What's my Therapist Missing?

[Gladys]

I'm seeing a Cognitive Behavioural Therapist.

Her approach is to address my anxious episodes through their behaviours. The idea being that the emotions behind the behaviour will change too.

What she's missing is that sometimes the emotions behind the behaviours don't leave ever.

My husband was murdered and statistics say the grief period for murder can go on forever. So I have memories; terrible ones.

I discussed with the CBT therapist I may be suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. She thinks not.

During the weeks I have been seeing this therapist, I feel that anxiety symptoms have not subsided, but been highlighted and that I will never move on.

How do I get the therapist to look at PTSD and everthing it involves?

[Gladys]

Thanks for your reply, Kevin. I was hoping you would. I like your staightforward viewpoint.

I'm sorry for your personal experience and I'm proud of your responses to it since. If I could take those nightmare memories from your head, I would.

I think you're right, in that statistics show us nothing. How we respond as individuals over time is the only gauge we should have to know how we're dealing with life events.

I should try to explain myself a bit better though. I've been seeing this CBT therapist for about 5 weeks. Since then, I've gone backwards, in that I go out even less and the panic and depression is worse for me. It's already affected every area of my life, so I have to seek some change.

I wrote that last post before I went to see the therapist. I was in the middle of a deep depression so I paid some rent over the phone, hoping it'd make me feel better! I was going to cancel the appointment with the therapist, but I decided to be honest about how I felt. As you know, there are some things we bury so deep that just being able to talk about them is a major step.

I said I thought she was missing something by not addressing the PTSD, as I'd gone backward in my behaviours. The therapist suggested we talk about the murder issue and it's effects on me over the next five weeks we have left to see eachother.

When I got back home, I looked up the effects of PTSD on a sufferer. They fit with me. Now, I sense that you don't like the contraints of a label on anyone. I try to be non - judgemental with other people too. It's just that it seems that every therapist I've seen is being lied to by me or not wanting to suggest the truth. I can't go on like that. I've got to ask, Kevin, why I've gone backwards with my mental health, rather than stayed the same as I was before seeing the therapist. So I will keep trying to find someone who'll acknowledge what's wrong with me.

Your posts, as always, are thought - provoking. The last one making me realise that my hell isn't the only one.

[Gladys]

Dear Kevin,

Did I sound concerned for you. Didn't mean to. It's just that my friend stayed with me for a few months. I was the first person she'd told since her abuse of the angst she was going through for what was her abusers crime! It took her over thirty years to trust anyone enough to tell them that secret. So when I hear about someone who's trying to confront it, I'm glad. I suppose I'm in awe really.

You've realised that you can talk about surrounding events rather than the event itself. You're right, that's not unlike me, and the fact that the therapy isn't right for me is partially due to that fact.

I do have a supporting group who have been in a similar place to me and I don't know what I'd do without them. However, I've got to aim for change for myself.

Why do I need a label. Partially because talking about what has given me anxiety is a good starting point, especially as changing behaviours with therapy isn't really working. I feel I need to point doctors in the right direction about me; they need a starting point.

What you seem to realise is that you need to take your anxieties on board for yourself, and accept that they are your responsibilities. This says to me that you know therapy etc is only support for what you know you have to do yourself. You really are brave.

You face the long distance driving, in the knowledge that it isn't always pleasant for you. You have a good commonsense and informative reply to all of the replies I've seen you give to people here. I admire that too.

Take care.



Gladys