u/ilovsocialstudies

i have therapy tomorrow, and lately i’ve been struggling to put my feelings into words. my thoughts feel so jumbled, and i end up ruminating about a million different things at once

last session, i wrote down everything i had been feeling in a note and read it to my therapist. i felt embarrassed at first because i’m usually pretty good at putting my feelings into words, but she was really sweet about it. so i’m doing it again for tomorrow’s session…

the funny thing is, my life is relatively okay right now, but somehow this is the loneliest i’ve ever felt. i’m still struggling with a lot of my inner thoughts and anxiety, and i’m finding it hard to understand why i can still feel this way when i feel like i should just be grateful for everything that’s going well

i think that’s something i’m hoping to unpack in therapy tomorrow. i also need to tell my therapist that i want to take things slowly because we’re supposed to do emdr tomorrow. i know that two things can be true at the same time, but i find it so hard to actually apply that to my own life

writing everything down has honestly been really helpful for me because it gives all the thoughts in my head somewhere to go. if you struggle with putting your feelings into words too, have you ever brought a note or written something for your therapist?

i’ve always been curious about different people’s views on this, even though i know there isn’t a specific timeline when it comes to therapy or healing

personally, therapy has helped me so much, and for now i genuinely can’t imagine my life without it. but i don’t want to be in therapy at the same frequency forever, and i definitely don’t want to be doing emdr forever either. eventually, i’d like to reduce my sessions and maybe move towards maintenance sessions when i’m ready

the thing is, i have no idea when that will be. i’ve been in therapy for almost 2 years, but sometimes it feels like i’ve barely scratched the surface. there’s still so much i’m learning about myself and so much i want to work through

i don’t want to feel like i’m constantly at war with myself forever. i want to eventually get to a point where therapy is something i can check in with rather than something i need to rely on regularly

i know therapy doesn’t necessarily have to be something you “graduate” from, and i also understand that people may choose to stay in therapy for different reasons. i’m just curious what everyone else thinks

do you see therapy as something you hope to eventually move on from, or something you could see yourself continuing long-term?

i've honestly been worried about my upcoming therapy session

truthfully, things in my life have been going okay lately. i'm in a much healthier place than i was before and i know i have support around me

because of that, i keep wondering if i even need therapy every 2 weeks anymore. i'm scared of becoming too reliant on it, or that i'm taking up a spot that someone else needs more than i do

i currently see my therapist twice a month because it feels like the right balance for me. weekly feels like too much, monthly feels too far apart, and i am also doing emdr alongside talk therapy. my next session will focus on talk therapy to help me cope better

the thing is i wallow in self-pity a lot and it's honestly been hard to accept that things are actually okay. i don't really know what life is like without constantly struggling. i've spent so long feeling like i'm at war with myself that peace feels so unfamiliar and uncomfortable

even though i am in a better place now, i still feel this indescribable sadness and emptiness. i also feel like i don't deserve any of this peace

i almost feel guilty for still needing therapy every two weeks. has anyone else reached a point where life was objectively okay, but you still felt like you needed therapy? how did you bring up discussions on this to your therapist?

i actually slept through the night after my therapy session, which surprised me because i usually have trouble falling asleep after emdr

then one night later, i got triggered after seeing something and ended up having a flashback. i was so upset at myself for getting triggered and i started spiraling. i spent the whole night ruminating about it. it’s been two nights since that, and i am still feeling all the effects

i’ve probably had a total of 4h proper sleep and i’m finding it so incredibly hard to get through the day. i’m exhausted, unmotivated, and everything feels so much harder. i have school tomorrow and i can’t afford to keep feeling like this

lately i’ve also been feeling really discouraged about my progress in therapy. i started wondering if i just wasn’t responding well to emdr, but at the same time my emdr “hangovers” have still been really intense, so i honestly don’t know what’s going on with me anymore

has anyone found that a trigger after emdr completely wiped you out for a few days?

i know progress and healing isn’t linear, and some sessions are slower than others. but i cannot seem to shake this guilty feeling after my session yesterday

my therapist adjusted the session halfway through emdr reprocessing and decided to focus more on talking instead. she was really calm about it, she probably had her reasons and i trust her judgement but i cannot help but blame myself for doing something “wrong” especially since i’ve been making progress lately. this feels like such a setback

i come up blank a lot during reprocessing which makes me question if my trauma is even real or valid. i feel so guilty even though there’s nothing to actually feel guilty about

i don’t know how to bring this up to her either, and part of me really wants to cancel next session and disappear, but realistically i know that my mental health wouldn’t benefit from doing so

does anyone feel “guilty” after a therapy session? how do you bring it up or address it?

i know that it’s okay if nothing comes up during reprocessing but after my last session, i thought i was making progress

in the midst of reprocessing today, my therapist decided to stop halfway and move into talk therapy instead for the rest of the time. i’m sure she had her reasons and i trust her but i can’t help but blame myself for coming up blank

it made me question whether my trauma is even real or valid because i struggle so much to actually feel what’s going on

i left session feeling quite defeated in myself and almost relapsed but didn’t. it’s been a couple hours now and i feel slightly better so i know that whatever i’m feeling is not a reflection of who i am

i don’t want to let this one session define how i feel about emdr. you’re not alone if you find emdr really hard. we’re all trying to heal ❤️‍🩹

i have therapy tomorrow, and usually i look forward to it. but this time i feel like just disappearing and not going. i have no idea why

at my last session, my therapist picked up on my fear of abandonment, and ever since then i can’t stop thinking about leaving therapy before she leaves me. i know it doesn’t really make sense, but the thought keeps popping into my head

i’m also doing emdr alongside talk therapy, so i’m wondering if that’s contributing to it too. i’m all for therapy and having the difficult conversations, but i’ve noticed my anxiety has been getting worse the closer i get to my sessions

i know i should bring this up with my therapist tomorrow, and i will…i’m just wondering if anyone else has experienced this? did it get easier over time?

curious to hear different perspectives on this!

i know finding the right therapist looks different for everyone, and sometimes it takes seeing a few before you find the right fit

i honestly feel really lucky because i clicked with mine on the first try. i’ve been seeing her for almost 2 years now, and i don’t think there was one specific moment where it “clicked.” it just happened naturally over time as trust built between us. i found it easy to talk to her and i’m so grateful for everything therapy taught me too

what about you? was there a specific moment where you knew your therapist was the right fit, or did it happen gradually?

to be honest, i never really knew what self disclosure was until recently. therapy isn’t very well known where i’m from, so there isn’t a lot of information about it in general

lately i’ve been seeing tiktoks saying that therapist self disclosure is really important for building rapport, and it’s gotten into my head a little

my therapist barely self discloses and i’m okay with that. we have a good rapport, we can laugh together in sessions sometimes and i’ve never felt like i needed to know more about her to feel connected

the only time i get curious is when she tells me she’s going on vacation because i wonder where she’s going but that’s about it

i don’t think she’s a blank slate therapist either

does anyone else have a therapist who doesn’t self-disclose much? has it ever affected your therapeutic relationship?

i had therapy earlier today, and wasn’t expecting my therapist to do reprocessing because we’re doing talk therapy in between to manage my bad hangovers. i usually always come up blank during the sessions too

but today was completely different and i am so surprised

she picked up on my fear of abandonment and decided to target a recent trigger as the memory to process

i spoke about how i feel like a burden and how overwhelming everything is. but the brain works in such mysterious ways because i went from thinking about my deepest darkest fear to somehow talking about rushing for assignment deadlines. i don’t think there’s a correlation between these things but i have no idea why i thought that

so many thoughts, memories and feelings came up that i was not expecting. my therapist said it was a lot too

i’ve been quite unsure about emdr recently but after today, maybe i should give it another shot??

i think my anxiety is getting the better of me 😭

i usually receive an email confirmation from my therapy office about a week before my session, and another reminder around 3 days before

my appointment is supposed to be tomorrow but i haven’t received any email yet, and my brain immediately went to “did my therapist forget to schedule me?”

this has happened once before, and it ended up just being a logistics/IT issue, so i’m hoping that’s all it is again

i am planning to call the office tomorrow morning to check, but i feel bad because i’m worried i may come across as desperate or overly anxious. i’m also overthinking because what if i don’t have an appointment scheduled? i’ve been struggling so this session will be good for me, but the uncertainty is making me spiral a little

has anyone had this happen before?

slight tw!
my therapist and i decided to pause emdr for now because i get really bad ‘hangovers’ and i cannot function. plus with my schedule now, i don’t think i can cope with emdr too. my end goal is to go back to emdr again but i’m honestly not sure when

anyways, it’s been about a month since my last reprocessing session and i’m still feeling quite crappy. it comes in waves and when it comes, i cannot stop spiraling. i don’t have much thoughts about the reprocessing but i get these depressive episodes, thoughts that im better off gone, and relapse always comes up. i don’t act on any of them because i let them pass then it comes back and the cycle repeats. it happens at least 3 times a week and it scares me because what if the next time it happens, i can’t manage the thoughts. i’m wondering if this is still part of emdr hangover?

nothing bad is happening in my life so i don’t understand why i feel like this, i guess my question is does this happen to anyone here?

slight trigger warning!

i wrote on here a couple times explaining that my therapist thinks emdr isn’t therapeutic for me so we paused for now because i get really bad hangovers that scare the shit out of me. overall, it’s been a lot. i also talked about how i have been wanting to ask for more sessions, which i did but i still cannot bring myself to tell her i think i need weekly sessions for now

relapse and si has been more overwhelming lately. i usually compartmentalise pretty well but i can’t seem to do that recently. everything is going on pretty normal but i don’t understand why i feel so horrible. i thought i’ve been okay, my friends notice how “angsty” i am but it just tells me i should hide it better. just feel so alone in all of this and i spoke to my therapist about it.

i struggle a lot with my inner demons and negative self belief. i also don’t have much support from the people around me so i am truly all by myself. when i’m alone i tend to self sabotage and spiral a lot too

i feel extremely lost, i asked for more frequent sessions but i feel bad asking for even more. i’m sorry i know this is all over the place but i just need to let it out

trigger warning!

i have struggled with sh since i was 13 and i am currently 9 months clean. it’s been one of the toughest battles i had to fight but what genuinely helped was i had a 6 month internship as a preschool teacher and i didn’t want the children i work with to see anything

fast forward, i have since left the teaching industry and the thoughts have been coming back really bad. i did tell my therapist i struggle with sh but i don’t think she knows the extent of it. this is the topic i have struggled the most with, i can usually talk about other things but i get all squirmy and uncomfortable talking about sh

on monday, she asked me what kind of sh thoughts i get and i told her i didn’t want to talk about it because i’m not comfortable. i left my session feeling okay but 2 days later, i am spiralling again. something triggered me last night and i am really fighting with everything in me to not give in because i have come so far

it’s been getting harder and harder to fight them but i really do not want to relapse. this addiction has taken over my life for 7 years and i really don’t want it to win

i know i need to bring this up, because no one else knows about this, but i do not know how to tell her and it’s frustrating for me i just feel like i am going in circles all the time

looking to see if anyone struggled with opening up to their therapist about this and how did you manage this. did you eventually bring it up?

it’s my first time posting on this thread, but i am not new to therapy. i just wanted to pause and share some love in the midst of everything that’s been going on ◡̈

i haven’t been in therapy for super long, but i have so much love for my therapist, not in a transference or maternal way, i am just so incredibly grateful for everything she has done for me. truthfully, i don’t think i would be here today without her help and support

some of my sessions can be intense, but i think that’s the beauty of it. therapy challenges me, and i leave most sessions feeling exhausted. but it’s because of therapy that i can finally say, “a bad thing happened to me, and i’m allowed to talk about it.”

i’m still a work in progress, of course, and i’m nowhere near where i want to be yet. but i’ve hit significant milestones that i never thought would be possible. there was a time when i genuinely didn’t think i would make it past 17, but i’m turning 20 soon, and that’s a big deal to me

i put in a lot of work. none of it was easy and i even thought of quitting therapy at one point, but i know it was for a reason. i never want to go back to the person i was when i was struggling the most

to all therapists and mental health professionals, thank you because the work you do matters more than you know

to the rest of us who are in therapy, i hear you. it can suck and it’s not always easy but you are not alone in it. i’m rooting for us 🩷

tl;dr: i’ve been struggling more than usual between therapy sessions and am wondering if i should ask about more frequent appointments, but part of me feels like i should just be more resilient and cope on my own

i’ve been struggling more than i admit with my therapist being on vacation (but holding onto hope that i see her in two days!!) anyways, i slowly started to realise that because i don’t open up to people about what i’m feeling, i’ve been bottling everything up for the last two weeks

usually i can manage the gaps between sessions, but ngl i have been finding it much harder recently. i’ve been feeling more emotional, lonely and overwhelmed than usual and i find myself counting down the days until my next appointment

i currently try to see my therapist every two weeks if i am lucky, as she’s usually too busy. majority of the time i feel really bad asking for appointments because i know how packed her schedule is, and i also think that she knows i benefit from more frequent sessions

part of me wonders if i should bring this up with her and ask whether increasing the frequency of my sessions would be helpful. but another part feels like i should just learn to be more resilient and sit with the feelings instead of relying on therapy more

i also get into arguments with my mom about how i’m going to therapy “too often”, but that’s a separate issue for another day..

for those who have asked their therapist for more frequent sessions, how did you approach the conversation and what made you realise it was time to bring it up?

i usually recover from therapy in a few days and try to rely on my inner strength and it usually helps me get through till the next time i see my therapist

but my last session has been hitting me HARD…it’s been a week and i’m so emotional and tired all the time, overall i just feel really sad and lonely

i always write my feelings down but i find myself counting down to our next session. i have thoughts of emailing my therapist for an earlier slot but she’s away on holiday and doesn’t make sense because i’m really trying to be resilient and sit with the feelings

i don’t know, i don’t want to be overly reliant on my therapist and i’m trying to give myself space to work through this on my own. i guess this is the hard part about healing and working through trauma

anyways if you read until here, healing is not easy and it’s okay to have bad days. please be kinder to yourself we are all trying our best ❤️‍🩹

hello i’m currently going through emdr therapy and was wondering if anyone here has experience with it or knows someone who does. i don’t see much information or discussion about emdr in singapore so i’m interested to hear experiences! also trying to normalise conversations around mental health hahah

i honestly don't like spamming on here, but i feel really alone

my second reprocessing session has been ROUGH. today's my third day post emdr and i have been hit with a wave of sadness. i keep crying and thinking about things. it's especially hard because i have exams right now and i really cannot afford to feel like this

usually i can manage the gaps between sessions, but my therapist is on vacation now and i won't see her for two weeks. i don't really have anyone to talk to about this because i don't have many friends, so it's just been me

i've been distracting myself when i can, and i know this will pass soon but it sucks so bad

therapy has been my safe space. truthfully, i wouldn’t be where i am today if it weren’t for my therapist. i recently started emdr and it’s been making me really confused

yesterday i told her that i’ve been feeling quite anxious about coming to sessions because of the reprocessing and emdr. she said she can sense that i’m really tense and not in the right headspace for it. what’s funny is that i don’t notice the tension myself and i actually feel okay with this whole emdr thing.

she feels bad for me and i can’t help but blame myself. i definitely don’t want to quit therapy because it has helped me in ways i can’t even explain. but if my therapist thinks emdr is not helping me process my trauma, and talk therapy doesn’t seem to be getting me unstuck either then i just feel so useless because i feel like all the work i’ve done goes to waste 😭

i want to keep trying but i feel like i’m doing therapy “wrong” even though i know there is no right or wrong way to approach therapy. part of me worries i’m wasting my therapist’s time too because of the things she notices in me that i don’t see myself

im so sorry for this long rant but has anyone ever felt lost about what they wanted from therapy, even though therapy itself is helpful?