I only started going to my cut rate therapy because I wanted new blog material. It didn’t matter much what KIND of blog material, as long as it helped me with my adult child of a narcissist posts or it was funny.
I went in thinking I’d come up with a few funny posts. The fact that I am literally twice my therapist’s age was supposed to spawn at least a half a dozen.
As it turns out, I did not feel funny at all during my first two sessions.
We also haven’t really gotten to any specifics regarding being the adult child of a narcissist. It’s been more getting to know you time.
She also asked me what I hoped to accomplish with this therapy. I don’t fucking know. That’s one of the 
goddamn problems. I have no idea what I want to accomplish and being asked that makes me feel a little suffocated.
She gave me an assignment to do for our next session. I’m supposed to list five to ten nice things that people say to me and how I respond to those compliments in my head.
I am going to go ahead and choose the ‘five things’ option:
You are so strong. Strong?
HAHAAHFUCKINGHAHA. I’m always one touching YouTube video away from a crumpled sobbing mess. My only strength comes from pure necessity and I fucking fight it kicking and screaming every time.
You’re funny. I wish I could come up with come backs like you can.
I am not funny. I aspire to be funny and quite frankly, I am an embarrassment to myself and people around me. Way to go for putting them in the uncomfortable spot of offering up polite laughter.
Your hair looks pretty.
Okay, and that is someone just being nice. Unless they really like the ‘messy hair of a ten year old’ look.
You’ve lost weight! You look great!
No, I look like a cow. Sure, maybe I have lost weight, but I’m still a fat ass.
Oh my god! Has anyone ever told you that you look just like Angelina Jolie?
Because I can’t complete a simple assignment or blog post without reverting sarcasm to try to cover up the fact that I can’t come up with five measly compliments from other people and I’m using sarcasm to hide my panic.
I don’t know why I thought I could turn my therapy sessions into something funny.
Anxiety isn’t fucking funny. It’s goddamn torture. Finding depression funny is never going to happen,either.
I’m not giving up on therapy. Not yet at least. I’m still wildly skeptical about the effectiveness of talk therapy, but I’m trying to be open about it.
I hated the first assignment.
Also, I feel compelled to point out that I’m not trolling for affirmation here. I’m just trying to figure out this therapy thing and thought exposing it to any human with an internet connection was a good idea.
Yep, I didn’t find counselling funny either 🙂 It was revealing, affirming and cathartic, it was also incredibly tiring and I felt like a wrung out rag at the end of most sessions, but I’m so glad I did it. Have a couple of extra sessions coming up to deal with the aftermath of stuff that I knew would be really hard to handle…and has been. However I’ve survived and although I did hit the depths the other week I’ve bounced back a lot faster than I had been previously, so counselling has obviously helped me a great deal. The anxiety has crept back, but it isn’t so debilitating. It is probably perfectly normal for someone going through the things I’m dealing with.
It’s exhausting and difficult..I’m still waiting for the benefits.
I am SO GLAD to hear you are bouncing back more quickly this time. I can’t wait until all of this is in your rear view mirror.
This gives me some encouragement that the counseling might actually amount to something.
I’m sure it will, I was very sceptical about this kind of thing, but just being able to speak about things without there being any judgement allowed me to get some things out that I haven’t been able to. There is still much I haven’t said and probably won’t have the opportunity to deal with in counselling now, as I won’t be able to continue it as I will have to pay for any more, but at least I have the tools to deal with it myself now. Like you, I’ve always been a survivor, but people assume you’re strong because you do survive. We are…but it’s not by choice and counselling allows you to let it go for a little while.
Letting it all go is like a dream..
I firmly believe in talk therapy. I do feel that finding the right counselor is key, and the timing has to be good (not perfect, but good) for it to work.
I don’t like compliments, they make me uneasy.
Me too. I’ve gotten REALLY good at being gracious when given a compliment and I can very sincerely thank a person for a compliment, but I am not comfortable with them.
I also hate complements. I find myself looking for them sometimes, though, but then don’t know what to do with them once I get them. I guess I look for them because I rarely got them. I never know how to respond after them though. I am a Veteran and when someone says “Thank you so much for your service” I just put my head down and stare at the ground, knowing my face is beat red. That’s the worst compliment I can get.
Secondly, I think this unwanted surprise about your therapy is a good thing. She’s making you think when you didn’t think she’d be able to do anything. In order to help with the problem you have to go through some pretty traumatic shit first. A good therapist will make you do things you don’t want to do, but (most of the time) it SHOULD help in the long run.
My 2 cents: keep going for a little while.
Oh, I’m going to keep going…I got this.
I understand about the compliments. They are both wonderful and horrifying to receive..
THIS. Therapy is goddamned exhausting, what with the crying and the unloading of baggage. All I wanted out of it was to not be a crumpled, anxious, vomiting mess every day anymore. I got that. Now, it’s an uphill hike to stay that way. PMR was fairly helpful for me, as well as changing professions.
Yeah, I think that until I make a career change, I’m going to have to deal with anxiety. 🙁
Muscle relaxation, huh? I will have to look into this…
“You are so strong.”
I *hate* hearing that. I’m not strong; I just keep paying my rent because I don’t want to be evicted and I keep showing up at my dead-end jobs because I fear losing them and ending up unemployed. The shit that I dealt with in the past and the issues that I’m dealing with now are immaterial; the universe doesn’t grant you an indulgence for failing to pay your rent because you were too depressed to make it to work (although that sure would be nice).
I think what I’m trying to say here is that I don’t feel strong because being motivated primarily by fear of avoiding negative consequences is no way to live my life.
On another note entirely, you might view therapy as a marathon instead of a sprint. The progress is likely to obvious on a longer time scale rather than a shorter one.
I just started with a new therapist who has a great deal of experience in treating ACONs. I’m trying to muster up the energy for the marathon. One session at a time, right?
Yep…one at a time.
Ugh..a marathon.And I am such a fan of instant gratification.
Which is why you’ll see run on sentences and typos here. Once I’m done writing it, I’m done. THe editing is boring. Hubs catches a lot of them for me, though. 🙂
Something I think most therapists don’t ask (and should) is this: how do you want to feel? While it’s all well and good to rehash the past and to understand the “whys,” unless you’re focused on how you want to feel, what’s the point? The why is never going to change…and if we think the way we feel is fixed because of the why, then we’re screwed. The only thing we can change is how we choose to think about it…based on how we want to feel…and go from there.
You’ve articulated very well the basic issues I have with talk therapy. I KNOW the whys..talking about it over and over isn’t going to get me anywhere.
How do I want to feel? Fuck. I don’t know. Happy? Content? Worthy?
I am idiot. When I saw you tweet about this, I thought this was your first day of being a Therapist. O_O
Honey, I am sure you are a LOT of things..but idiot is not one of them.
And god help anyone who comes to me for therapy. Booze therapy. I can do that.
Booze therapy? Is that a thing? Can that be a thing? Sometimes, that’s what’s needed.
Shoot..booze is my therapy every Friday night. I get a lot from our sessions.
You know it’s strange but we don’t really have therapists in Australia… none! Maybe it’s because we’re all pissed most of the time and don’t care about what people think about us??? Seriously though, I hate compliments. They make me suspicious. I love your blog… that’s not a compliment though… I’m just saying…
HAHAHA…Thank you!
No therapists? What about psychiatrists? Do you at least get xanax?
Trust me on this. I speak from lots and lots and LOTS of experience. It’s torture now. It will be torture for a while, but one day you’ll leave your session and you’ll think, “I don’t feel like crap,” or “that didn’t suck,” or maybe even, “I feel kinda good.” I know that sounds like a load of shit, but it’s 100% true. It’s a process. Blah, blah, blah. Eventually, you will be able to laugh at yourself instead of beating yourself up. Laughing at your imperfections is much more fun that tearing yourself down. You’ll get there and you’ll have lots of good material to write about. Glad I found your blog. Look forward to reading lots more.
Thank you SO much. I had my 3rd session last night and it was probably the most difficult so far. It made me realize that it’s only gonna get harder…BUT…I do seem to be developing a little voice that is encouraging me instead of discouraging me. I’m glad you found my blog as well!!
I can see why you thought it would be funny though, it seems so hilarious on TV.
Yeah, you know…I hadn’t thought about that, but that could be where it started. Fucking Bob Newhart.
I didn’t like therapy either and always found a reason for not really doing the homework. Luckily I managed to work my way through the anxiety (thanks to menopause medication which is what brought the anxiety on in the first place – thank you very much Mother Nature !!!) and am heaps better now. I am still on the anti-depressants but figure, hey, if they are working, why change them ???
Have a great week !
Me
Funny..my next post is about menopause as well. The only medication I take is xanax and ambien…and I only have one xanax left, so I’m hoarding it. I’m not fond of homework, either..but I’m going to give this 3 months and see where it goes.