I was SAed over a year ago, when I was a teenager. Sometimes it still hurts like it did then. All I can do when it hurts is lie down curled up and try to make my brain leave my body for a bit.
A family member held me down when it happened and now I feel like I can't trust anybody either. I just don't really like being touched anywhere anymore. Luckily my bf and I are both asexual so he said we can use alternative methods for kids.
EMDR makes me want to kill myself. I am such a mess after appointments. Is this normal?
(I'm not in danger now, I haven't had EMDR in months)
It's really hard for me to "process trauma" when I don't want to process it. I don't want to move on yet and get over it.
I want to be upset and not have anybody be angry at me for being upset for literally five minutes.
But no, Because in therapy, I need to always be working and getting through things. And I just don't see how I can ever process it if I wasn't allowed to feel it in the first place.
For me, the hardest part about exercising is the fact that I need to shower after. I don't want to smell or get acne from the sweat lingering unnecessarily, but I just struggle so hard with the transition.
I have a lot of transition issues (something's wrong with my brain, I think) and I've only just gotten to a point where I can do stuff like "Complete one assignment for university and then start on the next without taking a five hour distracted break in between" by doing stuff like keeping all the supplies in one area and kind of cycling between tasks instead of doing one and then the other. However, there is no way to do this with exercising and showering. And the thought of needing to shower and wash my hair after exercise is enough to deter me from the exercise itself.
I'm doing CPT because I did EMDR as a teenager and it ended up being way too much for me.
I'm literally three weeks in and holy smokes it is doing a number on me. Like, I'm having physical flashbacks, I'm crying much more easily over nothing, and each night I go to bed and I feel so so angry for no reason. I've been functioning okay but it's hard.
This isn't even my worst trauma 😭. I decided to start with one of the more minor ones because I didn't think I'd be ready to deal with the worst one, and honestly I don't know if I'll ever be.
Something my therapist has me do is kind of challenge my flashbacks and negative beliefs with stuff like "I'm safe, there's no danger right now, I'll be okay," etc.
Except those are all things I would repeat to myself hiding alone in a closet from abusive family members. So like...I kind of programed myself to think those types of things when I wasn't safe. Now, thinking them, I just feel panic because thinking them makes me feel like I'm back in that objectively unsafe situation where I wasn't allowed to feel how I was feeling and had to gaslight myself out of it.
I have truly no idea how to proceed.
Something my therapist has me do is kind of challenge my flashbacks and negative beliefs with stuff like "I'm safe, there's no danger right now, I'll be okay," etc.
Except those are all things I would repeat to myself hiding alone in a closet from abusive family members. So like...I kind of programed myself to think those types of things when I wasn't safe. Now, thinking them, I just feel panic because thinking them makes me feel like I'm back in that objectively unsafe situation where I wasn't allowed to feel how I was feeling and had to gaslight myself out of it.
I have truly no idea how to proceed.
Come the 5th therapist I had as a teenager, I knew I'm just not made for it. I've managed to improve my mental health through medication, workbooks, and lifestyle changes, but therapy just annoys and dysregulates me, and has never done anything good for me.
I have now had 10 therapists. A common conversation I have with the pro-therapy people in my life:
"You should try a different therapist."
"Why? This would be my 11th, and I feel so much better with the other changes I've made." (EDIT: I have legitimately had people tell me that 11 therapists is "Not that many." That is a DECADE of my life, about half of it at this point).
"But you've never tried therapy AFTER those changes."
"If the changes have made me feel better, why would I need a therapist?"
"You need a therapist to heal."
"But I've healed myself with the other things I just told you I did."
"If you can't see how therapy can help you, you need to put in the work and try again."
Like, I'm doing so much better, and people will say to me "You seem like you're doing so much better, have you restarted therapy?" No! I quit therapy, and now I'm doing great. I'm not encouraging other people to quit therapy, but I feel like my view, that I am just not somebody for whom therapy works, should be seen as valid.
Had something triggering happen this morning, all day I've felt like I can't breathe and like I'm just not mentally here.
*I'm an adult now, I am not in that situation anymore, there is no current danger for me*
She freaked out and I got scared so I downplayed it and she was like "Oh good, so nothing ACTUALLY happened."
I don't get why I always do this. Like yeah now I'm hurt that she doesn't think it's a big deal, but what was I expecting when I downplayed it???
*I'm an adult now, I am not in that situation anymore, there is no current danger for me*
She freaked out and I got scared so I downplayed it and she was like "Oh good, so nothing ACTUALLY happened."
I don't get why I always do this. Like yeah now I'm hurt that she doesn't think it's a big deal, but what was I expecting when I downplayed it???
TW: Mental health issues
I first felt depressed when I was 8. Suicidal when I was 12. For nearly a decade of my life, I was struggling severely. Several attempts, all that, I had a plan to die in my early 20s.
I'm currently 20. My parents are supportive of mental health in a "You need to go to therapy and work through it there, stop bothering us"-way, and were VERY anti-psychiatry. I'm not sure why, I guess a bad personal history with the field.
I finally got the point where I was like "I have nothing else to lose," booked my own psychiatrist appointment, started a pathetically low dose of SSRIs...and haven't wanted to die in a week. I haven't felt this way since I was 7. I'm sad for how much of life I spent miserable for no reason, but also...this is great.
I feel like this is the biggest milestone in therapy I've had. I don't actively hate my therapist. I don't get along with her great. Like, we're neutral. She's nice enough.
I've just been forced into therapy for so much of my life, I was hating all therapists. I don't hate this one though.
This may be a controversial opinion but, for the first time I can recall, the world doesn't seem so horribly loud and bright.
(I didn't even need to line the seam of my socks up with my toes!)
I had a host of ovarian and reproductive issues that meant that I basically got my first regular periods at 20. My technical first was at 12 but it was like...once a year. I've had less than 20 in my life before turning 20.
And then at 19 I got surgery and medications and now at 20 I'm having periods monthly.
It is AWFUL. Emotionally I feel a mess. It's really expensive. It smells weird and feels gross. Sometimes it starts in the middle of the night, and then I need to wash my sheets. Sometimes it leaks onto my clothes or starts without me knowing, and then my clothes are stained and everybody can see and it's embarrassing. I feel tired and my head hurts. It's so dumb.
How do I do this for the rest of my life? I'm a little bitter I have to get used to this at 20, I feel like it would've been easier when I wasn't at a stage of my life where I'm supporting myself alone lol.
I had a host of ovarian and reproductive issues that meant that I basically got my first regular periods at 20. My technical first was at 12 but it was like...once a year. I've had less than 20 in my life before turning 20.
And then at 19 I got surgery and medications and now at 20 I'm having periods monthly.
It is AWFUL. Emotionally I feel a mess. It's really expensive. It smells weird and feels gross. Sometimes it starts in the middle of the night, and then I need to wash my sheets. Sometimes it leaks onto my clothes or starts without me knowing, and then my clothes are stained and everybody can see and it's embarrassing. I feel tired and my head hurts. It's so dumb.
How do I do this for the rest of my life? I'm a little bitter I have to get used to this at 20, I feel like it would've been easier when I wasn't at a stage of my life where I'm supporting myself alone lol.
I'm 20 yo, a senior in college.
I had an ex professor today ask me to be her friend. She's ~50s/60s. I don't want to hurt her feelings but I feel weird about it, I know I'm no longer in her class but I'm not sure how being friends with somebody thrice my age and who used to be an authority over me would work.
I'm 20 yo, a senior in college.
I had an ex professor today ask me to be her friend. She's ~50s/60s. I don't want to hurt her feelings but I feel weird about it, I know I'm no longer in her class but I'm not sure how being friends with somebody thrice my age and who used to be an authority over me would work.
I put off starting SSRIs for a FULL YEAR because I had heard that they can make you gain weight, and I didn't want to make weight loss any more difficult than it could have to be. In that time I became severely depressed and just kind of ruined my life from my unwillingness to make a change (I did have therapy but I'm just not somebody who finds much improvement from therapy).
I started SSRIs about a month ago and have lost more weight in that month than in the previous several months. Zoloft did really upset my stomach the first couple days lol so that accounted for the first couple pounds, but since then it has dulled my food noise and food just doesn't taste as interesting to me anymore.
YMMV but, if you're somebody who is considering starting SSRIs, I can't recommend enough my experience. I started on a dose low enough to immediately cut off if they weren't working out, and I have been so pleased with how it has impacted my life and my weight otherwise.
I read on another post on Instagram a ballet studio owner saying "One thing I won't do is give boy students free tuition to incentivize them to take lessons."
Is that genuinely a thing that ballet studios do? Woefully I'm a girl so my parents have always had to pay. I always figured that the "reward" for being a boy in ballet was being able to get main roles far easier lol, as well as just the love of the dance. Like, if I had a school, I feel like I'd be more inclined to give tuition waivers based on merit or demonstrated financial need, not gender.
Some comments said "The boys deserve it because they're sacrificing their bodies to lift the girls" but...are girls not also sacrificing their bodies? Especially their feet, and in some abusive schools their bone and metabolic health?
Other comments said "This will incentivize boys" but in that case why aren't there more tuition waivers for girls in sports and robotics and other boy-heavy teams? I guess I'm kind of struggling to think of the girl equivalent, I guess there are academic scholarships for women in STEM, but that tends to not go to every girl. Like, I don't know a single school where it's "All girls can take classes for free to recruit more girls."
IDK maybe I'm overthinking it. I'm not a professional.