on therapy

[jazzfish]

(expanded from a comment elseweb)

I have a theory that I've been meaning for months now to post about, because on a fairly regular basis I find myself in conversation with someone and saying "wait, i haven't told you this?" and having to explain it. And now seems like as good a time as any. You know, now that I'm pretty sure I've told it to everyone who I might possibly need to.

Anyway, my theory: by its very nature, therapy, or counseling, or what have you, makes life a lot more difficult for you in the short term.

You (the nonspecific 'you') have had these patterns of behavior, defence mechanisms, coping mechanisms, whatever you want to call them, and they've kept you alive but keep you from living. So you go into therapy with the express purpose of replacing them with mechanisms and patterns that will serve you better, that can allow you to live. To do this, you first have to disable the old mechanisms. Then you can take a long close look at how they work and what exactly they're defending against.

This has the unfortunate side effect of opening you up to all the emotions those mechanisms had been defending you against. And you can't just pull up the old way of dealing with it, because you've just gone to an awful lot of trouble to turn that off. So you're extremely fragile, and trying to hold yourself together when every single thing you encounter seems designed to make you fall apart.

The good news is that it does get better. You learn how to take care of yourself, in ways that aren't harmful to your long-term mental health. But for awhile, everything really is worse.

(okay, so the part about how it gets better isn't one I've really gotten to myself except in small doses and brief flashes. I have to believe it does, though. The alternatives are to either keep feeling this crappy and broken, or keep feeling as crappy and broken as I did before I started.)

Comments

[pictsy.livejournal.com]

Oh! I have a new mantra for my mental health. It used to be "I don't need this." Now it's "Eventually everything will be dead."

[jazzfish]

Ah, that works. :) I seem to lack sufficient zen for Keynes's "in the long run we are all dead" to get me through anything but I can see where it might.

[pictsy.livejournal.com]

It works for me on a few levels. First of all, there will finally be peace when everything is dead. I imagine the peacefulness of a quiet universe where nothing is suffering. Second of all, it reminds me of the ephemeralness of bad things. All of the assholes and dumbasses I will ever meet will be dead in the twinkling of an eye. No sense thinking about them. Third, it reminds me that everything people think is important, like fashion, fame, or success, really means nothing. So what if I wear red and pink together? So what if cute things go extinct? The quiet universe doesn't care. Fourth, it reminds me of my own impermanence. No sense wasting my life being miserable.

[jazzfish]

1-3 make perfect sense to me. It's 4 (and 1, I guess) that I can't or don't know how to apply to my own brain. I can conceive of eternal Nothing but I can't let go of the sensations of Now.

Which is not unfamiliar to me, now that I think of it. I tend to confuse "things are like this now" with "things will always be like this." Hmmm.

[faekitty.livejournal.com]

Yes, this is pretty much how it is seeming to work for me too. Fortunately i really like my therapist, and that is incredibly reassuring. Otherwise, i think i would have stopped well before now.

[jazzfish]

I don't think it's possible for me to work with a therapist I don't like. Not and get anything out of it.

... and now I'm reminded that I /tried/ that for a couple of years, and I think it may have actually made things worse. Yow.

Also and always, *hug*. I'm keeping up with your status reports; I just don't often have much useful to say.

[meghatronn.livejournal.com]

This is a really good description of therapy. It's like a lot of other health care--you have to hurt yourself to get better. For surgery, you have to have someone cut you open to fix the anomaly. Counter intuitive, maybe, but we haven't evolved enough to automatically form functional defense mechanisms. It makes me think of what my chiropractor told me about a hurt muscle. It shrinks and contracts and basically dies, and your other muscles compensate. It makes you twisted, unless you stretch it out painfully and force it to heal appropriately.

[jazzfish]

As someone dealing with both therapy /and/ a screwed-up shoulder, that's a very apt comparison.

"Functional" is in the eye of the beholder. The defence mechanisms do what they need to do: keep you from getting hurt, keep you able to function. What they don't do is help you heal back to where you were before they got triggered, because that hurts even more and they're there to keep you from being hurt. Whether that's stretching a muscle so it can be used properly, or admitting that one has emotions.

(I quibble because for me, understanding why I do the things I do is key to not doing them any more, and I do them because at one time they worked and were what I needed. For both the shoulder and the mental stuff.)

[mikailborg.livejournal.com]

I find this idea intriguing, and quite plausible. I think you might have a very good point.

[jazzfish]

Thanks. It's kind of nice to be able to think "oh yes, this part is /supposed/ to hurt, that means it's working."

That sounds about right

[stormking.livejournal.com]

From my experiences.