with her more tolerable and for me not to have days of dysregulation after an encounter?'

[Kizzie]

Hey Zen Racer, there are some forms here that may help you prepare for your first appointment or at least to think about your trauma is a somewhat systematic way if that makes you comfortable.

There's also a form here that you may want to use to ask him questions. It's a two way street so just my opinion, but I think it's as helpful to know about the therapist as it is for them to know about you.

Hope these are helpful and good luck with the first appointment. I suspect most of us feel anxiety going into therapy at first.     

[zen_racer]

Thank you Kizzie.  I looked at those forms.  I agree, they may help me out.  I have to admit that I'm having a bit of a reaction to looking them over and going over the forms in my head.  It's a little bit sad seeing how high I score on some of those.

I'd like to take a moment to acknowledge that it must've taken a lot of effort and time to compile all the information on this site and create this community.  Thank you.  I've only been here a short time so far, but it's helping more than you probably know.

[Kizzie]

It's a little bit sad seeing how high I score on some of those.

It is sad Zen Racer - big hug if that's OK 

PS - Tk you for the compliment, always nice to know the work is helping fellow survivors 

[zen_racer]

I would gladly accept a big hug.   

I've known for a long time that I needed to see someone.  I've had times where I was in a very manic state knowing that I had issues.  I guess I disassociated in ways I never knew.  I have memories of things that I just don't think of as being traumatic.  But they absolutely were.  Some of it, I had completely forgotten about until reminded by things here.  It's a little jarring realizing that I can't entirely trust my memory without some extra context, and that I need help in more ways than I knew.  Don't get me wrong, I'm a professional problem solver at work.  I know I have to recognize problems before I can fix them, so this IS progress.  It's just not a fun part of the progress.  I did fill out the patient intake forms and there were a LOT of questions on the form asking about what I saw as the issues and about my past, so I think there's plenty there to get started.  I'm going to leave the forms here go for now, and come back to them when I'm a little more acclimated.