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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 13 of 13. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by crushedout on February 24, 2004, at 23:41:55
every day after therapy for the past week or two (or has it been longer?) i've been terribly depressed and can't function and just want to sleep all the time. i really don't think my t is intentionally screwing with my head. i think she's trying to help me and maybe this is just me dealing with the transference stuff (being in love with and wanting my t so badly and not being able to "have" her). but it's so godawfully painful. and it doesn't feel like it's going to stop anytime soon. and i feel better on days when i don't see her. i feel like i get mySELF back. it's not like i forget about her, but the empty, dead, miserable longing is not so present.i just don't know if this is helping me. i hope it is but it feels like a black hole.
Posted by Racer on February 25, 2004, at 1:18:03
In reply to therapy causing depression?, posted by crushedout on February 24, 2004, at 23:41:55
I don't know if it helps any, but I feel a similar "crash" after a lot of sessions. In my case, I've always avoided Ts I felt attracted to, because I know that the attraction would be counter-beneficial to me. (With someone I'm attracted to, I tend to try to be more attractive -- showing how "healthy" I am, rather than actually working on becoming healthy.)
For myself, I feel that drained, wrung out feeling because I'm processing such a huge well of pain, and conflict, and general ickiness. Could that be part of what you're feeling? Is it possible that you're experiencing a simlar pain as unrequited attraction to your T? Have you talked to your T about your attraction? If not, why don't you try bringing it up, if so, what was the response?
By the way, I'm going through something similar with my pdoc -- if anyone's looking for a Christmas present for me, two hours naked with him would be a good bet -- and have gone through a lot of questioning myself about whether or not he's the right choice for me. (Not that I've got much choice in the matter. And not that I'm complaining about having such a slurpy pdoc, either. I just wonder if it's such a good idea for me to be in treatment with someone it's so hard for me to be open with due to the attraction.) (Oh, yeah, and about half the attraction is that he's so quirky I figure he's got nearly as many psychological tangles as I have. I can amuse myself for hours thinking about some of them, they're so transparent, and I'm sure he's got no idea he's doing them.)
Therapy is hard anyway. I'm sorry it's so much harder for you because of this. Good luck in your search for a solution.
Posted by tinydancer on February 25, 2004, at 1:36:34
In reply to therapy causing depression?, posted by crushedout on February 24, 2004, at 23:41:55
I would definitley bring this up with your T. It is natural to find your function level declining when you are active in therapy. To me its a sign of how hard you are working. I know all about the suffering but if you have a T who truly cares and who you trust, he/she can help you through this.
Posted by lookdownfish on February 25, 2004, at 4:53:33
In reply to therapy causing depression?, posted by crushedout on February 24, 2004, at 23:41:55
Maybe your therapy is touching on really important deep core issues for you. that's why its so painful. Leaving therapy might make you feel superficially better because all the pain would subside, but you wouldn't have got to the heart of the matter. So the pain would be festering under the surface, ready to hit you again. My therapist once said to me, when I was really miserable about the transference, that the only way to get past it is straight through it (rather than stepping away from it)
Posted by crushedout on February 25, 2004, at 9:15:02
In reply to If it helps..., posted by Racer on February 25, 2004, at 1:18:03
yes, "drained" and "wrung out" are good words for what i've been feeling. and i think it's probably right for me also that the reason for those feelings is because i'm processing a "huge well of pain," etc. i just wonder if it will ever end? does one actually complete such a process? I wonder what the unconsummatable (because it's not unrequited, btw, but that's a whole other story, i guess) attraction to my t could be reminding me of, if that's what it is? that's a very interesting thought.
yes, i've talked to my T about the attraction (as she has talked to me about hers) but i still need to talk to her more about it, clearly. it's very hard to do, even though i already know she knows and everything.
Posted by crushedout on February 25, 2004, at 9:19:06
In reply to Re: therapy causing depression? » crushedout, posted by tinydancer on February 25, 2004, at 1:36:34
yeah, i already told her. although things have been messy with my T lately, and i haven't been sure whether it's because of stuff i need to go through or because she's been crossing some weird boundaries with me (which i've been confronting her about, and that's been hard). i'm starting to think it's stuff i need to go through, though.
> I would definitley bring this up with your T. It is natural to find your function level declining when you are active in therapy. To me its a sign of how hard you are working. I know all about the suffering but if you have a T who truly cares and who you trust, he/she can help you through this.
Posted by crushedout on February 25, 2004, at 9:22:54
In reply to Re: therapy causing depression?, posted by lookdownfish on February 25, 2004, at 4:53:33
I think that's right. I don't believe I'll ever get past or through this, but that's probably just because I'm so deep in it right now. I'm not going to leave therapy, I don't think. But I wish I didn't feel so awful so much of the time. It's too hard. How do people do this and hold down jobs??? (Luckily, I don't have one.)
Posted by fallsfall on February 25, 2004, at 10:48:41
In reply to therapy causing depression?, posted by crushedout on February 24, 2004, at 23:41:55
Crushedout,
Your title really hit me. I believe that therapy with my previous therapist DID increase my depression. But it is really, really hard to make that determination.
I was not "in love" with her, but I idolized her. At some point I entered into a transference with her where I thought that she was unhappy with me (to this day, I don't know if she was or not). That made me try to figure out what I was doing "wrong", made me try to understand what she wanted me to do, make me work harder to be the perfect patient. I would have all of these plans of what I would talk about to make her happier with me, but after each session I was *crushed* with pain, because I felt that I had disappointed her again. Then the cycle would restart and I would obsess until the next session on how to succeed with her. I saw her once a week. For the last year or so (I saw her for 8 1/2 years), it would take me more than 48 hours to even be able to talk with my friends about things - that is how distressed I felt. One particularly bad session took 5 days to recover from.
The rest of the details about how and why I left that therapist are elsewhere on this board. But I do want to tell you what I experienced when I started seeing a new therapist.
First, I felt hope. With my old therapist I knew that I was doing absolutely everything that I could (because if there was anything else I could have done, I would have done it) - but I was still miserable. I was so depressed that we spent 1 1/2 years working on getting me to eat and do laundry and take showers (and I still couldn't do those things). I was seriously suicidal - but that did go away when I started with my new therapist.
Second, my depression lifted visibly. I'm still depressed, and I don't do those ADL things (eat, laundry, shower) all that well. But I started volunteering at the local library, and now have a 10 hour a week paid position there. I have much more energy than I did (though it is still pretty pathetic).
Third, therapy is still stressful for me. I'm often very scared when I walk through the door. My new therapist pushes me pretty hard, so I am always just on that line of real discomfort. But there is a difference. Every once in a while my new therapist will give me a break and we'll have an "easy" session. Those breaks (and the time until the next session) show me that a lot of my depression is *because* I am working hard on hard issues. And that if I didn't have hard issues (or didn't work on them) that I really would feel better and be able to function better. I am currently choosing to stay on this hard, intense path because I know that I'll have to do it at some point - so I figure I'll just get it over with now. With my first therapist there *WERE* no breaks - there was no relief (and consequently, no hope).
Changing therapists was critical for me. It was the best thing that I have done in therapy. I was hopelessly entwined with my first therapist (at least as much as I think you are with yours) - so leaving was incredibly difficult.
How did I know that I should change? She had taken my case to her peer supervisory group, and they had said that if I wasn't less dependent in 3 months, that she should terminate me. If I *was* less dependent, then she should reduce my sessions from weekly to every other week. I *had* to agree with her that if I was still feeling as miserable as I was then in 3 months that I didn't WANT to stay.
***
I didn't want to leave her because leaving would be so painful - but finally I realized that STAYING was painful. And finally I realized that even if leaving was excrutiatingly painful, that it wouldn't be worse than the pain that I was in.
***I had enough experience with other therapists to believe that someone other than her *could* comfort me and understand me. It was a huge leap. I'm really glad I did it.
Posted by Racer on February 25, 2004, at 10:48:58
In reply to Re: If it helps... » Racer, posted by crushedout on February 25, 2004, at 9:15:02
Disclaimer: I'm hardly a poster child for successful completion of therapy, because I was in therapy for a few years with a wonderful woman who helped me make a tremendous amount of progress -- and then fell way back beyond where I'd been when I worked with her. Hardly a resounding success, BUT I do have the experience of going through the dark pain and coming out the other side, with more strength for having done it.
The backsliding in my case is complicated, and way too long to tell you about here. Just accept that my current depression doesn't mean the therapy back then didn't work somehow.
Now for the meat of my post to you:
Yes, it does stop being so difficult. There's a stage where I left her office everytime shaking, then I went through the crying through every session stage, then the wrung out dishcloth stage, then -- and, honestly, not all that long after getting to the wrung out stage -- I came to the stage of dancing down the street after every session stage. Again, your mileage will vary, but for me, once I gave up all my defenses and actually looked at my demons, I'd made a breakthrough that started us onto a fast track of hunting them down and disabling them. Nope, didn't kill them, there were too many connections between my demons and my angels, but we did hogtie them with duct tape for added security, and that process was the fastest part of the therapy -- the slowest part was building me up to the point I could face the process, and that's the point at which I was so wrung out all the time.
I hope that helps. It's only one person's experience, but I hope it helps to know that, for someone who's experienced it, it did end, and end happily.
Posted by pegasus on February 25, 2004, at 14:17:06
In reply to therapy causing depression?, posted by crushedout on February 24, 2004, at 23:41:55
It's been reassuring to hear how everyone has struggled with this. My own experience is that during some phases of therapy, I definitely was drained for at least a day after each session, and often really depressed. For some particularly difficult sessions, it would take me days to be fully functional again. I spent a fair amount of time wandering around in a half aware daze.
Then it got easier. Partly because of finding the right meds. But whatever it was, I wouldn't be so wiped out after sessions, and I felt like I could get a lot out of them without ruining the rest of my life in between.
I think the moral of our stories is that therapy is just darn hard, and sometimes when it's really hard, it bleeds out into your whole life and can't be stuffed into 50 minutes a week. Or anywhere near it. I think, for me anyway, during those times I did far more therapy with myself between sessions than I did with my therapist in sessions.
- p
Posted by terrics on February 25, 2004, at 16:10:37
In reply to therapy causing depression?, posted by crushedout on February 24, 2004, at 23:41:55
Interesting. I get that same 'sick' feeling after I see T. If I do not see her I start feeling better. I love her, but feel this it not healthy....mine is a big boundry violator. I told her on her ans. machine that I was not coming back. She wrote me a letter about being frustrated not to be able to talk about it. I called another T. who never returned my call. I am back with regular T. and she is changing her style I think. Do we go back to 'is this love or tranceference'. I really think I understand and I feel for you. terrics
Posted by crushedout on February 26, 2004, at 22:53:38
In reply to Re: therapy causing depression? » crushedout, posted by fallsfall on February 25, 2004, at 10:48:41
fallsfall,thank you for your post. i'm not really sure what to make of it, but i guess what i should do is file it away and keep it in mind as i go through this process one step at a time. i mean, it's so hard to know whether my therapy is making me sad because i'm going through something hard that i have to go through, or whether this is really not necessary pain. how on earth do i figure that out? i'm not sure. so i guess i'll keep going for now, and keep checking in with myself along the way. if it continues to make me feel drained and hopeless for very long, i'll have to consider changing therapists. not because my therapist is a bad one (she's amazing) but because she evokes such painful feelings in me.
Posted by fallsfall on February 27, 2004, at 7:45:59
In reply to Re: therapy causing depression? » fallsfall, posted by crushedout on February 26, 2004, at 22:53:38
Yes, Crushedout.
I think that you read from my post exactly what I hoped you would read. There ARE times when therapy can be damaging. There are ALSO times when therapy can be very helpful. In both cases, the client can feel completely miserable. I think that it is SO hard to tell one situation from the other. And if you leave a good therapy situation because you think it is a bad one, then you do lose an important opportunity.
I agree that keeping your eyes open is an excellent strategy. I would also encourage you to talk (and talk and talk) about how the therapy is making you feel with your therapist. I think that gives you the best chance of seeing things in an unbiased light.
I saw my first therapist for 8 1/2 years. It was wonderful for the first 7 years. The 8th year was not wonderful, but I was working hard and trying to see progress. The last 6 months was hell. It started in early February. I saw my old group therapist in early March to get some prespective. I started interviewing therapists in May and saw her for the last time in late June. I had to take that time to be sure I was doing the right thing. And it was right for me.
Take your time - but do keep your eyes open, and opinions from here and from other therapists are helpful, but in the end only you can make the decision.
I wish you the best.
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