Hi Anonymous

Of course, I’m happy to share my experiences of therapy.

I’ve had a couple of different therapists. One when I was a child where they didn’t say very much and very much just waited for me to share when I wanted to, if I wanted to. The therapist had a lot of boundaries in place to make sure I didn’t get too attached which is essential when working with children. They could never remember my mother’s name which amused me.

I worked with a counsellor when I was in college. They were very nice and provided some advice about stopping self harming tendencies by practicing being kinder to yourself.

I had therapy around the birth of my son to help with intrusive thoughts. The two people I saw were kind and supportive and I learned some useful advice for managing intrusive thoughts.

I had issues with one therapist. They hadn’t read my file and asked me to write down my memory of being raped as homework in the first session when I had told them that I had never spoken about it before. It was too much too soon and I didn’t go back.

I waited to see another therapist and ended up seeing the one that I had left years before. I thought that I would make the best of the situation and say what wasn’t helpful. That was taken on board and she apologised. A different approach was used moving forward. Things went much better with a different approach and it turns out she was an amazing trauma therapist. I did the bulk of my work in therapy with her. She had difficulty remembering names of family members too. I think it is a common thing, if you think about how many patients they have every week and they all have family members. It is a lot to remember.

I always tell people that if something happens in therapy to upset you, tell your therapist. They are experts in communication and should immediately apologise and work with you to find a solution.

The goal of therapy is really to learn to be your own therapist. The job of your therapist is to teach you a lot of tools and to model behaviour that you will learn to do for yourself. Your therapist should be kind and listen to you. There are some things that therapists commonly say that people can find upsetting. They will call some behaviour and thoughts that are upsetting normal. But they don’t mean it isn’t important or distressing. They mean it in the sense that if someone is in a difficult situation, the feelings or actions are a normal human reaction to the circumstances.

When starting therapy a goal is usually set. It is a good idea to consider what you might want to discuss in therapy and any goals that you would like to achieve before you go.

That being said, therapists can have their off days. I know of a therapist who was horrified that they fell asleep on a patient when they were ill with long covid. My therapist’s dog died and that day we just spoke about memories of her dog. And sometimes if a patient has difficulty staying on task it can be difficult for the therapist to keep the conversation on task.

I have had a bad mental health nurse once who said some awful things to me. I had just aged out of child therapy and was waiting on adult therapy, I was seeing this nurse in the meantime. She complained that she didn’t see why I should have more therapy since I had already had therapy and called me melodramatic and attention seeking because I said that I didn’t know how I would cope without a therapist and was crying. She also wouldn’t let me leave when I tried to and told me that I had to stop crying before I could leave. The important context here is that I was abused growing up as a child and raped shortly before child therapy ended. If I was more stable and was older and wiser at the time I would have reported her because her behaviour was wildly inappropriate. I never saw her again. A mental health nurse has very poor training compared to a therapist, psychiatrist or a psychologist. I have heard of lots of bad experiences with mental health nurses sadly.

There are ways to report these things and it should be done if someone treats you badly. I think there is a difference between mistakes and things not working and people being intentionally cruel.

It is difficult when a patient has suicidal thoughts in therapy. There are a lot of strict rules about what can and can’t be done. Therapy can be distressing especially when talking about traumatic memories as the memories themselves are distressing. It is important to be stable when talking about these things, so you don’t go home and hurt yourself. You would need to be honest with your therapist about these thoughts and let them know if they get worse. They may work with you if you are very clear about how you are doing as you have a preventative factor, your child. As long as they believe you aren’t about to harm yourself it will be fine.

Hmm medication. There are a couple of different perspectives on it. Medication can make people more functional if they respond well to it. It may be suggested. But you can just say no. You don’t have to take it if you don’t want to. My trauma therapist actually helped me to withdraw from medication because she believed that medication interferes with therapy. Medication numbed my feelings, it was important to actually feel my feelings for therapy to be effective especially since I had habits of numbing my emotions based on trauma too.

Love and best wishes! ❤️🙏

Hi Clara

It is true, you have both been through a lot together. And no doubt grown a lot too.

Breathing, exercising and not overthinking sounds good. 😊

Love and best wishes! ❤️🙏

Hi Seaturtle

That is a good summary of your understanding about the schemas. I would recommend taking a look at a list of schemas and see if you think there might be any others as well as the ones you have already mentioned. Abuse tends to give you quite a few.

The good thing is that you are very driven when it comes to healing and overcoming your trauma. This part of you, the intuition, the healthy boundaries part of you fought against the schemas and it won! You sought to end a relationship that was unhealthy and which was incompatible with you. You have done really well in taking care of yourself!

I just mentioned schemas because when dating they can create feelings of attraction for people that you aren’t compatible with. It is something to be mindful of in the future. That is not to say that you will only be attracted to people who trigger your schemas. Just being more aware of what you do and don’t want in a relationship and keeping yourself accountable to that can be helpful in navigating these things.

Yes, you really did go through a lot as a child. It is not an easy thing.

I see, as a child you had a pattern of apology and telling your father about something not to do with him that would make him empathise with you to resolve conflict.

And with your ex you had a similar pattern in that when a disagreement was happening, you would ask him to empathise with how he had hurt you. To which he often refused. He would comfort you instead when you had dropped the issue.

That sounds quite manipulative to me, choosing to comfort you when you drop the issue. I’m really sorry that happened. When you describe how he was, he seems very avoidant.

Feeling emotionally unsafe during a disagreement is called an emotional flashback. It seems like you are brought back to emotions and patterns that you experienced during disagreements with your father. Just a more adult version. If that makes sense?

It depends on what helps you. Everyone is different. But yes, the goal is to stay calm during disagreements. One thing that helps me is to remove myself from the situation for a short time. Sometimes turning away and not looking at the person helps me. Sometimes staying silent helps me to control myself.

There are flashbacks that you can make to reassure yourself. If you memorise it or stored it on your phone that could be helpful. So the point is to recollect the past event, show your past self empathy and to separate it from the present, then to reassure yourself.

I’m going to give an example of what mine looks like.

When I was a child my mother was very unsafe. I was terrified when she would get angry at me and hurt me for no reason. I didn’t deserve that, I deserved to be loved and taken care of. These memories make me feel scared during disagreements. It is July 2024, I’m safe at home. I’m an adult and I can protect myself in ways that I could not as a child.

Yes these things are very difficult. It is a delicate balance because at the same time as being vulnerable, validating your partner, being assertive and managing your boundaries are all important. It is a very complicated skill to learn. It doesn’t mean tolerating an abusive situation.

I would agree that the break up was awful and he was intentionally trying to hurt you. Yes, people can act out of character when they are extremely stressed but that is also part of their character if that makes sense? There is a pattern of behaviour during times of stress.

I think that he was manipulative and avoidant and refused to show empathy at times. Not all times, you have shown that he is capable of empathy sometimes. Generally, it seems like his goal was to get you to stop. Not to necessarily hurt you. Though you definitely did get hurt.

You mentioned that earlier in the relationship he was a bit kinder to you?

I think that maybe with your ex, it was a bit of both? There were things that he did wrong which made it harder to trust. But at the same time, the trauma with your father was still present. Remember that your ex reminded you of your father sometimes?

I think not trusting your dad was about his unfair treatment of you.

Whether you have trust issues with everyone during disagreements is only a question that you can answer yourself. Personally, I do experience trust issues with everyone during disagreements, to varying degrees. If someone hurts me intentionally it gets really hard. Swearing, insults, yelling are things trigger me. Keeping difficult conversations very calm is helpful to me. There are some techniques to do that like only one person should speak for 5 minutes and then switch. And setting a 30 minute time limit on disagreements.

Fireworks are awesome! It sounds like you had a really good time. 😊

You’re doing a really good job taking care of everything. If only money grew on trees. Haha.

My son is growing really quickly and crawling already. I’m getting addicted to buying him things. 😂 I’m definitely doing better than I was. Still getting there. Babies are hard work and we don’t have help from family or a sitter so it is non-stop. It is okay, I am used to it by now. The next goal is teaching him to walk.

Love and best wishes! ❤️🙏

Hi Carol

It is good to hear that you are handling things a lot better and enjoying happiness in various aspects of your life.

I suppose that it is only human to have ebbs and flows of emotion when we think of someone who was close to us.

Thank you for your kindness and compassion too! I am okay with what happened.

I hope that you enjoy the events with your new friends. 😊

I see, so you have already told your friend how you feel. That is a shame that she lied to you when you asked her about it and treat you like that anyway.

You don’t have to make the decision now. There is plenty of time. Just enjoy your peace. Things will happen when they are meant to.

I don’t think your decision to hold off for now is unhealthy. You are simply doing what is best for you. 😊 I am sure that you will handle this when you are ready.

Love and best wishes! ❤️🙏

Hi Chau

If the break is too hard and you would prefer to break up instead that is a decision that you could make. You just have to be sure that is what you really want.

Are you okay with giving up on the relationship? The only way to know is to wait until you feel calmer. It is not a good idea to make a decision when you are feeling emotional.

I feel like you have been through so much it could be a valid decision if you decide that is what you want, but at the same time you have been so hard on wanting to stay together.

Perhaps this is an opportunity for you to think about what you want too?

Love and best wishes! ❤️🙏

Hi Seaturtle

Happy 4th of July!

Thanks for letting me know! That was very kind of you. I look forward to reading your message. I’m sure it will be through soon enough. 😊

Love and best wishes! ❤️🙏

*you are perfect how you are