New therapist and life situations but same problem- fear.

New therapist and life situations but same problem- fear.

DanielQ432

Registrant
New therapist for about 3 months. New job for 6 months. Everything in my life comes down to disfunction - my coping methods are inappropriate and don’t benefit, actually worsen, everything in the long term.

I told this T day 1 I wanted to focus on real-world, CBT types of practices to try to change things. But everything he suggests seems pointless to me - like everything every T I’ve ever seen has suggested seems pointless. I know that is functionally self-defeating and essentially self-fulfilling prophecy.

No one gets it - or if they do, either there is no solution and it’s literally hopeless, or no one has found one yet for me.

Fear - 24/7, 365 fear that leads to a constant state of anxiety and depression. It isn’t even rooted in SA experiences from early childhood, it’s specifically rooted in physical abuse experiences. Specifically, he pushed or threw me down stairs when I was about 2 and cornered me and hit/beat/punched me several times at 3-4. Those are the physical body memories that come up whenever I have a negative real-life experience. The psychological abuse I grew up with from him just “piles on” to the physical - guilt, shame, feelings of gross inadequacy, and especially feeling like I cannot make any mistakes, ever, because the cost of making a mistake is far too high.

I don’t want to get myself into a bad situation like I did in the past, so I really can’t be honest with either MD or psychologist about how stressed out I am and where those thoughts take me, and I hate that too- but it is what it is.

I have to ask myself what I really want - collapse into it, stay with the status quo, or look for different alternatives. I’m not ready to quit yet, so I guess I will have to look at really different approaches like new drugs or therapies - I guess they are using things like nerve blocks and drugs like ecstasy now to try to treat PTSD, but who knows if it’s actually available?
 
I should have added this - cowardice is the real problem- we all have fear. It’s how you react to it. Someone I’ve met recently on the new job surprised me by telling me he was in a lot of legal trouble as a teen because he was hyper-agressive and got into fights and hurt people due to acting out as a result of growing up with an alcoholic single mother. My instantaneous thought was “well, I wish that extra testosterone and whatever else made you that way came in a shot or pill, because I desperately need that.”

I’m just the beaten dog who cowers and pisses every time anyone raises a hand anywhere even close to it. And to cope with that, I avoid, self-abuse with unhealthy behavior and live a life I hate.
 
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