Hi all. I have briefly tried therapy over and over again, but could never find something that seemed to be a fit for me. So I could never stick with it more than a few sessions. I always had trouble describing what my issue was and I never liked the methods of any given therapist. Either they used CBT, which I find invalidating and victim blaming (I've always been taught that my thoughts and feelings are wrong...so this just makes it worse for me) or they used "talk therapy", which seemed incredibly pointless and gave me zero benefit.
I just started seeing a therapist who seems to use DBT techniques. At first, it seems a little less shitty than CBT because it doesn't want my emotions to go away or try to rationalize them away. It wants me to accept that I will have strong emotions and I need to figure out how to deal with them.
DBT still feels a bit victim blamey to me though to a degree. I've always been frustrated at how powerless I am and how people are allowed to do bad things to others and you just have to deal with it. So in that regard DBT seems more of the same of the frustration I've always felt. "It's your fault that you feel and react this way. You can't change the fact that people are horrible to you and others. You just have to deal with it and they get to do whatever they want." Been a lifelong frustration for me.
I have many problems in my life, but more recently I have discovered that one of my main ones seems to be "emotional dysregulation". I've struggled with having strong emotions even in childhood, where I would be chastised by my parents for it. My parents didn't abuse me, but it was frustrating that I was never heard.
Medication wise, I have been on an SSRI since the springtime, but couldn't tell if it made any noticeable difference. So my provider is having me taper off the SSRI and try lamotrigine instead (note that I do NOT have bipolar disorder).
Part of the problem is that I have long stretches of being totally fine interspersed with occasional episodes of extreme duress/issues. So normally when I see a provider, I feel totally fine and it's difficult to adequately express (or even sometimes remember) how significant my issues are. When I really need an appointment because I'm in crisis mode, I can't get one that soon. This pattern is part of the reason why I'm trying out lamotrigine.
Anyway idk just looking for your experiences. Thanks all. Sorry about the life story lol!
"You can't control X" is not the same as "X is your fault". Earthquakes, for example, aren't your fault. I notice that people infer blame quite easily in response to statements such as these. I know I had to train myself out of this and in moments of stress, I fall back into it.
"Only you can choose to ignore what they say about you" is not the same as "It's your fault that you care about what they say about you". It's true it's up to you to learn how to ignore others' opinions of you, but that doesn't mean you deserve blame for the patterns in your mind. Maybe you are and maybe you aren't. Maybe it doesn't matter. Maybe it only matters what you learn to do from here, which probably depends on finding adequate support. I hope you find it.
Your thoughts and feelings are not wrong by definition. Unhelpful, maybe. An obstacle, perhaps. But not wrong. They can't be wrong. They just are. They simply exist. The question becomes how to find the tools to make sense of your thoughts and feelings, as well as to let go of the unhelpful and pick up the helpful. That's what I'd expect from your therapist: to help you do that. I'm sorry that you haven't had that experience.
"You just have to deal with it" seems utterly unhelpful to me, but "You're ultimately the one who needs to find ways to deal with it" seems undeniably true to me. It's not easy, but nobody else can do it for you. And you're ultimately responsible for the determination it might take to get there.
Those are my thoughts. I hope you find something helpful in there somewhere. Best wishes. Peace.