I agree with this, but because I factor it in, I can get my point across better. I ‘tone down’ some of the things I communicate. If I said things like I really felt, then I’d get nowhere.
Does it really matter if she believes you if you live with an abusive family or not? What good will it do her believing you or not? It’s not like she can do anything about it. I don’t doubt that you are in an abusive situation, but do you need validation of it from someone else? Maybe your therapist is trying to help you see things from a different perspective?
I had the same sensation. I don’t doubt that Wave is in an abusive family either. My therapist had to struggle to convince me that I was being too negative because my ego wasn’t letting me see the reality. Sometimes therapists don’t say what we want to hear from them.
When we have been convinced through actions, in actions and words that there is something ‘wrong’ with us and we finally go to a helping professional such as a therapist, counselor or psychologist ~ if that mental health professional defends our parents, or focuses on US as the problem it serves us as confirmation that we are in fact the problem and it is very much a re-traumatization. Mental health professionals have tons of positional power ~ they are endorsed and accredited as being able to help and therefore we often see them as an even bigger authority then the way that we saw our parents when we were kids, so if they AGREE with our parents or if they focus with us on what WE could do or could have done differently, it very often causes a bigger problem than the one we went to talk about.
Just as abuse and neglect invalidated me as a child, a therapist who asks me what I could have done better or differently, or asks me to understand the abuser by suggesting that they did the best they could or suggests that I was part of the problem ~ those things all VALIDATE the abuser, controller or caregiver or whoever had the power in the situation I am talking about. Sometimes worse was when the therapist remained neutral. In all cases I was still stuck in the pain of the story. When a therapist or helping professional has any of those reactions they aren’t HELPING.
I hate when in AA they say stuff like “feelings aren’t facts” and "you’re only as sick as your secrets"
Try telling me that when I think I’ve got a satellite pointed up my ass and I’m calling the FDA hotline to ask them if they pointed a laser beam in my direction.
The truth is @Wave. That very few people out there actually know what they are talking about. And any opportunity to put someone down they will take to make themselves feel important. Therapists are notorious for being fruit cakes and some of them have almost as hard of a time coping with life as some of us do.
Think the reality is whatever you are going through or have gone through there will always be someone going through a great deal worse. I think this is mostly what my tdocs, pdocs etc have been trying to convey to me. I think that holds for everyone. I’m not trying to dismiss what you are going through right now as I know you’re having a hell of a time with it all atm. Just try not to rationalize it all. Things can and will get better.
Drive me crazy to, cops do it a lot. had a break in and they asked if I had a doctor I could talk to, slashed tire, $500.00 out of my bank account, doctor and police are you sure it really happened and their probably thinking I did it myself. One told me I should see a therapist, told them they probably need to more than me.
Have some fun with it. Refuse to believe people when they tell you they aren’t mentally ill. Mention several indicators that they are noticeably mentally ill and watch for any ‘tells’ to see if you are getting to them.
I’m sorry your having to deal with all this stuff @Wave, it’s bad enough to have to live in an abusive situation but for others to not take you seriously adds insult to injury.
I’ve been in the same boat at you, and when others just stood there blinking at me as I was describing the situation…urgh it pisses me off still to this day.
I finally gave up talking about things, (but never stopped believing in myself that what I experienced was and is true.
This year after having to care for my mom and explaining things (once again) to her, she got upset and kept saying, I wished you would have told me what was going on, but I had told her, she just brushed me off saying she was too busy to get involved!
Keep on talking to people until you get one who does believe in you because it does matter,
It makes all the difference in the world when you know you have been heard~and believed.
There were times, like when I was fighting a commitment in court, that I really wished people didn’t believe I had a severe mental illness. Now I think a few people are trying to get me certified as sane so I can’t get disability. If that did happen I would have no choice but to get off my med’s so I can work outdoors. I’m just not fast enough to work in the fast food industry. I also might have to work on losing my gut, because I think it causes me back problems. My back was killing me yesterday when I was cleaning the toilets at our clubhouse.
With me they wrote the phrase " Has difficulties with perception".
As for therapists; I have yet to meet one that wasn’t a pig ignorant, narcissistic, twat, but accept I may have just been unlucky and that decent ones may exist.