# Anxiety about therapy?



## daniz023 (May 29, 2012)

So, I went to my first therapy session of any kind last Friday, with a social worker who specializes in social anxiety and CBT.

It was just an introductory, get-to-know-you session, but I have to say, I HATED it. I was really anxious/uncomfortable the entire time, and couldn't wait to get out of there. I felt like I was being interrogated, and didn't have the "correct" answers to the questions he was asking me.

I'm pretty sure I'm not going back.

How am I going to deal with this if I can't even stand therapy? Was it this bad for anyone else? Advice on how to handle?


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## ORly (Jul 23, 2010)

Going to therapy was like exposure therapy in and of itself for me. I can't remember my anxiety being any higher than it ever was on the first day. It was like that for several sessions actually. Luckily, My SA prevented me from calling and cancelling any appointments so I toughed it out. 

I didn't see someone who specialized in anything. I just saw LCSW at the local mental health place, but I did gain a lot from it. 

I don't really have any advice though. Just thought I'd say I can relate.


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## Solomon's Tomb (Aug 14, 2012)

I've tried therapy before. I spent most of my childhood in a therapist's office. When I was twelve, I was molested by a female social worker who then beat me up. Since then I've never trusted women and have been unable to form any sort of romantic relationship and no longer have any desire for intimacy of any kind. But, I digress.

Every time I've visited a therapist, I walked out feeling worse than when I came in. I don't like the idea of paying a complete stranger to share my innermost feelings with. In fact, the last time I saw a therapist, which was several months ago, I walked out so depressed and upset and ashamed that I attempted suicide. Needless to say, I failed and spent a week in the psyche ward. I will never go to therapy again. They keep notes on me, and I'm highly paranoid and distrusting of other people. I'd rather stew in my own problems than tell a stranger about how I feel and have him write everything down and enter the data into a computer where it will be stored forever on some server so it can be used against me one day. 

If you like therapy, that's great. But I understand being anxious about it. I hate it, in fact, there needs to be a stronger word than "hate" for how I feel about psychotherapy. My entire childhood was spent in a therapist's office or in the waiting room of a therapist's office. I've grown cold, bitter, distant from a world I never wanted to be a part of. I'd be kidding myself if I sat down in a therapist's office and told them all of this and that I wanted to "feel better." I don't. I need my pain. My pain defines me. It makes me who I am.


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## daniz023 (May 29, 2012)

Thanks. Maybe therapy is just not for me. :/


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## Sierpinski (Jun 17, 2012)

daniz023 said:


> So, I went to my first therapy session of any kind last Friday, with a social worker who specializes in social anxiety and CBT.
> 
> It was just an introductory, get-to-know-you session, but I have to say, I HATED it. I was really anxious/uncomfortable the entire time, and couldn't wait to get out of there. I felt like I was being interrogated, and didn't have the "correct" answers to the questions he was asking me.
> 
> ...


I was hurt in therapy and wish I had never gotten mixed up with it. I was diagnosed as schizophrenic and tricked into taking anti-schizophrenia medication. The medication caused me to derealize, panic, and hallucinate. And I wasn't even psychotic to begin with. Another therapist had me going through this psychodynamic workbook which triggered panic disorder. The panic attacks continued off-and-on for years after that. Despite all the suffering in therapy, I'm not aware of deriving any benefit from it. Of course most of it is just free associating about childhood in the presence of someone who just sits there quietly. Utterly pointless.


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## Solomon's Tomb (Aug 14, 2012)

Sierpinski said:


> Of course most of it is just free associating about childhood in the presence of someone who just sits there quietly. Utterly pointless.


Exactly. This one therapist I saw said I was suffering from "complex post traumatic stress disorder." That's complete BS. I'm not a soldier, or a cop-- I don't have the thousand yard stare (well, maybe I do) and I don't want to be labeled as someone with PTSD. I know a guy with PTSD, he was in Iraq and if you make any sudden movements, he'll run off and wake up in a Walmart bathroom at four in the morning. THAT'S trauma.


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## daniz023 (May 29, 2012)

"I need my pain. My pain defines me. It makes me who I am."

Serum, this is a really interesting statement, which I'm inclined to agree with. Could you explain further?

Sometimes, I'm hesitant to classify myself as having SAD, as I don't know that I'm "sick" as much as it's just my personality. It's dangerous, I think, when we start pathologizing what feels natural to us. 

I'm torn.


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## Michael127 (Dec 10, 2011)

Have you not heard the saying "it gets worse before it gets better?" Apply this to therapy. I get anxious every time before my appointment because part of the disease makes me not want to be vulnerable. It makes you not want to trust nor to reach out. But, you have to anyways. This is how you get better.


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## Solomon's Tomb (Aug 14, 2012)

daniz023 said:


> "I need my pain. My pain defines me. It makes me who I am."
> 
> Serum, this is a really interesting statement, which I'm inclined to agree with. Could you explain further?
> 
> ...


Well, first of all, I'm quoting (as I usually quote stuff) Captain Kirk in "Star Trek 5: The Final Frontier," but it's absolutely true. If I didn't have pain in my life, I would be a completely uninteresting person. I'm a writer, I write novels-- they all stem from my own personal experiences, my phobias and my prejudices. If I were to go to a therapist and have him remove all that and make me "feel better," I'd be a robot, I'd be one of those automatons that gets up every morning at six, goes to work in a cubicle at nine, comes home to his wife at five and goes to bed at eight just to wake up and do it again and again.

My family history has many writers in it-- and while the last few generations haven't been writers, I know I am-- I always have a story to tell. One of my ancestors was a science fiction writer in the early 1900s and was friends and rivals with H.P. Lovecraft, but my ancestor's work was mostly lost to obscurity under Lovecraft's more popular pulp fiction. But the writer I speak of, Abraham Merritt, was full of pain. He had married three times and each of his marriages failed. He sought refuge in ancient magic, occultism and astrology which fueled his works. Like many of the men in my family, he died young from a heart attack. But he left behind a library of stories and books that have been read for almost a century.

I want to be in pain, because without it, I have nothing to write about. If everything was sunshine and roses all my work would be boring and for nothing. I know this, Abraham knew it, and many of the others before us knew it, too. Look at the movie "Amadeus," when Mozart's father dies, Mozart falls into a deep depression and writes what Salieri called "his blackest opera," and it was also his best. Mozart drew strength from that pain and became a better artist by channeling it into his work. That's something I try to do every day of my life.


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## basuraeuropea (Jul 25, 2012)

oh my god. today was my first appointment with a clinical psychologist in a long time - since i relapsed - and i was on the verge of a panic attack the entire time. i was SO incredibly anxious. the psychologist wants to see me weekly. i'm not going to deterred, as i feel there is much to be gained, so i'll stick it out, even if i wind up throwing up all over her office floor during a panic attack!


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