I can’t trust my therapist.

[DecimalRocket]

It takes a very very very long time to warm up with people for emotional vulnerability. Very long. Honestly it's been more than a couple weekly visits that I've been seeing her, and opening up is hard. My mind just goes blank.

It's not that she's hurting me emotionally in some way. It's more like I grew up being incredibly suspicious of people especially with how my FOO planted those beliefs in me. I have friends now . . . but no one close in an emotional way that would allow me to share my troubles with.

She actually seems willing to listen to my suspicions and questions, allow me to take things slow, and acknowledge what I'm doing well. I opened up about surface problems, but not the hard on trauma parts.

She managed to stop the overly accusing questions at the first sessions by getting me to play board games with her. Thinking things through like in a game calms me down, especially strategy games. Then she managed to get me to open up through writing a fictional story and drawing pictures of what I'm feeling, but the metaphors I made were vague.  She had a bunch of cards for get to know you questions, and I think I opened up about my views in life than anyone I've met in real life.

But nope. Still can't open up about my own past. Still can't admit to some issues with boundaries in real life. Still can't share my own emotions and worries directly. Nope. Nope. Nope.

I feel so ashamed. Shouldn't I be trusting enough? I mean, other people here can do it but why can't I? This person seems worth trusting, but I just . . . can't.

Yesterday I had another session with her. I couldn't stand to share anyting that day, so she just invited me to play this game where there's a secret code and each player has to give hints to figure it out. Thinking calms me down, so this calmed me down quickly.

But after that, I just left feeling like I just wasted my time there by getting too scared about opening up. Why can't I connect emotionally as well as intellectually?

Sigh. I'm too much of a coward for that.

[sanmagic7]

give yourself time and patience with yourself as well.  trust is earned, and that takes time and experience.  i've heard of people taking years to trust their t, but they kept going anyway. 

you've struggled with your emotional side anyway, so i think trusting someone with that would be a big ask.  if you feel ok in her company, she's not rushing or judging you, it sounds like she has your best interests at heart.  i think that's a good sign.  when you feel it, that's when you'll begin getting ready.  it's a process like all the rest of this.

you'll get there, d.r., of that i have no doubt.  take it easy on yourself.  love and hugs.

[DecimalRocket]

Well, I can see that. But I can't seem to take it easy on myself enough. My mom and other people around me expected to be warmer, more open emotionally, and well, more feminine.

But I'm not like that. I'm friendly while being rough. Straightforward than gentle with my words. More full of inappropiate humor with other people who enjoy it too than "maturity". More logical and uncomfortable with my emotions more than anyone I know. I'm still grossed out with affection, and still think pretty bluntly all the time.

I just seem to get this unconscious pressure that I should be more naturally in touch with my feelings.

[California Dreaming]

I hear you DecimalRocket. My suspiciousness can become absolute paranoia. I have been working with my therapist weekly for 5 and 1/2 years. I still have times where I don't trust what she says. This baffles me because she has never broken trust with me. I believe that it is a product of the severity of my abuse including countless betrayals. Not trusting a therapist seems to be fairly normal for trauma/abuse survivors. I am thankful that I have continued to trust my therapist enough to keep doing the work that I need to do to continue the recovery process.
Something that has been extremely difficult for me is feeling. From what I understand, this is common with those of us who suffer from CPTSD. Sometime back I learned that we have to "feel to heal." I have found this to be true. But, who wants to feel things like unbearable pain, unthinkable anxiety, terror, despair? I have tried to avoid these feelings for at least three decades. I finally surrendered to the process out of necessity.

[Gromit]

Hey DecimalRocket,

I think a T that has board games sounds great, mine has dolls within dolls; which are not so much dolls as animals, all different inside the largest one. I think I might be better with board games than those, or the plasticine, buttons, or whatever else comes out. I had one before who really didn't listen and would ask if I had been dreaming when she got bored. Yep, I sensed she was bored with me.

It sounds like early days & the T is trying.

I relate so much to other things you said, I never seem to be what people expect, which doesn't really help me be more open, as they seem shocked by me.

My logic side is my intellectual defence, it helps me to distance myself from my feelings, & it is habitual, maybe the same is true with you, the way you opened up about your views is a positive sign, I hope the T realised how important that was.

G

[DecimalRocket]

 

San, thanks for your faith in me. California, it's nice to see I'm not alone. And Gromit, it's nice to be affirmed that maybe my  T is worthy of trust.

To be honest, many friends and previous therapists before have always rushed the opening up process with me. I was supposed to do this quickly. I wasn't supposed to be so secretive and distant. I wasn't supposed to be so quiet.

I wasn't supposed to be wasting time with my T or waste my parent's money with a T. I was supposed to be perfectly cooperative with questions with my time with them. I had to accept their treatments without question. I had to do this and that.

Instead of making me open up, I just became more and more distant. And took years to come back to this effort when I gave up on it before.

[DecimalRocket]

My therapist was on a break yesterday, and I was disappointed about that. I have a second therapist for body work though, and I managed to practice opening up to her well as we worked through it. I have opened up a little to people I know well though.

I still get nervous easily around this though. Maybe I'm just being whiny. I've been talking about my lack of trust for a long time and have worked through it so slowly. It must be getting boring for others to watch by now. Jeez.

[sanmagic7]

it's your healing process, d.r., so you deserve to do it in your own time.  no one else can tell you what's right or wrong.  and, for a good t, it will never be boring.  patience is what allows a client to have the time needed to develop trust.

whatever way works for you is the right way.  love and hugs.