I just don’t know what I was expecting from it anymore. It’s practically useless to me. The only relieving thing about it is talking about what I’m going through to another living being, but when you see how confused and judgmental they look…ugh.
My therapist is a chatty, very North Jersey woman. Nice, but oh gosh I can tell she doesn’t understand a lick of what I’m telling her. So far she has called my voices my “thoughts” and my “imaginary friends.” I’ve attempted to explain numerous times that my voices are people and various entities that I speak with on a regular basis but she just doesn’t get it. She also doesn’t understand how I’m so self-aware of everything I go through and I feel that she thinks I’m faking it or something like that. This is incredibly ironic because I’m trying to be absolutely candid this time around, and not leave anything out or try to twist anything to make it seem like something it’s not. I mean, I should be patient because I know it’s a crap ton of information to take in. I’m horribly confused by it all and I’ve had 19 years experience with it.
It’s just…I always wanted therapy to be a journey I took with someone else. Someone who would look beyond textbook definitions and work with me to study my mind to understand what’s really going on and why I go through the things I do. Instead, since I don’t have a cut and dry black and white case, it’s more like a bunch of awkward fumbling around and I actually know more about what’s going on with me than the professionals. (My therapist said the psychiatrist told her the lights I saw might be a precursor to a seizure. This is wrong because 1) Auras are lights people see before they get MIGRAINES not seizures, and from what I’ve seen of those lights they look nothing like mine, not to mention that I don’t get headaches with the lights at all. And 2) If I was epileptic it would DEFINITLEY be known by now) Unfortunately for me I’m also at this awful point where because I know so much and have studied so many possible options, it lends less credibility to what I’ve experienced. The more people know that I know, the more they think I’m just making stuff up or being a hypochondriac. It’s immensely frustrating. I REALIZE I have an abnormally high level of self-awareness. It even carries over into when I’m sleeping. I have an ability to separate myself from my emotions, thoughts and environment and view them objectively and that’s just something I do. And all the things I’ve come to realize by myself, like patterns in my delusions and negative thought processes and the link between my psychoses and anxiety and ALL of that, they don’t believe I discovered myself. It confuses them. They just don’t understand. And to be honest, I don’t think anyone ever will. I was the one who was stuck with (but also blessed with) this ridiculous mind and it looks like I will always be my own best therapist. The rest have nothing to offer me.
Basically I’m at my wits end and don’t know what to do. Anyone have any alternative therapy stories or ideas? My therapist suggested hypnotism. I’m going to see the psychiatrist she set me up with in a couple weeks, but I’m not expecting a diagnosis. After that, I’m probably going to quit going to therapy there altogether.
Maybe try one of the jungian therapies as it’a bit more spiritual and I think you would respond better to it. Try not to get despondent with It all. It does take time to build up trust and momentum in therapy sometimes. But you do get a lot more out of it if you do connect with your therapist and will be a lot faster. Only real tip I can pass on is all anyones really ever told me about therapy and I hear it a lot. Is if you feel drained after the session it’s a sign of a really good therapist.
Have you told her how you felt about her and the therapy she is providing? Maybe you need to clear the air there. That might open some dialogue. And from there you can see if you want to continue seeing her or not.
Where the heck does one find a Jungian therapist? I haven’t even heard of that. Sounds interesting though I love Jung and his teachings. I swear it’s all cognitive behavioral nowadays, which is nice and great for some people, but as a person who’s already deeply aware of my own thought processes it’s kind of useless for me.
Google is your friend…So is the phone book…Let your fingers do the walking. Searching the net one day I found a database of all the therapists, support groups, Psychiatrists, just about everything to do with mental health help for my state in Australia. Start by googling all the therapists in your local area. Take your time looking though. Think I did it over a few days before I found the database. Also look for psychotherapy associations etc. Often they have links to the members sites so you get more of an idea of who your dealing with.
Frankly speaking, I personally don’t know if I am getting much from talking to my therapist - when we talk we discuss my meds a bit - I mean I need medication management - talking about my symptoms dont make them go away.
I have done CBT in the past - my current therapist does not seem motivated enough to get involved in any kind of therapy treatment. I am seeing less of her, now its every 2 weeks instead of every week.
I mean she is a nice lady - but I am finding therapy much less effective than medication management
@Wave Maybe something to think about anyway but maybe you’ve got all you can from that therapist. A perfect world the therapists would tell us when it’s time to move onto the next therapist but it’s far from a perfect world.
Since I am doing better lately - I dont feel the need to discuss a lot of things. Maybe therapy is not a big priority in my life right now - years ago, since I was not doing as well, I got more out of seeing my last therapist
Voices are not thoughts. If they were you could stop them. I know they are not other people they’re just voices. They are not thoughts though they are something else.
Some of them just exist in my head. They’re parts of me. I don’t understand how to explain it. Some of them are in other places, like God, the angels I speak with (more rarely), my spirit guides, the demons. They AREN’T my thoughts. I can clearly distinguish when it’s my own thoughts and when they’re talking to me.
It’s evident to me that my therapist was not trained to handle this sort of thing. I feel like the only reason I was placed with her was because she was the only one who’s schedule matched up with mine. The first guy I spoke to, he’s the head therapist or something, he seemed to get what I was saying, like he understood. I felt more comfortable with him to be honest.
Every time I try to find a therapist that specializes in these things, they defer me to a normal therapist because you have to be referred to the specialists. It’s a waste of my time because I already know what I’m going through and re-telling my story to numerous different people is exhausting and incredibly stressful to me.
What are your voices like. I got the trailing bullying kind. They are always there when I’m alone. They are pretty quiet these days and hopefully they continue to do so. I’ve had a rough couple of years all I want is to have my old mind back.
i am on the waiting list for therapy but to be honest? the first time i saw her, i wasn’t impressed at all so i don’t think it’s going to go well. but i’ll give it a shot.
My voices are weird because they aren’t just disembodied voices, I’ve seen them before, in my dreams. Sometimes they hang around there. There’s Gunn, Norda, Lou, Gladys, Claire, Gregory and Cassy. And then there’s my spirit guides, Gloria, Thomas and Arthur. Then God, Jesus, my guardian angel Azriel, and then the demons and the devil.
All of them have different personalities and I have different relationships with each of them. Like Norda is all over the place, she’s a bit younger than me and is incredibly impulsive and emotionally explosive. Then there’s Claire who’s like 10-12 and she’s so sweet but she’s also always scared and messed up. Gunn is a goofy teen who helps me remember things. Like if I don’t know where I parked in at the grocery store I can ask him and he tells me where to go. He’s cool. Gladys is super-controlling and really intimidating. Cassy is basically a little brat who’s around the same age as Claire. She’s…scary. Completely sociopathic and has no notion of morality. She has caused me a LOT of trouble in my dreams(so have Norda, Gladys and Lou). Lou is this suave, charming guy who’s also deeply manipulative and pretty evil, though he tries to cover it up. I can tell he’s bad because he always has shadows around him when I see him in my dreams. Gregory is really moody and he’s my age. Doesn’t really talk to any of the rest of us much. He’s just pissed off all the time, and really cynical. Sometimes he comes up with really cool sounding poems though. The Professor is a stuffy old guy who loves to study everything around him.
Gloria helps me with motivation and being a good person, and is also extremely comforting to me. Thomas helps me stay organized and is also very kind. Arthur is my spiritual teacher who helps me with things of that nature. The rest I feel are self-explanatory. The only really evil ones who are malicious towards me and always tell me awful things are the demons. They’ll curse me out, call me a monster, a whore, the list goes on. They’ll tell me to kill myself or things like God doesn’t love me, I’m alone, they’re going to take me to Hell when I die, etc.
I try to ignore them.
But yeah my “voices” are really complex. The closest thing I’ve found to them is Dissociative Identity Disorder (multiple personality) but they never take over or anything so it isn’t that.
The thing is I WANT to explore what’s going on with my brain. I want to talk about it and mull over it in a non-judging environment where I can have a professional guide me and provide helpful, secondary insight. I love to analyze everything, which is how I’ve come so far and taught myself so many coping methods. Understanding has also helped make things a lot less scary for me too. I want therapy, just…not this kind.
your post interests me greatly. i love to hear what other voice hearers hear as it only strengthens my belief in my own voices being a product of my own mind. they have better memory capacity than me and around the time my spelling deteriorated, my voices pipe up like a ■■■■■■■ spell checker. if i forget something my two main voices will remember it like my pin number or card number or phone number. they try and use this as proof of telepathy but i don’t buy into it and your story has just proved how diverse and wiley voices can be. so thanks for that hunni
