r/therapy

Hello, for a little bit of context, I'm 24 years old. I graduated college back in December, around last September, I began to have some very severe OCD episodes about the past, dumb things I've said to people, making myself out to be the biggest monster that ever was. It was awful, I'd have panic attacks at work. Days before graduation, I'd have these huge suicidal episodes...awful. But I'm alive, many months later, due to the help of Zoloft and talk therapy. We've made a lot of progress this past year, but we've reached a standstill. A lot of my OCD revolves around my relationship with my sexuality and my bad experiences with it, I find it hard to talk about and very embarrassing. What's the best way of opening up to a therapist about these kinds of things?

Been going to therapy more recently due to SSRI withdrawal and subsequent crushing depression and anxiety that comes along with it.

Was recounting an event from my late teens that I still struggle to call “sexual assault” but would legally classify as such. It was forceful and excruciatingly painful but lasted only 30-45 seconds. In that moment I truly had never felt more powerless. Ended up getting diagnosed with PTSD years ago because of it and since sought EMDR (which does work and did help). However, I’ve quickly learned that healing is not linear.

Next thing you know, I’m remembering the event and the tears start falling. I’ve been seeing this therapist for three years and never cried in front of them.

Despite their comfort, I’m deeply humiliated. I’m a 23 year old man and I feel like I shouldn’t be crying over a gray-area event from many years ago that I’ve already sought treatment for.

my therapist asked me how i was doing and i voice messaged her and then she straight ghosted me. it has been more than two weeks. my sessions did end but she had asked me how i was doing and i had replied i was doing bad. and she did not reply. and i feel so bad. i dont want to message her again, not for therapy not for anything because i find myself too embarrassed and too needy. i feel like i said something embarrassing, and well i did talk about sex in my last voice notes. i don't really know what to do. she is a wonderful therapist apart from all of this. and i don't want to change therapists but honestly i dont think i will be able to message her again.

I'm a teenager and I can't pinpoint when or why but at some point I just stopped being able to tell anything significant to adults. Especially adults in positions of authority over me, and especially out loud (don't come up to me with "we are adults" because all of this is pretty much void in anonymity). My therapist always wondered why our sessions went nowhere, until eventually I had to tell her I was steering around most of my issues because I have horrible trust issues and my mind just won't let me tell her any of them. On occasion, my mom has come in and basically forced me to tell her something she really wanted me to (not in a mean or bad way) and I broke down in tears barely able to speak, mind you I don't cry often at all. I have no idea why I have these trust issues and even after I mentioned she didn't say much about it, just telling me that if I couldn't tell her things the therapy wouldn't benefit me at all. I know that she's right and it really isn't benefitting me, when I'm a genuinely depressed kid with a lot of issues I'm aware of and don't know how to fix that I'm sure she could help with if I just told her. And like I said, it's just adults of power over me, and with my friends I'm comfortable saying anything. But my friends don't have a PhD in psychology and they can't help me any more than being sympathetic. I don't know what to do but shoot my shot with reddit. Perhaps someone can relate and tell me how they solved their issue. Maybe there's some program I can go through that exploits me having no trouble talking to kids or talking in anonymity. I really do want to be helped, I just don't know how. If it helps, I'm high-functioning autistic.

Hi im looking for some therapy where I dont have to pay as I dont have a job, money or insurance and asking for help from family is definitely not something I can do as I already feel like a huge burden to them and my anxiety gets too out of control when I even attempt to ask for help mostly because they are half the reason im like this, if im being completely honest im to the point where I dont know what I want in life and I don't even know who I am as a person, im just stuck here basically waiting to die from either fate or until I grow the balls to actually do it myself

Today my therapist said that I am a negative and pessimistic person who finds fault with any solution offered and only hears what I want to hear. She said that after I complained about the therapy process, because she kept telling me to do the same things I had already said don't work. It's a loop: either i agree that she's right and do as she says or i deny it and prove her right in doing so. Doesn't seem very ethical or usefull, specially since she didn't follow that with any solution or insight into it.

If more context is needed: I always bring the same problems in theraphy, thoughts that I'm always thinking about and that make me very unwell. All she ever does after hearing me rant is saying that i should think less about life and start acting it out more, that after acting out more i'll feel better and what not. I respond that it won't work because i've been for the past 2 years trying to think less about it and it only makes me worse off (anxious because i'm not thinking about it, frustraded because i'm doing my stuff despite having all these thoughts in my head, paranoid because if i simply keep living out my normal life the problems i keep thinking about will only get worse). I want something else, to engage with the thoughts i bring, to understand why i have and keep having them, to actually know how to not think about it (that if not thinking about it is even the correct aproach), you get the ideia. Am i really negative, pessimistic and so on for simply rejecting her approach? Even if i am, shouldn't she have done something about it instead of only saying it when i'm already considering changing therapist?

i’ve forgotten things i wanted to talk about more times than i can count. by the time the session starts, the stuff that seemed important earlier is completely gone from my mind.

do you keep notes or a list of things to bring up?

I tried doing it and told her through messages out of session a few days later. She said we'd talk about it on our next session, but she never brought it up (and i was to ashamed to do it myself). I didn't see any major changes in her approach since then and i don't think she'll talk about it on her own. Yes, i know that i could simply remind her of what happened (although i frequently talk about how i see no point or future in my life, and she doesn't comment very much on this aswell), but her silence is making me question her value as a psychiatrist. I mean, how could you never say anything about it? Is this normal in any way in cbt or in general?

I struggle with vulnerability with anyone, even my husband of 20years. I was just able to open up to my therapist more recently at my last session. Today I was asked what I would like to talk about today and seriously kinda threw me off guard. I said I am not sure, but then I thought of something. Honestly this question gives me anxiety. Is it okay to say "I don't know" where would that lead us?

My gf of 12 years and I will be doing therapy soon. Meeting with a therapist this week or next for a consultation then if we like her we will move forward with our first session. Any advice for consultation? What should we be looking for? Any helpful info would be appreciated. This is our last hope before ending it.

Hello. My therapist didn't show up to our planned session after that he was on vacation for 5 weeks and now he is back and didn't call me back or communicate with me in any way.

I feel a little betrayed, because he knows I'm overthinking constantly and hate miscommunication.

I honestly don't know what to do. He didn't return my call and everything seemed good in general. Should I go to his office and ask?

I’ve been seeing my therapist for almost a year now and after today’s appointment I’m pretty shook. I’ve been telling my therapist about struggling with depression, anxiety, OCD, and suicidal ideation for a little while now. I’ve always had a very difficult time opening up to people and sharing how I’m feeling or how I’ve felt in the past. My therapist has been the only one I’ve ever really truly been able to open up with.

I’ve explained to her that I’m not in the mental space to be able to tell myself much of anything at this point. I can share how I’ve been feeling, discuss what’s currently going on, discuss the things that have gone on in the past, etc. but I need to dig deeper into things and attempt to figure out the ‘why?’ before attempting to really take the necessary steps to start feeling better. She’s known that for a while now and it’s been no secret.

Last session, she suggested a different type of therapy (CPT) to deal with past traumas. I was all for discussing it at my next appointment, talking about what it entails, and exploring if it would be appropriate for my struggles. What did trigger me though was an abandonment wound we both have acknowledged for a while I struggle with as well as having a lot of self blame and overthinking. I was struggling with (even though she said she’d be the one administering the CPT) the all consuming worry that I wasn’t moving fast enough in my current therapy and the worry that I’d be moved to another clinician. Illogical, right? I understand it but I can’t currently help the way my brain is processing things. I emailed her these concerns with the intention of talking about them at my next appointment (something she explicitly said it was okay to do since I’ve been seeing her).

So I hoped to talk to her about it at today’s session. Come today, it seemed like what I was concerned about wasn’t being heard whatsoever. It felt like I was a ghost and nothing I was saying was being seen or heard. It also felt like she was standoffish and not remotely close to empathetic. Instead, it felt like she kept pushing and pushing and pushing the narrative that if there’s no logical proof to have these concerns/worries then I shouldn’t have them.

Logically.. I get it but if it was that easy to do and accept then man, I wouldn’t have the need for therapy/medication whatsoever.

I left and immediately developed a panic attack from the experience. I started to realize for a while I’ve been feeling like an egg inside the carton that cracked, but didn’t break. And she picked it up and started just pushing and pushing on it to test its strength which can only lead to two options: the egg remains solid under some pressure, or the egg continues to crack more, bursts, and sends yolk everywhere. I definitely feel like I’ve been broken completely open and now my thoughts are just all over the place.

It might seem dumb to a lot of people but I don’t feel as safe as I did and I don’t feel like I can safely trust as much as I once did either. I feel like I was dismissed, ignored, and am left feeling way worse than I did before the session. To the point where I just want to stop going. I understand it’s one dust up (although there have been a few) but I’ve never felt like this before and just feel lost, hurt, shunned, and ignored.

I’m not looking for any tough love, sarcastic comments, bully type behavior, or anything of the like. Just hoping for some genuine empathy and help trying to navigate all this because right now I’m ready to be done.

If any T’s or anyone else have any advice, guidance, or help it would be greatly appreciated.

I’ve been feeling sick for so long and I tried to commit suicide but i failed, i am tired from looking and searching for another ways to end it , so does it help or just waste I’m afraid to go and don’t get help

Hi everyone. First time finding this subreddit.

How do I ask my therapist if she thinks she’s a good fit for me? When I first found her I didn’t know that she specialized in sex therapy. Or ask if she thinks I’m making progress? I feel like I can’t see anything outside of my own head sometimes.

Over the course of the year we’ve talked about my relationship to my parents or other people in my life. Small goals I have for myself, but I feel stuck. I feel unprepared when I come in and I feel like my therapist is letting me have the steering wheel when I have no idea where we’re going.

I have an anxious inkling that she thinks that she may not be the best fit for me, but that the surface level talks are what I need. She mentioned that I could maybe try medication but I don’t want to go to medication without exhausting all other options first.

I’m afraid of medication and I worry that’s the only thing that will help. (I’ve never been medicated befo re btw.)

I’ve been in therapy for years on end, like almost 20 years. It would be inaccurate to say I haven’t made progress, but it’s more like progress that benefits others and not myself.

What I mean by this is I’ve learned to reel in my reactions to things so that I don’t hurt anyone’s feelings etc. But I’m still suffering, still painfully reserved and can’t trust other people, and just can’t quite grow confidence.

I feel like therapy has helped me develop a shallow level of confidence. Enough to barely scrape by and convince people at work that I’ve “got it” and can handle tasks even if I’m having panic attacks after work for example.

I’ve gotten better at masking and lowering the intensity of my reactions.

My core is still the same. I am still the same afraid, terrified person who can’t quite get out of their shell, who has panic attacks constantly, who can’t trust others, who drowns in low self-esteem and fragility.

Anyone else relate?

First, I appreciate my therapist. I've been seeing her for about 4 years and she has been nothing but supportive and awesome. Yesterday I brought up my fear of rejection and how the more I respect and get to know someone, the bigger the fear of disappointing them and failure increases and I realized that was starting to include her, which was making it more difficult to disclose things to her.

She told me nothing I could tell her would make her disappointed in me, which felt good to hear aloud but made me really emotional. We talked about a few things after that I had been having difficulty bringing up and the session overall went really well. The only problem is I felt really vulnerable after all that and kind of still do, while thinking about our session. Is this vulnerability something I should bring up with her?

I’m curious if anyone else has experienced this.
I actually like my therapist. She’s warm, supportive, remembers important details, and I don’t think she’s a bad therapist at all. But after about six sessions, I’m starting to wonder if her therapeutic style just isn’t deep enough for me.

I’m naturally extremely introspective. If you ask me why I feel something, I can usually give you a pretty direct and honest answer. I can identify patterns in my behavior, recognize when I’ve made poor choices, connect things to self-worth or hyper-independence, and articulate what I’m trying to change.

But my concern is that just because I can articulate the insight doesn’t mean we’ve gotten to the foundation of it.
For example, I can tell you, “I ignored red flags in certain relationships,” or “I’ve struggled with self-worth,” or “I learned to be hyper-independent.” Those are conclusions I’ve already reached. What I want therapy to explore is:

What happened earlier in my life that made those patterns adaptive? Why did I override myself even when part of me already knew something felt wrong? What was I getting or protecting myself from by operating that way?

Instead, I often feel like I give my therapist a psychologically coherent answer and she accepts it, validates it, and we move on. I leave thinking, Okay, but I already knew that.

One thing that really made me notice this was that she asked me essentially the same question in two separate sessions: whether people might underestimate how much I’m struggling because I present as very capable/strong and continue functioning. I had already given her a fairly detailed answer the first time. When she asked essentially the same formulation again later, I started wondering whether our sessions were actually building on each other deeply enough.

I don’t expect a therapist to magically know me or hand me answers. I know therapy requires me to do work too.

But I feel like I’m already doing most of the introspection, pattern recognition, and formulation myself, while she is mostly following me there.
What I want is someone who hears my answer and then says, essentially, “Okay, that makes sense. Now let’s investigate what created that answer.”

Has anyone else experienced this, especially if you’re naturally very introspective? Did you talk to your therapist about it, switch therapists, or find that a different modality/style worked better?

I’d especially love to hear from people who realized their therapist was good, just not challenging enough for them.

This might seem a bit vent-ish, sorry, but I really need someone to tell me what to do.

I’m a coward. Such a terrible terrible coward.

I’m the only one out of all my friends still stuck in the past. They’ve all left me behind. I’m the only one who still feels like a kid wearing adult shoes that don’t fit me. I’m the only one who keeps talking big, but keeps having nothing to back it all up. I’m so ashamed of myself I want to die. If I had myself for a son, I’d be ashamed of him. I’d kick him out of my house. I really mean it.

Because all I’ve ever done is run away from all the hard difficult parts of living. Because I’m too much of a coward, too weak, to face it head on.

This past semester, I’ve been a horrible student. I might as well have lost my scholarship. All the hope and effort and pride that my single father put into me was wasted. And, the worst part is I went and lied. The whole summer I acted as if nothing was wrong even though I knew shit was gonna hit the fan and I didn’t face it until the very end, when I couldn’t avoid it anymore. I waited until goddamn August to even check the website and my email, because I was such a damn coward. Now I’ve troubled my father so much with my own naive selfishness. I keep thinking about all the moments he bragged about me, and talked me up with such pride… just for me to destroy it all like this. God I wish I’d never been born.

I don’t hate myself. But, I feel so much shame, it’s immeasurable. I don’t even have the strength to move forward. And that makes me feel even more ashamed of myself. Why am I so weak? Why am I so lacking in all things? Why am I so miserable?

How do you feel this suffocating shame everyday and keep living, keep standing back up? How do you stand knowing you are the cancer upon your family and keep living? I need to know. I need to know so I can keep living. Because, I know that even if I die today, I’ll only bring my family even more misery because of our circumstances. My father isn’t my biological father, my mother remarried him and then died, so I’ve been his kid. But if I end my own life, my community will think he abused me or something when he’s nothing like that. They’ll think my entire current family mistreated me just because I’m not biologically related to them when they haven’t. They’ll be ostracized and looked down upon in our community. They’ll be seen as villains, when they’ve been nothing but the greatest family I could ever have. I have to keep living.

But

How do I keep living? How do I find it in myself to have the strength to live with my shame? How do I keep living with this weakness? Im so weak and cowardly and I’m so scared that my horrible self will just run away again. What do I do? I wish I could shake myself and force him to just GROW A SPINE.

Like the title says. I literally have to force myself to do anything. I don’t want to clean, work on my hobbies, go outside or anything. I just want to lay here. My sleep schedule is fucked. It’s 2:27 in the morning. Yesterday I went to bed around 7am. Woke up at 3pm.

Im married to a wonderful patient man who loves me and our teen daughter more than anything. They are my world. I feel like a shit person that they are not enough motivation for me to do things. I have to force myself to shower or change or anything.

I need to lose weight but also have no motivation. I have diabetes so that should be motivation enough. I want to do art and stuff I love. But all I end up doing is cooking food and playing video games all day.

I smoke weed, only Sativa, and that helps a bit. But not really. I thought maybe it was affecting me negatively so I stopped for a few months and I only felt worse.

Im not suicidal or anything. I want to be alive. I just have no motivation. Caffeine doesn’t help at all.

Idk if I feel sad, mad, or annoyed all the time. The weed helps my mood a lot though. Just need something to give me a boost.

Im 34F. Can’t see a doctor. Can’t see a therapist or anything either. No insurance. I have diagnosed anxiety/panic disorder which has gotten better over the years. Now I only have a panic attack a couple times a year instead of 5-6 times a week. So there’s that. I thought I had adhd, but I guess not since Im just here not doing shit.

I just feel like a failure, a loser, a bum. My husband tells me Im not and reassures me Im loved and that he is here for me.

I have stuff to do. I just want to want to do it. I want to write, read, paint like I use to. Just want some advice on how to change this maybe?? Things I can do at home?? Other than the obvious start exercising at home and watching my diet to lose weight.

Idk what Im looking for honestly. Just general advice I guess.

Hello. I 19F am suicidal. This post is not a suicide note or anything and no I am not planning on going through with suicide anytime soon.

I’ve noticed that I tend to make big commitments in order to avoid going through with suicide. I had a dog, and i refused to commit because i didn’t want anyone else to take care of her. she passed away my senior year of high school. Earlier this year i started feeling hopeless and useless and like i had no purpose, so i adopted a gecko. now im feeling a bit hopeless about my future and i told myself, “well i can’t do anything. i have to take care of my gecko.” i’ve done this with a few other things as well until they expired, but these are my biggest examples.

is this a healthy practice? am i a punk for trying to avoid it? is this some form of animal abuse? is this normal?

i apologize if this isn’t the correct subreddit to post this in. i just want someone to talk to me