[NeuroBeautiful]

In the summer of 2012, when I first started being active here, I decide to go to therapy. I was 18 years old and had vague recollections of playing with play dough at a therapy outpatient clinic and coloring pictures of cats at school under the "school counselor" (quotes because I highly doubt she was at all certified)

It is already 2021. I have been through a dozen or more therapists. I finally started trauma specialized therapy in 2019 but I honestly don't feel like I'm benefiting. I am starting to get skeptical about intern therapists just saying "yeah, that makes sense. Your feeling are valid". That doesn't feel like therapy.

I switched to a non intern who specializes in EMDR and trauma and eating disorders. I won't try EMDR any time soon but I thought specialising in trauma would be good for me.

For the record, she is sweet and understanding and I feel like I can actually have a conversation with her and not feel like I'm talking to a wall who just nods and says they feel x emotions also because it is normal. And I don't have to be like listen, don't tell me you feel rage on a daily basis that's ridiculous and a flat out lie. Your headphone cord getting stuck in the door knob while you're "jammimg" is not an example of RAGE.

The therapist I have no isn't bad. We have been meeting weekly for about 3 months. She seems to want me to tell her the direction and "what works for me". She said she personalizes for each client. There are some clients who just want to vent and other clients who want more structure. She wants to know what I want.

I told her i have a fear with every therapist that thry wouldn't be able to help me and that I'm feeling it with her too. When I get too much of it in my hands, it makes me feel like the therapist is stepping away too much.

She told me to come up with some things I would like to work on. I came up so far with this

1. understanding and communicating healthy boundaries. I tend to have a hard time understanding where I end and the other person begins. I end up getting taken advantage of or in into emotional relationships with unhealthy people. This is something that continuously occurs. I keep getting involved in toxic situations and get retraumatized
2. This one is a little more abstract. When I think about healing trauma, I think of integrating the traumatic wounds in a way that it is more meaningful to my life rather than pulling me down. I want my pain to have a purpose. I want to understand my life from a zoomed out big picture lens and rework how I see and tell my life story.
3. Perhaps working on a book together would be helpful. I benefit from writing and processing. So maybe I need a kind of therapy that involves reflecting on my own and then sharing with the therapist once a week. Maybe we can alternate between meeting on zoom and just communicating by email. I don't know.


I suffer from depression, anxiety and cptsd. I however realize that it isn't just the disorders I need to overcome but rather, due to developmental trauma I'm pretty much an orphan and there are everyday things I need support and coaching like related to career or life goals that kind of just have to do with the fact that I don't have any parental support with figuring those things out. Ideally a parent would nurture a child's interests and support the individual they are growing up to be. But I never had that. So I have to do a lot of the nurturing myself or constantly reach out and feel like a bother. So things like making friends and making career choices are big overwhelming things and I know it can be for lots of folks but I have that extra layer of not knowing basic things or learning things slower that I should've learned as a child because the environment I grew up in was so deprived.

Like I don't drive and getting a permit that 16 years old get all the time is like a huge anxiety provoking thing. Driving is a nightmare and I am 27 so I'm not a teenager. It affects me a lot.

A therapist can validate my fears but that isn't going to help me learn to drive. It is a result of a traumatic upbringing but now there's this practical issue of: I need to learn to drive. Even moving to a city that isn't car centered will require me to drive at least a little.


Anyway, writing helps I guess I'm just worried that I'm getting older and not improving.


I didn't send my therapist the list I came up with. I am just wondering what healing trauma actually means. I think the somatic experiencing work confuses me and frustrates me. I like Parts Work....internal family system stuff. But it seems like I need two main things: to emotionally and conceptually understand things and to practically make changes in my life.

I think that venting has a place if it is meant for processing and conceptualizing and making sense of something.

I find that when I talk in therapy, I feel more confused and hopeless. I wonder if there's some kind of adult biblio therapy type of thing. I think that would be very helpful.

i think i need examples of people who came through the other side and are thriving.
I need to learn from someone sharing something vulnerable and authentic. Something that the therapist can't do but can bring me examples of.