Posted by tabitha on December 17, 2003, at 23:18:21
Well I'm embarassed to keep posting about my group therapy upsets, but ...
Last week I shared that I've felt annoyed by some of the interactions in the group. It seems to me like some of the questions interrupt and distract from what someone is saying. Particularly one woman, though I didn't name names. My therapist had encouraged me to be assertive and bring this up for discussion. Well I got some positive response from some members and some negative, but the whole thing was very stressful to me and I was pretty upset and unbalanced all week.
This week I was just about getting re-balanced again and group came around. The one woman told me how defensive she had been about what I said, then she went on with quite a bit of feedback that I felt as criticism. She said I'm hard to read and not emotionally expressive. Someone else told me he prefers people who are expressive, although he did not criticise me. The therapist asked me if being more emotionally expressive was one of my goals for being in group. I said well I guess it should be, then things moved on.
Today I felt horribly depressed and barely managed to get out of bed. I finally realize I'm having a reaction to what the woman said. I realized I've sensed she doesn't like me for a while. I've had some positive interactions with everyone in the group except her. I've tried to say supportive things to her before. At some point I started noticing I don't like the way she interacts with people-- it seems like she's too hard on them, picks their words apart and tries to force them to see things that they don't see. My therapist doesn't agree with me about this and doesn't see any problem with the woman.
I'm just crushed by this thing about being told I'm insufficiently emotionally expressive. It actually isn't one of my goals for the group at all-- but now it's been strongly suggested I need to change that. It doesn't feel like it's something in my control. I'm willing to change the things I say and to challenge my thinking, but I have no idea how to be more emotionally expressive. I'm an introverted, reserved person. I have enough social anxiety that I'm not often aware of feelings until I get away from people and can process by myself. I still have some flatness of affect from depression. I feel as if I've been told I need to be prettier or something. My inner child feels terribly wounded and rejected. I'll probably have a crying jag now and feel like crap tomorrow. Then I go for my individual session and she'll most likely disagree with my perceptions of the group. Then I'll have 4 days to shake it off and it starts over again with another group session.
I don't know if it's good for me to keep up with this. There have been positive moments in the group, and perhaps there are lessons I'll take away from it, but it's just such a huge stressor. I had a vision that it's like a religious cult where we're all being peer pressured to feel differently and believe differently. I know I'm distorting to the negative now since I'm fairly depressed. But normally when I'm distorting I stay out of things that add more upset. The group is a weekly commitment, I can't just skip it.
You'll probably tell me it sounds like I should drop out, but then I'll feel like it's hopeless for me to learn how to relate to people successfully. My face to face relationships outside of therapy are down to practically nothing. I have some friends but none are really very intimate. I'm feeling hopeless.
Maybe therapy isn't even right for me. I've been doing it for 10 years. I wonder if I quit would I shake off some of it, see it as harmful, as just not a good fit for me, as being forced into a mold that isn't right. That's what it's feeling like. I'm so tired of trying to make myself do the correct therapy-type thing like being assertive, getting connected to my feelings, etc, all that stuff, and feeling like I'm not good at it and it doesn't make me any happier anyway. If my life isn't better after 10 years why am I trying? My therapist says my life is better but it doesn't feel better. It feels more small and isolated and constrictive and I still feel totally dependent on the therapist. I'm sick of trying to be different and better. I want to just be my own odd isolated emotionally unexpressive self and be OK.
poster:tabitha
thread:291162
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20031213/msgs/291162.html