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I'm finally starting T this Thursday. It's with a counsellor and maybe she can refer me to a psychologist later on. I'm just afraid her first question it going to be: "What do YOU want" because to be honest... .right now I really don't know what I want. Well, actually I do: I want people to not tell me to move on, because that's the hardest part at the moment. But I do want to find out why I feel so stuck, lethargic, tired, on automatic pilot.

What do you talk about with your T's? Do they tell you to move on? To get out of the 'victim-mode'? To deal with what is instead of thinking about what was? Or is it just someone who's being paid to listen to you for an hour so you can rant and rave about everything that's happened to you?

And then what... .what did you learn from the sessions? Did it help?

Mine tends to just let me talk, she'll angle me to discuss how I feel and articulate it, and then sure, "what do you want?" comes into it. But it's namely what are you trying to achieve by being there. In my case, I was ruminating and it was effecting my work and I was uncomfortable being angry. So she gave me tools in order to reduce rumination and also to turn my head back from the past and forward to the life I want. If you're stuck, or need help articulating they'll ask you the right questions and I don't know is a perfectly fine answer. You should start to get clarity, unravelling the ball of upset so to speak and ultimately get your sense of self back with conviction. What they ask is usually based on how you feel now... .and making sure you allow yourself the time to heal. Be great if "move on" and you could actually worked... .but it doesn't and they will know that. Go easy on yourself. I was very lucky with my T but other friends have had to see a few before they found one they connected with.

The tools she gave me have helped me so much - If i feel pain, I recognise it's transient, and just a feeling that will pass, but to let it just be without attaching a narrative to it (mind-boggling incidences with my ex). The tools have helped in so many aspects of my life. I check in with her once a year or so. If you get a good one, it's definitely worth it.

Part of my counseling has definitely been just an outlet for my venting and getting things off my chest.  But my counselor was very good at recognizing my need for more personal time and space away from the relationship to keep my spirits up and emotional batteries charged.  She has taken my focus away from trying to change my wife and instead changing myself to be as healthy as I can.  She also provides accountability for the steps I say I'm going to take for self-improvement.

Counseling also provides a nice sanity check.  I can describe things that happen in the relationship and she can tell me, no, I'm not crazy, my wife's behavior was baiting or manipulative and she has helped provide me with tools for dealing with it.

Initially it was all about the BPD, now it has evolved into talking mostly about other areas of my life with a few minutes on the BPD

hgi Tiepje   thanks for starting this interesting topic.


there you go! it sounds to me that you'll be an excellent client: you know what's on your mind.

my Ts (my first one retired) have never once told me what i was supposed to be doing. my first T did, after a point, tell me that i had to talk about me, and not my stbxw; but she let me go on about her quite a while, and that was what i needed. she knew not to prod me too fast to "move on", as they say. (she's the one who spotted the BPD in my wife, a thing i'd never heard of, and that, after some months. brought me here.) my second T is, if anything, better suited for me than the first.

and i mention that because i've tried therapy in the past a few times, with no results at all. every client/therapist relationship has to work between the two parties involved. your first session will probably have some time for housekeeping. the T will ask for personal information and maybe insurance information, and then ask what brought you there, and you already know!

also, my experience in this regard is the same as adventurer's:


i actually had to have a therapist point out to me that what my w was doing was, yes, disordered and abusive behavior. i though i just had to put up with it. and the therapy, combined with life events, have led me to be certain that that's true. so see the therapy as a large part of your recovery, but not the only part. what you talk about in there has to be practiced in life.

I see a T who is trained in EMDR and it. is. awesome.

EMDR can be used as triage to desensitize you to painful/traumatic memories but it has other uses, also.

I saw mine yesterday and she is helping me do "resource building" (ego-strengthening) while using the EMDR bilateral stimulation.  For instance, yesterday, she had me visualize a "protector," someone who would not allow me to be abused or exploited.

I don't know if it's for everyone but I have a trauma/abuse history and it's been super helpful for me.

We also just shoot the ___e, and she is empathic so the therapeutic relationship is strong.  I've seen her on and off for several years.

I find it really empowering to acknowledge the parts of my personality that are unstable (vulnerable to abuse), while also having validation of my perceptions, thoughts, and feelings. 

Also:  it is REALLY important your T is a good fit for you and it is 100% okay to shop around until you find a good fit.  It is also okay to see one T for awhile, and then change to a different one, when you are ready for a different experience.

I was seeing a psychologist for several mths and she was really lovely but I found that I wasn't getting deep enough for my liking.  I left feeling like I didn't get my $175 worth.  I wanted to be challenged more.  Maybe it just wasn't the right fit.  I found a new counsellor who specialises in r/s addiction and have seen her several times now.  She asks a lot of questions, helping me dig deeper into why I'm feeling the way I'm feeling.  She challenges me because I told her that is what I want.  She never tells me what I should be doing though.  She is very validating and really acknowledges the traumas I've experienced and shows a great deal of empathy.  I'm not sure how but she really helps me get to the source of my pain.  I end up crying more often than not and it feels like a very safe environment to let my guard down, something I have great difficulty with.  Just try to be open.  You can tell him/her what you are fearing and feeling about the whole counselling thing.  Hopefully they'll reassure you that they are on your side and they're there to validate you and encourage you to express yourself honestly and openly.  It's all about establishing a safe environment for you.  If you don't feel that safety then perhaps it's not the right fit for you.

My 1st therapist was a dud... I ended therapy, because it wasn't going anywhere. She just sat there. ... .so you should get to know the therapist and see if it's a good fit for YOU. It takes a little time.  I found that someone who listens to me and then challenges me and someone who has a plan (once knowing me and my situation), is preferable to someone who just sits and listens to me and brings virtually nothing to the conversation.

My new T eventually steered the conversation around to what was my part in the relationship? Why was I there? What brought me there? Why did I pick this person? Gulp.

Then we started to get somewhere.

If you have the right therapist, you should bring your "BigBoy" pants to the sessions... .you are going to need them!  |iiii

My P (very possessive how we all call them ours :P), was basically recommended by a friend who said he is brutally honest and will cut you down quickly.  By the start of the second therapy session he had my ex pinned as BPD after giving me the walking on eggshells book and me saying, she said she had BPD but always backtracked, he told me straight up, you can never have the worth while relationship you deserve from this person, she is abusing you. 

I automatically thought he was wrong as I loved her etc etc.  Anyway he led me through it all, encouraged my reading, stopped me at certain points and recommended I read books on dealing with abusive people as opposed to earning about BPD.  He has really been fantastic at helping me find the answers but also stopping me at points in time and questioning me.  Some of the tools he has given me I thought were simply abusive themselves in my opinion however not engaging isn't abuse... .  That was my opinion at first, recognising her silent treatment as abuse was a big thing for me.  Recognising that not engaging when I choose not to in the cycle isnt the same as what she was doing was very powerful. 

The most important thing I have received out of him is explaining my role and making me take a step back.  Name the behaviour, understand how it causes me to react and stop before reacting.  Done a fair bit on the mindfulness stuff, very weird at first. 

One thing I would recommend is getting a P that is qualified or registered to do court reporting... .  Their will have to be an independent report done either way however if you have kids going through divorce having one that is capable of writing that report and taking those notes to pass along to the court reporter is very important.  Mine has basically highlighted who I should pick to be the family report writer etc for court and many other things, walked me through different lawyers that specialise in these issues and given me a whole lot that I wouldn't have had out of a normal P... .

Most important thing is that you trust them 100 %. 


AJJ. 

Not knowing what you want is a sign either of depression (hopeless, unable to make decisions) or extreme adapting (not forming your own vision about the future and adapting to someone else, which lead us to the place we are right now :))

I talk about patterns from my FOO that I am repeating. About what I want (I usually stop talking because I have a very hard time wording this. I can see it in my head but I can't describe it simply because I fear that once I have spoken it out loud it lowers my chances of getting a partner because maybe he doesn't want those things).

It was quite the thing I felt strong about getting a dog in the fuiture and I got xdBPDbf to allow it, haha.

For me it's about trying to recognize patterns, directing my energy towards the people and situations I can change or have a good chance of it, and trying to learn to know and say what I want.

Thanks all for the replies. The first thing I'll do is see if we have a click. But since this counsellor 'belongs' to the family physician's office and is paid for out of my health care insurance, I don't have much choice. Unless I'm willing to pay for sessions with a registered T or P. So I hope she'll turn out to be effective.

I do think I'm depressed (not being able to make decisions), but not to a point where I don't want to get up in the morning or have to drag myself through the day.

By reading everyone's replies I think I have to address my own issues (how did I get here?) and not focus too much on pwBPD, i.e. not letting him 'rent' space in my head.

In the first session I told my T I have gone through a rough relationship that I'm traumatized by and I need to talk about that at first but later want to talk about issues I have in my life in general and my childhood. And that's what we did. I've been in therapy for 5 months now. We still talk a little about my ex, but mostly it's been about my life in general and my FOO since 3 months back.

Oh, and try to be really really crazy honest. The more you meet the T the easier it will be. But I have to push myself to spill it out sometimes. It can be things that's embarrassing, but just do it, or things that's awkward, like when I told him, the T, that I was afraid he would reject me.

Well it depends. Some of us, myself included, didn't even realize the extent of the dysfunction on a conscious level. The first 4-6 sessions there was a lot of reinforcement from her that I I was abused and that nothing I did would've changed it. She'd never have been happy because of her, not me.

That directly got me out of playing the "what if" game, and kind of got me through denial and bargaining quickly.