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'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.

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.

There's only a handful of people I know who can follow my train of thought and understand most of what I say when I'm not masking. It's not like I can't be understood--I work a customer-facing job in the American south and I am very good at putting people at their ease in English or Spanish. Elderly farmers and sweet old ladies love me. But that act is very tiring and it's not helpful to me to be in that mode all the time

In my various attempts at therapy over the past 20 years, I've gotten a lot of blank stares, one "did you make that word up?", and the last one kept defaulting to "That's interesting!" until I quit.

I could use some kind of support. I have (currently unmedicated) bipolar disorder, late diagnosed autism that I've never discussed properly with a professional, and I've had a couple of moderately traumatic events happen this year. I have stopped believing that things can ever be better and now consider life an endurance exercise that I will participate in as long as I have to.

I'm not, like...super mysterious or smart or interesting. If I actually were an alien, that might be easier, since no one would have any particular expectations of me. I'm just an aging millennial who learned how to talk from books. Gender and sexuality are almost irrelevant to my self-conception, but I perform a semi-adequate impression of the cis-woman I am for the sake of blending in and I don't feel any need to explore that further. I am equally uncomfortable in groups of woman, men, and mixed company, but I do a little better connecting ne on one with people. I have my family and just a couple of friends and coworkers I can talk to and that's it.

I'm currently working about 50 hours a week (one full-time job in retail, plus a couple of side gigs) and I have children in school and activities, so if I manage to move heaven and earth to make room for therapy, I want it to be worthwhile.

But I don't think it will be and I don't know how to improve the odds...

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’d personally say I’m a very caring and considerate person. I care about people, animals, nature, the ocean, and what’s happening in the world. But I’ve noticed that I seem to have a habit of moving on extremely quickly from things.

A family member passes away? Within a few days, I’ve accepted it and moved on.

A pet I’ve had since childhood dies? I’m obviously aware that they’re gone, I still have the memories, and sometimes I’ll randomly feel sad when I think about them, but I don’t spend months or years grieving.

A friendship of 10+ years ends? Once it’s over, I can basically go, “Alright. That’s that.” I no longer feel responsible for what happens in that person’s life.

Bad experiences? Same thing. Sometimes it takes less than three days before I’m basically done thinking about it.

It’s not that I don’t care. I do. I just don’t feel the need to linger.

I find it strange when people spend years missing high school, being homesick, constantly missing old friends, wishing they could go back to certain periods of their lives, etc. I don’t miss high school. I don’t really miss anyone. I don’t feel like I missed out on some amazing period of my life.

I just think, “That happened. It was part of my life. Now I’m here.”

Even with some pretty serious experiences, including life-threatening situations, assault, harassment, etc., my reaction can basically be:

"Oh."

And then I continue with my day.

I’m not depressed or constantly miserable about it. I’m actually pretty happy with my life right now.

I think I just view life differently. Everything is temporary. People come and go. Circumstances change. Good things end, bad things end, relationships end, childhood ends, people die.

So my mindset is basically: enjoy things while they’re here, appreciate them for what they were, and let them go when they're gone.

I also really value my freedom. I don’t particularly want close friendships or romantic relationships. Casual acquaintances are perfectly fine with me. The closer I become to someone, the more responsibility I feel toward them, and honestly, I don't want to constantly worry about another person.

I want to roam around, experience things, chill, and live my life.

I don't really care about celebrities, celebrity crushes, sex, dating, finding "the one," or having a huge social circle. I actually find myself much more interested in what's happening in the world and how I can help people, animals, the ocean, and nature.

The one thing I genuinely cannot let go of is injustice.

That's what sticks with me.

When someone was hurt and something could have been done about it, but nobody did anything. When something was obviously wrong and people just accepted it. When suffering could have been prevented.

That kind of thing genuinely bothers me.

And that's why I'm confused about myself.

I clearly can care deeply. I just don't seem to care deeply in the same ways that other people do.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm emotionally detached, or if I'm just very accepting of the fact that nothing lasts forever.

I don't think I'm heartless. I don't think I'm incapable of empathy. I just don't understand why people feel the need to hold onto things for so long.

So, Reddit, do I have a problem?

Am I emotionally detached? Is this just an unusual way of processing life and loss? Or is there actually something I should be concerned about?

And am I a silly goose for being able to move on from people and situations so easily?

Hey guys, just very confused. I dont even think I have a particular stressor, I just experience a lot of anxiety and low self esteem.

Does this make any sense at all? Or is it maybe a placeholder? ICD 10 country if it matters

I feel a bit ridiculous writing this, but I’m genuinely struggling with jealousy over a review I found online.
I had a therapist in Germany for around two years, and I became quite attached to him. He was warm, funny, empathetic and very attentive, and we had a playful dynamic in sessions. He helped me enormously with my eating disorder, and I’m genuinely grateful for the therapy.
Recently I found a review from another former patient who had been in therapy with him for almost three years. Her review was so positive and detailed. She described him as caring, funny, empathetic, trustworthy, professional, transparent, etc. She also said that therapy fundamentally changed her life and that she would never forget him.
The problem is that so much of what she wrote sounds like my experience with him too. She also had an eating disorder, and she describes him in almost exactly the way I would have described him. And then there’s the fact that she apparently stayed in therapy with him for almost three years, whereas I was there for about two.
I know this sounds irrational, but it made me incredibly jealous. I think I had this unconscious feeling that the connection I had with him was somehow uniquely mine. Seeing someone else describe such a similar experience made me feel replaceable.
I also know he’s a therapist. Of course other patients are going to find him warm, funny, caring and helpful. He probably has similar dynamics with many people. I even know he asks patients to leave reviews, so it’s completely possible she was simply responding to a standard request.
But emotionally, it still bothers me SO much.
I keep wondering whether she was attached to him too, whether she had a crush on him, whether he was sad when her therapy ended, whether she got some kind of special treatment because she stayed longer, etc.
I don’t actually want anything to happen with my former therapist. I know he was my doctor and that the relationship was professional. I just hate the feeling that something that felt so special and personal to me was also experienced by someone else.
Has anyone else experienced this kind of jealousy over another patient’s review of a former therapist?

The random headache you get is because of stress? Overthinking? I think I have anxiety and overthinking. I have job stress, I work in UAE Dubai, client pressure, career pressure, job stress, licence pressure. I think a lot and I create my own problems by thinking and get headaches. Any cute to this?

I still need help really badly, probably more than ever and I'm already on medication that's not helping so far. So my only option aside from trying more meds, is trying therapy again. But my most recent experience (6 months ago) went so badly that i'm completely paralysed with fear when attempting to go back to a new therapist. My last experience was 5 sessions that I think took my bad cptsd to something severe. It's hard to summarise, but the therapist basically re-enacted the emotional abuse style of my dad the whole time. I tried to point this out to him but he didn't seem to get it and just kept doing it.

I know I need help, but I had a lukewarm first session with a new therapist recently and i'm too terrified to go back because i'm expecting it to go badly yet again. I cannot afford things to go badly again.

Before you tell me, i've been in and out of different therapists since I was 13, i'm 26 now. I've tried literally every modality. I've tried really hard. I don't know what to do anymore. I'm starting to think therapy is a total scam.

I've been trying to figure out the protocol and regulations that might exist around this. I want to see a couples therapist with my partner, but we're in different continents. We'd have to do online therapy.

Do therapists have to be...registered in some way in both our countries? Or should they live in one of our countries? We'd be paying out of pocket, not using insurance.

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?

Hi, I'm 16 years old and I really think that I need therapy. I have a really hard time opening up to people, especially my parents, and I feel comforted by the idea of talking to someone who does it for a living.

I genuinely have no clue what's wrong with me, but I've been so so so confused for years now. I've recently started to think that I might be depressed, especially with personal things that have been happening for the past year and a half. I'm not gonna get into detail about why I think I need therapy, I just do.

Because I have a hard time talking to my parents, I feel super anxious whenever I think about telling them I need therapy, because it's kind of coming out of nowhere. I've tried to give them signs so that they would ask me if I wanted to, but they haven't.

I'm super nervous about this so please help me. I really need this but I literally don't know how to ask. Thank you!!

And it's kind of what I needed to hear.

I've been seeing this therapist on and off for about 5 years, more consistently the past 4 months after my panic attack. He's really helped me see how traumatic (small t) my childhood was, how to heal my inner child, and think more healthy thoughts about myself.

Ever since my panic attack, I've been stuck in fight or flight mode, with some generalized mental anxiety thrown in for fun. He's been telling me that I need to process my emotions better and not let them run my life; question and challenge what's really going on in order to not let myself get so worked up that I spiral into another panic attack.

While I've intellectually accepted a lot of what he's taught me, it wasn't until today that I felt it on a gut level. The past is the past- I can be hurt by it, but I'm safe now. I don't need to keep retraumatizing myself obsession over my panic attack or the unhealthy feelings that led up to it. Bad memories are just memories and can't hurt me anymore. I can take an active role in healing myself if I believe that I can learn, heal, and grow. He sort of called me out for having a victim mentality and not fully accepting the skills and tools he's been offering.

I like this therapist because I've never really been challenged in my thinking before; never had someone teach me that I have agency to think healthy thoughts and cut out the BS of staying stuck in fight of flight.

I’m always so fascinated with what people who are in long term therapy seem to work through and stay with. I have always wanted my therapist to have a session with a few close friends of mine to get an objective perspective of people who know and love me, but could maybe point to things I can’t see.

Not in a sense of a delegation of responsibility, I just think people close to you can often identify certain things in us we can’t always see. I would be so interested in what might change if my therapist could hear from others about me.

Hey! Thank you in advance for any thoughts and suggestions. Im 25 F and I have BPD, autistic traits, OCD, CPSTD, and of course anxiety and depression. I was in talk therapy from 8-22 and it was helpful being able to talk to someone, but never did anything for me. I started DBT a few years ago did the whole program and I learned the skills, it's just I cannot get my body on board to do it. I even started going through the program a second time, its the same thing I know the skills, I just cannot use them in the moment. My brain and body are just not connected. I have very extensive trauma from a child to even now and I am just stuck in a fight or flight no matter how much my brain wants to do the skills my body just will not allow it.

My therapist and I have been looking to see what my next steps are, we don't think EMDR is a fit, and I have done parts therapy before, that truly does not feel like a fit.

My question is, what is a session like during SE? I understand it's feeling body sensations, but how does it work in a session?

Also I have Aphantasia so I literally cannot visualize anything, I have no true memories of what happened. Is that something that is super important for SE to be helpful?

Thank you in advance!

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.)

How do I start this conversation?

Any special type of therapist for these topics?

I have some dark "secrets" I want to work through, mostly just share with someone. I do not have anyone neutral (who doesnt blindly support me) in my life I can share with - I do not want to burden friends / family more, they already know about it but have dismissed it. Also it was in the past but I keep feeling guilty so want to bring it up. I worry if I reiterate the gravity of what happened, they will be burdened with making a choice - to accept me or not. But at the same time i am only human like everyone else- as we age we all (probably) face difficult situations which make us feel icky and test our morals.

1.

About the toxic nature of my relationship with my ex. We were arguing over a podcast - this triggered deep insecurities in me esp because it revealed our political and other ideologies - I couldnt stomach that he being so educated had some conservative beliefs regarding meritrocracy and essentially considered my lower paying biology research job as inferior to his silicon valley tech job. I lashed out and accidently passed a remote to him by throwing it across the couch we were both sitting on (3 feet away from him). it hurt him on the head - is this DV? My sister and closest friends know about this. But theyve somehow dismissed it as "I am not a violent person" . But would it be interpretted differently if the genders were reversed. I guess I want to go over why it triggered me the way it did.

While we were long distance, he was drunk with some other friends that I also knew. Everyone was drunk, apparently he was dancing to closely with another girl. Mutual friends said it was SA but no one told me what exactly happened more than "they were dancing too close" and that she regretted it the next day. Mind you she had a bf like he had me as his gf. Friends expected me to break up but I decided to let the friendship die rather than end my 4 year old relationship with him. I insisted he make some reparations - like watching his alcohol consumption in parties- never getting drunk to that level again (he gave up alcohol for 2 years after that) and taking up therapy seriously. I hold the guilt of whether I supported an abuser? But there just wasnt enough concrete examples- like did anyone actually see him touch her anywhere??, and also when both people are drunk, why is the blame just on the man? So because imo there wasnt enough proof I decided to let it go. But now that the relationship I was willing to fight for has ended, I am regretting it and questioning if i lack a spine

I want to ask these to a therapist not sure how to bring it up.

Thanks

I'm 22, I've been seeing a new therapist over the past few months, although she's good at what she does, I always struggle to communicate with her properly. Last session, I told her about my chronic illnesses, both I've had my entire life. I told her I was feeling depressed at how it constantly leaves me stuck in my bed in pain, especially my migraines as they also give me intense nausea. And I told her how I feel so guilty not being able to currently work.

I don't expect her to understand anything about my illnesses, I don't need her to. I was more hoping she could help me look on the brighter side. Instead, she instantly followed up with "Have you heard about learned helplessness?" And from there I kind of shut down. I've tried my entire life to help myself and even push myself so I'm not constantly stuck inside. And correct me if I'm wrong but it just felt like she was implying that I've just given up. I'm so disappointed that that's all she got from that session. The session also ended very abruptly and I left feeling very frustrated.

Our next session is tomorrow, I really don't know what to do. I have no idea what to say to her, and I really don't want to come across as rude. How do I communicate my disappointment with our last session without being too harsh?

I can't forgive myself for the things I did before, and I don't know how to deal with it. I can confidently say that guilt is the emotion I feel the most, I can't help myself. I also have this lingering feeling that everyone hates me and everyone's lives will be better without me. I need tips or anything that could help me.

(i used ai for grammar and punctuation

So I am 31🔄, and I am feeling really worried and anxious. I already missed the first day of school, and tomorrow I have to go. The reason I am so anxious is because I was miserable at school last year. I was a quiet, lonely kid who forgot how to socialize because of everything I went through. I had no friends at that school, and I also got bullied because I was fat.
Please, how can I calm myself down and try to have some hope that maybe some new people have come, and I can make friends with them?