what it says on the tin. i definitely need therapyish help but i literally have no idea what to talk about, i am terrible at talking about myself i have seen her once already about two weeks ago, but had to put it on hold because she was going on vacation. . . im seeing her again tomorrow and im basically just like :"DDD wha t im tentatively kinda depressed and anxious and more certainly kinda apathetic about Literally Everything and have been ever since i was wee, i basically have the smallest emotional capacity ever, so i.....dk...........my mom said that there will be a lot of guided questioning so i am hoping thats a thing??? but advice on how to Words might be appreciated :"0
writing things down beforehand can be helpful, especially if you have trouble coming up with Words on the spot! other than that, my strategy is to basically tell the therapist my entire thought process - if necessary, including "a thing is bad but I'm not sure how to go about discussing it with you, help" - and let them sort it out! after all it is her job. I promise she won't be mad at you for being shy (or similar.) good luck!!
thank you :""0 gonna use this thread as a venting type place so i don't tell myself later "oh, it wasn't that bad" i was doing pretty well today, have been for the past few days, but all of a suddenly out of nowhere i slingshotted myself into a self-loathing spiral because. . .i skipped volunteer work today? it's super low stress work, i used to need to go every weekend but ive cut back to only two or three times per month, i can definitely go next saturday, why am i flipping out so much, aughhhh plus i have a big tournament tomorrow and, even though im approaching it with a much better attitude than i ever have, im still concerned that ill do badly and start spiraling again ://
ok now i am EXTRA STRESSED because i was supposed to get a lift from a friend to the big tournament tomorrow but she is not communicating with me, and im both concerned that something happened that she cant talk to me rn for whatever reason and simultaneously upset that she's just. . . not messaging me. . .
IM BAAACK i still am so bad at this, the last time i was there she was like "so how are you doing" and i was like "oh im fine" as i do, which is faaalse, and she just took that and ran with it and it wasn't a very productive session which isnt her fault!! i just. dont know how to do this thing at all, my knee-jerk reaction to "how are you feeling" is "im totally 1000% okay obviously" and i do not know how to fix this, and i feel uncomfortable and awkward talking about how bad i feel
i'm pretty sure she knows that if things were not bad you would not be seeing her, she's just waiting until you find your footing with her or find trust in her enough to open up. a lot of people can't tell a shrink their deep dark problems until months or years have passed. if you have a problem during the week or remember something bad you should try to write it down, and then later be like "ok i have a list of topics but it's gonna be hard to talk out loud about them but here they are jsyk." my personal problems tend to be deeply buried so that most of the time "how are you" "oh i'm fine" i answer, and i actually mean it -- my mood is currently stable and not negative, i'm fed and clean, etc. it was hard in the first few months to dig under the surface level to "yeah still socially paralyzed and with anger issues" when i go out of my way to avoid all triggers that could make the badfeels actually impact my day. (apart from all that backbreaking acrobatic avoidance. yeah, THAT's not affecting my days at ALL.) if you're used to downplaying and managing all the things "oh i'm fine" isn't even particularly a lie at the moment, it's just not adressing your mental state on the long term or the things going in in the backgrounds. the goal is to get to "oh i'm fine! but i was thinking about this memory/this thing my brain does/this unfortunate life lesson"... that way you may feel less like whining when you could TOTALLY manage on your own why are you complaining!, and more like you're just troubleshooting a potentially frustrating pattern. but, yeah, making a little list might help you commit yourself to the idea that yes you ARE going to Share A Thing today.
