#i need therapy but idk how to find someone who deals with specific traumas or victims of specific things

[americannoteven]

you ever just chillin and then you realize your friends are mostly all “drastically younger” (in my head anything more than a fucking year is a huge gap, it’s dumb) and then it sends you into a lil panic

[loserchildhotpants]

Idk if this is something you feel able to give advice on, but Seeing Wolves Where there are No Wolves is a big comfort to bc I know I too need help & its good to know that it's out there, but I don't know how to start. Like how the hell do you choose a therapist?! I google and still dont get the difference between lpc vs psyd, let alone what questions to ask or how to tell if they're a good fit. Feel free to say pass, but if you have tips I would so greatly appreciate it. thanks and sending love

hello, anon!

im actually able to help with this! im good at finding counselors! (and dentists!)

so, there are a couple of ways to go about this, but the truth of the matter is that if you've never been to therapy, or you're new to an area and are searching for a counselor, you may have to shop around a bit before you find the right fit. This can be emotionally taxing, so seeking out the right one will take some refining.

Acronyms To Know:

MSW: Master of Social Work

M.Ed: Master of Education / M.S.Ed: Master of Science in Education

M.S or M.A: Master of Science and Master of Arts, respectively.

LPC: Licensed Professional Counselor

LMHC: Licensed Mental Health Counselor

LCPC: Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor

LPCC / LCMHC: Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor of Mental Health / Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor

LMHP: Licensed Mental Health Practitioner

MFCC: Marriage, Family and Child Counselor

LCSW: Licensed Clinical Social Worker

DR is someone with a doctorate while MD is for Medical Doctor, and a Ph.D is someone with their doctorate of Philosophy - and all of these are people that are capable of obtaining certifications and licenses in a variety of counseling types, what it means to you is how much time this person has spent in school. In my experience, how much time a person has spent in school is not super indicative of how helpful they are, and it's much more informative to find out how many years they have spent in the field, and what their listed specialties are.

If you've been to counseling before, you may already be aware of what modes of therapy work best for you (Talk Therapy, DBT, CBT, EMDR, etc), but if you found Seeing Wolves to be comforting and that is the kind of therapy you're looking for, you will want to seek out a counselor that specializes in CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy), DBT (Dialectic Behavioral Therapy) and/or Trauma Focused Therapy.

I highly recommend seeing counselors that have at least 5 years in the field, and in particular, at least 5 years of training or experience in dealing with trauma focused therapy. You may see counselors listing years of experience in rehabilitation centers with people who have substance abuse disorders, or working with veterans in VA hospitals and such - these are good indicators that they are aware of, and well practiced in trauma-informed approaches of therapy, even if they aren't specifically licensed or advertised as that.

Remember that your initial meeting with a new counselor is about you sussing THEM out, to see if they're a good fit. It's okay if you don't click right away, or if the vibes are off and you're like 'hmm :T i think im gonna keep looking.'

When picking a counselor, read their bios and work histories - determine if their field work feels relevant to the skills you want in a counselor, and look out for red flags, like 'faith-based approaches' as this can either be PRECISELY what you're looking for, OR it can be extremely limiting and unhelpful if the faith they're basing their practice on is only one, specific faith that does not align with yours.

That's all the advice I can really give on this without knowing what you're specifically struggling with. If you feel comfortable divulging more to me, I can help you narrow down your search more, but I hope this is helpful!!

[violetren]

My first theory for volume 9 while the second half of volume 8 is fresh in my mind!

Volume 9 is gonna be the therapy season, but in the most traumatic you'll need different therapy afterwards kind of way. Instead of paying a therapist they're all just be bargaining with the universe like "yo I've had this trauma for a while, and I'm feeling pretty done with it. Here you take it back and uhhh I'll take a new guilt complex. Maybe a fear of falling? IDK, fuck me up bro."

The foreshadow-y Alice in Wonderland-esque fairy tale Oscar told to himself/Oz while in captivity is my guide post here.

Aaaand this is gonna get long so! 10 ideas of shit that's gonna go down next volume beneath the readmore, each one about 1-2 paragraphs each.

In the fairy tale the girl runs away from her problems into a new land, but because she never learned from her problems they just followed after her. Yeah? So first--second? First discounting the volume therapy theme theory.

FIRST BIG THEORY: The girl from the fairy tale was real, and she used the Spear of Creation. And like Weiss and the crew, she was fucking smart about her wording. She offered up materials that'd last even after someone else inevitably used the staff. IDK what materials she woulda used. Maybe there's a story about a missing continent we just haven't heard of yet? Maybe the Brother of Light's pool, since Salem seens to have claimed the Brother of Darkness's one but no sign of BoL's these days. Maybe there is a reason the land beyond Menagerie is so uninhabitable beyond desert + grimm? idk. Point is, it's a thing that happened, and since Ambrosius can't destroy/directly kill she's still in her wonderland. For themes sake I'm gonna call her Alice from here on out.

So Alice made a pocket dimension to flee from her problems from.

SECOND BIG THEORY: Her problems were relic related. She needed to hide em, and hide herself from Salem. Tbh I'm not sure how into this one I am. Maybe she had other shit going and some version of Oz was like "hey you don't want to be here, I have some property that I don't want to be here, lets make this happen!" THE POINT IS, the little pocket realities the relics are in, are aalllllll places in her pocket reality. When the team said "hey Ambrosius just make the middle ground into one of these type places" that's what he did, cause that's how he do. What better way to make sure it works like those places than to be kinda connected to em?

THIRD BIG THEORY: Ambrosius was buds with Alice once upon a time, but knew staying in her pocket world ultimately drove her crazy. He knew his middle ground worked like the pocket dimensions because it touched em or something, so he gave a vague ass warning not to fall, because he knew where they'd fall to.

Back to the fairy tale. It's implied Alice was never able to leave/give up her wonderland because she never learned from her mistakes.

FOURTH BIG THEORY VERSION 1: RWBY + Jaune can't figure their way back to reality until they adress a major personal issue and break out of whatever cycle it's got them in. This one I feel is shaky because they all have such different issues and are in very different places with each of them, trying to do one big arc on em would be too much of a mess. Plus it doesn't account for saving any of the many civilians that may have survived the fall.

FOURTH BIG THEORY VERSION 2: nobody can leave until Alice either leaves, dies, OR is convinced to let them go. As we're following good kind people this means we watch the kids try to give someone else therapy that THEY need. RWBY+J work through their shit through variations & combinations of witnessing mirrors of their struggles in Alice/other wonderland inhabitants, and just having time and space to slow down and breathe whether they want it or not.

FIFTH BIG THEORY: Alice is the "antagonist" of the underworld because she is the obstacle to overcome.

What about Neo you may be asking. Well I want her to let go of the revenge schtick, or at least redirect it back onto Cinder thus calling a truce with Ruby. However it's more than likely she's gonna be on team keep Alice as an obstacle at least as long as it takes to kill Ruby, and so Neo will be the "real" Antagonist™ within wonderland.

SIXTH BIG THEORY: Neo because of her unwavering determination to enact revenge is gonna die this volume. She'll be the comparison against which RWBY+J will be measured. As they grow and get closer to leaving she'll become more wrapped up with whatever strange classic wonderland logic this pocket universe has. Potentially depending on how things go with helping Alice, Neo may just end up trading spots with her, and end up trapped while everyone else goes back. But dead or trapped, I have a sad feeling this could be our last volume with Neo. My only hope of her surviving at this point is that she like Emerald switches sides, and in doing so joins Winter as a Cinder foil. While Neo grows and lets go of revenge and thus survives, Cinder stays dedicated to her own desires for revenge and other self serving instincts ringing her own death toll for either the end of the volume, or maybe somewhere in vol.10.

SEVENTH BIG THEORY: Ruby is gonna be grieving and maybe even getting full on angry about being expected to fix everything just because she's the optimistic one. She shouldn't have to deal with this brand and advanced level of childhood stealing just because she wanted to do what was right and won(lost) a genetic lottery for magic powers type anger. Jaune is going to have SO MUCH GUILT to work through, mostly the survivors kind. The bees will be experiencing couples therapy, they've both been pretty solid about individual growth leading up to this, Underworld will be them learning what it means to them to be partners now that they are so different to who they were. Weiss is different. Weiss is at first gonna feel like she's there just because it was a way to really shove all the other Schnee's into their therapy arcs and gave RBY+J neutral presence to rely on. Weiss is gonna go in the most stable of the bunch. But then, slow boil style, she'll start to realise how fucked up basically her whole life has been, especially upon realising that her "good years" with her new family have been spent getting sucked into being the last line of defense against the apocalypse, but will be too busy helping the others, so at the end of the volume when everyone else is actually doing pretty good and refreshed for the fight against Salem she'll only just be beginning her breakdown.

EIGHTH BIG THEORY: All this therapy shit is gonna be mirrored back on Remnant by the others grieving the percieved loss of the hearts of the team. Both sides of these story are gonna deal with some heavy shit, but the Remnant side is gonna be the depressed side, at least as long as it takes for Oz to tell them maybe the other's aren't dead leading to desperate attempts to get the staff OR the make desperate attempts to get the relics back anyways and inadvertently find out from Ambrosius what is up. But anyways. Winter is gonna be dealing with survivors guilt and the loss of both her little sisters (friends are great but Penny was little sister zoned and it's a hill I am prepared to die on. good sisterly relationships are friendships too). Nora is gonna be doing her self discovery thing. Ren is gonna be building on his end of vol.8 developments. Oscar will continue his grappling with the merge stuff. Qrow and Willow might get forced into AA. Whitely is gonna learn his own definition of being a Schnee instead of what his dad taught him.

NINTH BIG THEORY (OR FOURTH VERSION 3): The other way they get out is QORN obtain and use the staff to bring them home, potentially by trading enemy lives for them.

BONUS CONSPIRACY THEORY: QORN if presented with needing to trade for their loved ones & lost civilians have a lightbulb moment and decide hey why not trap Salem in a pocket universe since that is a thing Ambrosius can make? Like, if this bitch hasn't budged on her not learning to appreaciate life and humanity or whatever (which I'n pretty sure is the other way to break her curse instead of stopping remnant from turning) then she's a prime candidate for shoving into a personal reality that you can only escape if you can face your problems long enough to break the cycle they have you in. It'd be really fucked up but I think it might actually be possible to run the place using her as her own material component. Like kill her over and over and redistribute the energy to make the pocket world, but because god given power + Ambrosius can't actually destroy she just reforms anyways. MIght take a few hundred thousand deaths but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Or use the BoD oasis/grimm pools to make a world that mirrored the one she chose to live in on Remnant really make it hard for her to break that cycle....

Anyways.

TENTH BIG THEORY: Working on the idea that the relics are actually hidden in secret protected pockets of the underworld RWBY+J are gonna have a secondary quest of trying to get the relics from this side, and either finding a new place to hide them ages away from their vault doors. If you wanna make it a FOURTH VERSION 4, they're specifically gonna seek out the sword of destruction (HOLY VORPAL BLADE ALLUSIONS BATMAN) either with the intent of cutting their way out underworld--ahem wonderland--or with the assumption that someone is inevitably gonna have to open the vault door, because that's just how things be these days and they'll be able to cross to Vacuo from there.

[1smolbean]

ok rant (? started out as a rant but descended into chaos) time

no but I find it absolutely fucking hilarious that my parents are like "oh just move on from your trauma" and then don't tell me how to do that, trigger me even when I've told them about my triggers, make me talk to people that trigger me, and make me go to places that trigger me. like...ya think maybe, just maybe, that, idk, I might have trouble moving on from those events if I have to relive them all the time? and I've explained it to them but they just refuse to understand it and they don't understand the word "no" either and I just,,,find this the funniest thing ever cause like they don't fucking understand! they don't! and I've told them but they refuse to! and I'm laughing this is so funny they refuse to understand

I CAN'T STOP LAUGHING I'M SORRY THIS IS SO FUCKING FUNNY LIKE THEY REFUSE TO UNDERSTAND IT AND I,,,,,I JUST JKDJFKDLSJFLDKJFD THEY REFUSE TO GET IT AND THIS IS THE FUNNIEST THING EVER THEY REFUSE TO HELP THEIR CHILD LIVE A HAPPY LIFE

what kind of parent does that? a shitty one. they're the most hypocritical people I've ever met cause THEY'VE moved on from their trauma and they respect each other's triggers and my brother's triggers but like,,,not mine and why? CAUSE THEY'RE BAD AT THEIR JOB. THEY'RE BAD PARENTS and I'm literally laughing so hard this is so funny to me and my mother has said before that she is proud of me for not skipping school because she assumed I would but she's proud that I haven't. like,,,,wow okay I literally have no reason whatsoever to skip school though??? why would you assume that? and idk I just find it hilarious that my mother both expects me to get an A+ on every subject and also skip school. like bitch excuse me? that's...HHJFDHSFKHFDSKH THAT'S FUNNY IT'S FUNNY THIS IS FUNNY. I'M SORRY. I'M REALLY SORRY THIS IS HILARIOUS TO ME AND I WROTE OUT A WHOLE GODDAMN RANT ABOUT THIS BUT IT'S JUST THREE PARAGRAPHS OF ME BEING LIKE "MY PARENTS' HORRIBLE TREATMENT OF ME IS FUNNY" AND LIKE...IT IS THOUGH!

I feel like Alvar Vacker and Winter Schnee right now. like I just,,,this is so funny but I also want to stab something right now. is this normal? I don't think this is normal. I should talk to a therapist or doctor but I'm my own therapist and everybody else's too and idk it just seems...wrong to burden people with MY problems when they have their own. i should stop telling people when I'm sad, they don't need that. No, no but they care. why do they, though? my parents "care." they yell at me, say I'm not enough, tell me it's hard to take care of me, but they care. I guess. i think they care. caring is bad. caring for someone is bad. i shouldn't...i shouldn't trust people, because trust gets you hurt. and i hate being hurt. and i shouldn't care about people. i shouldn't care. do i even care? did i ever care? yes. but i won't anymore.

I have gone back to wishing I could acquaint a ridgdly edged object fundamentally used in the construction of walls with my biological father's facial structure. (translation: ok nvm I wanna hit my dad in the face with a brick)

maybe if you didn't yell at me i wouldn't listen to music so loudly. father

father (derogatory)

i am going to lie down on the floor and listen to Special Girl by dodie until i die

i'm the eldest daughter but I'm not a daughter i'm a son but my parents don't care

i feel nothing but the crushing weight of responsibility on my shoulders

I believe I need a counselor, or therapist, or- no, I have one already, I'm my own therapist

I can deal with this on my own

hey mother when you look through my tumblr and read this PLEASE GET ME SOME ANTIDEPRESSANTS OR ADHD MEDS IM NOT DOING TOO GOOD

the powerpuff girls reboot script made me speedrun the five stages of grief I hate it so much

cats opening partially closed doors with their FACES is wild and I love it

I want more soda.

everything hurts and I'm dying

Okay so what the hell happened here Nina please get yourself into shape you need to figure out why you did a 180 from being sad to being angry to being sad to being angry and also that gender can fluid you really be switching from "gender is for mortals" to "none gender left boy" with your emotions too

this picture of Winter Schnee perfectly encapsulates my mood right now

im in pain everybody! were in pain! specifically in my chest! what the hell is happening with my lungs

nevermind we're good now

YOU WILL NEVER HAVE TO HURT THE WAY YOU KNOW THAT I DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

I FEEL LIKE I'LL BE OKAY AND I HOPE I CAN JUST MAINTAIN IT I WILL NOT LET MYSELF BECOME MY PROBLEM

AND I'M JUST WAITING FOR THE DAY YOU SAVE ME FROM MYSELF 'CAUSE I CAN'T HELP THE WAY I FEEL FOR YOU FOR YOU

AND WRITE IN EVERY SPACE THE WORDS "I LOVE YOU" IN REPLACE THEN MAYBE TIME WOULD NOT ERASE MEEEEE IF YOU COULD ONLY KNOW I'D NEVER LET YOU GOOOO AND THE WORDS I MOST REGRET ARE THE ONES I NEVER MEANT TO LEEEEEEAAAAVEEEEEEEE UNSAID EMILYYYYYYYYYY

*muffled sobbing*

it's projecting onto fictional characters with trauma hours everybody

DO OR DIE YOU'LL NEVER MAKE ME BECAUSE THE WORLD WILL NEVER TAKE MY HEART GO AND TRY YOU'LL NEVER MAKE ME WE WANT IT ALL WE WANNA PLAY THIS PARY I WON'T EXPLAIN OR SAY I'M SORRY I'M UNASHAMED I'M GONNA SHOE MY SCARS GIVE A CHEAR FOR ALL THE BROKEN LISTEN HERE BECAUSE IT'S WHO WE ARE

hey remember that "fuck therapy I'm becoming a knight" post I spam reblogged yeah that's my current mood rn

anyway that concludes round one of my annual mental breakdown don't worry I'll be back in approximately five minutes after drinking an entire bottle of soda

[traumathings]

(1/2)So I've recently learned that I have 2 traumas, and fix the criteria of ptsd enough to self-dx. i'm not sure where to go from here... I can't seek professional help, but i do want to find out what the triggers to one of my traumas, since it's a lot further back and muddled. The other I knew about it and the triggers fairly quickly, so-idk. I just was hoping you might be able to help me figure out how to process and deal with my traumas, even if they don't (overtly) affect my life.

(2/2) I'm just very new to this, and don't know what i should and shouldn't do. I just want to understand myself and properly avoid things. Also unrelated but, it's a bit hard to read your description with the light background and text.

Hi anon, I’ve changed the font color, hopefully it’s a bit easier to read.

Alright, so I’m not a therapist. Like at all. I’m just a regular human being with a blog. I’m not even in the same realm as being qualified to process someone else’s trauma, that’s not something to take lightly. Here’s the thing. Trauma is a very pervasive thing. Sometimes you think it’s not affecting you anymore (or at all), to then realize it has changed the core way you interpret the world and deal with it so deeply you don’t even realize it because it is normalized. Specially traumas that happened very further back. 

If the trauma seems to not be affecting your life, digging thru it or trying to remember it may cause it to come back full force and that can give you a brand new batch of PTSD. Sometimes the reason we are “”non-affected”” (see no noticeable effects) by a trauma is because it has been suppressed. Trying to work thru a trauma by yourself or with someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing might cause retraumatization or it may cause the trauma that was suppressed to come back (the memories) and that is not something that should be done outside a safe, professional setting. A trauma that hasn’t been processed and is so suppressed you can’t remember it right can absolutely trigger PTSD if you dig enough that you actually remember it again.

So the reason people avoid triggers isn’t because having triggers by itself is a bad thing. It’s because triggers are incredibly distressing. They create a reaction that if strong enough, can last for days on end. They can usually cause flashbacks which are akin to reliving your trauma. They can trigger emotions such as fear and disgust and terror and people don’t usually want to deal with that on a regular basis. So they avoid their triggers. If you don’t even remember the trauma well, findings what triggers you have is gonna have to rely solely on the reaction you have to things, when that reaction doesn’t seem to match what caused it. It might not be that straight forward. It might not even be related to that specific trauma.

Basically, if you truly think your traumas aren’t affecting your life that severely (or that old one is), leave them alone until you can find a therapist or some kind of professional help. You shouldn’t try to mess with an old trauma unless you know what you are doing. Usually therapists are very good in uncovering to us how an old trauma might actually be affecting us now. The point in processing a trauma is so the triggers are diminished and the trauma causes less distress in the person’s life. If the trauma in question is not causing noticeable distress, then it can wait until you find a therapist to help you with it.

I’m gonna be honest, I don’t deal with my traumas at all. Most of my traumas are distressing enough that just remembering a small part of it can trigger me. The traumas I try to process on my own are exclusively the ones who didn’t give me PTSD (a.k.a the old ones who gave me C-PTSD instead lmao). Even trying to remember the details of my trauma that my brain has already suppressed would distress me to no end. I am legitimately waiting until we can go out again to go look for my new therapist to help me with this. I have no desire to look at my traumas on my own, I need help. Older traumas can merge into your brain’s regular operation so much you might be unable to actually tell them apart from yourself at this point. That’s why therapists are useful, they will point out to you things that you’re used to already but that are less than... healthy.

So basically, I encourage you to try and find a therapist. IF a trauma YOU FULLY REMEMBER is not too distressing to you or isn’t the culprit in a recent case of PTSD, you can try to journal about it, how it makes you feel or record a video of yourself talking about it (as if you were filming an youtube video) because that can kinda work as a mini therapy, to help you realize things about what you’re saying. Otherwise don’t touch it with a 10 foot pole lol

(that doesn’t mean never touch the trauma ever again, but preferably do it when you have access to a therapist)

My method of “”processing”” old non PTSD inducing traumas was to think about them obsessively until it seemed like I reached a point of understanding on why the person acted why they acted. It helped in nothing lmao What helps in trauma is to realize it wasn’t your fault, the way other people act doesn’t have anything to do with you and to undo whatever cursed changes the trauma brought to your behavior and way of thinking. I can’t advise you on that because heck me if I know how to do it lol I post more trivia about trauma itself than about recovery or useful tips because I have almost none. When I learn something useful y’all will hear about it lol

[besmirchthis]

this was a couple years ago, i guess.

i think about this a lot. partly maybe because it’s a kind of representation slash particular manifestation of a bunch of things that’ve fucked with me. partly because i guess i haven’t talked it out enough. partly because… well. there’s a path for thinking there, but we’ll put it aside for now.

first off, i’m sure the place i’m going to grouse about works for some people, has served some people well or at least all right, etc.  i don’t know for sure; i’m not going to go seeking that right now.

but like.

god. so the gist of it is that during my final semester of creative writing grad times, i agreed to go to this ed recovery center place. i didn’t WANT to - i deeply didn’t want to leave kristine or laramie - but the timing worked as well as any, i did wanted to get some of my act together, and i had the insurance to cover most of the cost, so. so okay. so i went.

and the gist is that it was fucking wretched, or i found it wretched.

the gist is that i found myself unheard or/and misunderstood or/and ignored.

the gist is that everything in me reacted against that place, left me feeling fucked in that place, and that over and again i was told to endure it. left to feel like it didn’t wound me the goddamn way it did.

i fucking. hate it. i hate that fucking place; i hate the people who kept me in there.

it isn’t that i didn’t try to give the place a chance. like yeah negative goddamn reaction from day one, but i fucking tried. and kept trying. and let myself be talked into staying longer, then longer, every goddamn day rending me.

i didn’t feel okay there. i rarely felt anywhere close to okay there.

i disagreed with… so fucking much about their philosophy? also about the ways certain aspects of eating and eating particular foods were framed like. i’m not going to talk about that here but just. there were some insidious messages woven in here and there and many, many places.

this may have been just me with people, but as far as i can recall, i rarely felt comfortable in group therapy sessions; there was always i think more performance in it than i liked. (i mean on my part. i mean partly because i couldn’t just keep talking about how Wrong the place felt to me, how fucking badly i wanted to needed to leave because 1) nobody in treatment needs to hear much of that probably 2) i absolutely didn’t need to hear more of my peers telling me ‘oh u just need to keep waiting you’ll see’ and 3) idk just like… i don’t know i had a three, it’s gone, whatever.) i don’t. feel like going into that further, so whatever, here i go, move along.

related: i was fucking. frustrated and at times nearly infuriated with myself, because it was easy to frame myself as someone Who Was Willfully Resisting Treatment or Who Didn’t Want To Get Better or Who Was Being A Bad Patient (which hahahaha is fuckinggg bullshit anyway heY). like ‘oh no why can’t i just focus on RECOVERY and do what i’m here to do?’ OH YOU KNOW WHAT? IF YOU’R FOCUSING ON HOW TERRIBLE THIS PLACE MAKES YOU FEEL, THERE’S PROBABLY A GOOD REASON!!!

and again, and again: ‘you need to focus on other things.’ ‘it’s fine.’ ‘sometimes treatment is uncomfortable.’ ‘you’ll see.’

like look fellas, pals, i am and i was real sick of this eating disorder bullshit, all right? i’m sure some part of me is clinging to some parts of it, but like. i wanted to improve my shitty relationship with myself and whatever with food. i want to connect to me, and i was fucking looking for ways to do it, ASKING for goddamn help in finding those ways.

and the aid provided was just. not enough. not nearly enough.

like ‘oh you can go sit in your room for an hour at x time (never mind the loud fucking fan in there that fucks with your comprehension) but really this is going to count against you even though we won’t TELL you that until you return to group and we’re like OH YOU ARE IMPROVING LOOK AT YOU BEING AROUND PEOPLE’ like hi fuck you but i don’t need to. socialize the ways you want or participate in all of these fucking groups i feel little belonging in to goddamn be ‘improving’ or whatever.

like ‘here have some earplugs’ okay i’ll try okay guess what THIS IS STILL NOT HELPING.

like mostly, like primarily ‘journal about it! give it another week! you’ll feel more at home!! you just need to give it time!!!’

at no point (i don’t think? i know i forget a lot of things but also if it did happen it was fleeting) did anyone on my treatment team seem to seriously entertain like. the idea that maYBE THIS PLACE WAS JUST NOT GREAT FOR ME. probably it would’ve helped for me to like. set myself up to enter some other program, but the entire Being There thing shook me enough and tbh tbf did set me up with some strategies so that i felt capable of going the fuck back home. (also lmfao like i had money to enter another program, hm.) and also? and also. i wasn’t near like. an actual danger point.

oh and by the way i loved, really super loveD the way my therapist kept questioning my relationship with kristine like. yes i know i talked about her a lot BECAUSE I WAS FUCKING WORRIED ABOUT HER and because i’m a sentimental shithead and like look we’ve had our whatever bumps of figuring things out but she’s super fucking supportive of me and in general i think we do a lot of good for each other? and this therapist was just. clearly super doubtful, hinted and hinted in a ‘this is unhealthy’ way that ours was a codependent relationship and my dudes, i do NOT care for the directions she seemed to be heading in.

also just. therapy sessions - individual as well as group - weren’t helpful to me, and from the sounds of it i had one of the less objectionable therapists. i tried to express this a few times, but she’d be like ‘oh we’ll get to that eventually.’ ‘oh, there’s no rush.’ like excuse me wait are you like?? just kind of pacing out your time according to a certain schedule like what the fuck this isn’t helping so i’m supposed to?? wait another three weeks and maybe, MAYBE then we’ll get to something moderately useful?

like holy shit every session felt useless felt like i was being pulled in directions i didn’t care for felt like i was being scarcely tolerated and you know what i get that it was probably tiresome listening to me talking over and again about how terrible i felt just being in that place, but mayyybe you could have listened to what and why i was saying, rather than continuing to brush it off as ‘deal with it’ and ‘oh sometimes people feel that way at first’ and ‘no i don’t think you know what you want.’ also hi that wasn’t the only thing i tried talking about but you were helpful ummm literally never bye.

and like. thinking on said therapist, there were certain… malevolences, subtle but working their way through her and a would-be ig quirky persona and like. it did not feel great. i did not feel great, anyway.

rarely did i feel even remotely okay in that place. and i know treatment centers aren’t fuckin. famous for being comfortable or whatever but like the alienation i felt was just… it wasn’t entirely related to like. my relationship to myself generally or to my relationship to my body or. i mean. shit and shit and shit, i have a hard time getting at the core of this, or anywhere close to it. my alienation felt very specific to that place, and most everything left me feeling further fractured, fragmented. like i was being taken into pieces and not in ways that worked toward rebuilding. like i was being or allowing myself to be erased with a glance.

i have a history of, i guess, being quietly devastated by other people. particularly people who are supposed to being providing some kind of care.

and it feels strange to me, hearing in a place of supposed recovery that what i’m asking is too much, that i’m just not trying the right way, that my instincts are wrong.

can i fucking. tell you something about my gut instinct, trauma-honed as it’s been for decades? IT TENDS TO BE REAL FUCKING ACCURATE. especially when i meet someone face-to-face or am physically in a place. like. look, i doubt myself about a lot of things, but my reactions are usually pretty solid.

and every impulse in me. every goddamn instinct was telling me GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE. fucking shouting it within the first hour of being there, and yes i told myself give it a few days, give it a week, because yes sometimes you can get used to things or i can. but this? the shouting continued. it was like. a constant fucking battle to muffle this impulse almost the entire time i was there.

like yes, once in a while i was able to convince myself that things were getting a little better and maybe it would be all right to stay after all. but most of that?? i think was like. trying to cling to the stasis of ‘oh this is life now why shake it up?’ because you know what else i’m real good at??? enduring shitty situations in which i feel like i’m being ignored slash my needs aren’t being met, ayyYYYYYYyy.

i’m sure there are things i’m mis-speaking here, misrecalling. but the overall of it feels right. i am… angry. and i am not angry often.

okay also this feels and felt like a minor gripe but also it… really wasn’t? and maybe it simply wasn’t possible to change but like. look it fucked with me, whatever. point being that there was a very large, very loud air vent in my room. and like. i have a hard time concentrating slash functioning slash processing anything where there are constant loud noises happening. (cold’s nearly as bad; no amount of layering keeps me from shutting down in chill.) it wears me out and i cannot, 100% cannot relax. and like I FEEL SO SHITTY BITCHING ABOUT OH NO A LOUD VENT IN MY ROOM but it amped my anxiety up, made talking on the phone real fucking difficult, made writing reading thinking pretty much impossible. every time i told them they were like ‘what can ya do’ or ‘try the earplugs’ but like. whatever. anyway.

something else: i was thirsty all. the fucking. time. which 100% happened the first time i was in treatment, and after like two months of hospitalization they were like OH HUH I GUESS YOU DID NEED MORE WATER ALL ALONG like thanks guys okay. but yeah this treatment center was round two for thaT. i brought it up multiple times, spaced out over days or weeks or fuck if i know. and it was brushed off like ‘no you’re not.’ or ‘live with it.’ or ‘your urine looks fine in the morning so there’s nothing to worry about.’ like cool story fuckos and i get that maybe you think you have reasons for caution but it doesn’t change the fact that i am always thirsty and thirsty in that like painful way? i am just asking for like?? one small extra water drink even once a day? …no? cool. thanks.

i did my shitty journaling, you assholes. i tried to communicate. and do you know what i heard? nothing, nothing, fucking nothing week after week.

and ha. HA. when i did finally screw myself up to leave? when i reached the ‘you know what i can’t keep living like this i have other places to fucking be where i can be me and work on healing with the people i was working with before this’? my treatment team dove hard and heavy into a campaign of ‘oh but if you leave against medical advice, your insurance might make you pay for everything!!’

over. and over. and over.

what i should have done was call my insurance. i’d say i don’t know why i didn’t, only lbr, i’m terrible at phone calls, terrible often at doing what needs to be done, and i was fucking scared like. i don’t know. i don’t fucking know. but i also don’t think anyone suggested that i contact my insurance? which?? is weird, in retrospect (or not weird at all). and like every goddamn day once i’d declared my intention to leave, they just kept hammering it in, and in, and in. and like, really?

i don’t know what the were told. what they might have heard, what they might have known, to what extent this might have been a scare tactic. but i eventually found out from my insurance that it was never going to be an issue. and like. i have some heavy fucking doubts about their intentions in taking that route so very, very hard.

i think there are other things i maybe meant to say.

mostly, i’m just tired. and angry. but too tired to write any more of the angry.

like hey, to be dismissed time and again. to be told my instincts are awry, when i goddamn know they’re telling truth. just.

thanks, fuckers. thanks for the terrible fucking trip.

[silver-falling-star]

Sing me a song, o muse, of your bitter hatred against catcher in the rye bc SAME

Oooooh boy, I smell one of my long winded rants coming on. Strap in folks its about to be a wild ride.

So, Ima preface this by saying that I have NOT read it since I was forced to read it in 11th grade. For like, several fucking reasons. (the primary one being that I don’t want to, the 2nd one being I don’t know which bookshelf my dad stashed my copy on. He stashed all my required readings on various bookshelves after I was done with them. Because we were all given copies for free by the teachers that we were allowed to keep. I’ll chalk this up to private school benefits I guess? I’ve been out of the public school circuit since the end of 5th grade) So basically my memory of like, most of the events that take place in the book are foggy at best and unremembered at worst.

@ my mutuals and followers who like this book, that’s fine you do you, but I personally am not and probably will never be a fan of Catcher in the Rye. My feelings of why I dislike it are my opinions and I’m not gonna force them on you.

Problem 1: Main character is an unsympathetic asshole

My biggest gripe about the book is honestly a gripe I have about SEVERAL books. Unlikable characters, and I don’t necessarily mean written poorly (though I don’t remember being awed by how the book was written, I’ll be honest.) I mean unsympathetic asshole little bastards that make you want to just chuck the book across the room. Other books that share this problem are The Great Gatsby (that book is hot fucking garbage in terms of likeable characters and I WILL die on that fucking hill do not even @ me), Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie (Main character is an asshole little snobby bitch and despite being a murder mystery written in first person she literally figures things out at such a pace its not fun for the reader because she STILL ends up caught in shit situations she KNEW WAS GOING TO GO DOWN BECAUSE SHES SUCH A SPECIAL LITTLE SHIT- okay that’s a rant for a different post) and The King Must Die. (If you ever want to read a book with shit diction, pick it up.)

Now, as a writer/roleplayer of almost a decade, I’ve made plenty of characters that fall into the unsympathetic asshole role. My problem isn’t with the archetype, it’s often used and often done well (fandoms later trying to apologize for them aside) My PROBLEM comes when that’s either the archetype for the only character given any spotlight, or ALL the characters have that problem. (see, Great Gatsby.) Holden Caulfield(or however the fuck you spell it) is an unsympathetic asshole, and also the character who’s perspective is the only one we get to see, and the only character we really know much about. (Mainly cause he just doesn’t deign to care to give a legitimate effort in giving a damn about anyone else aside from how innocent children/his sister are. More on how creepy that shit is later.) Making a book like this means that I’m far less likely to enjoy it because I want to be able to root for someone. I can root for an asshole, so long as they’re likeable in some regard. Holden is a grade A fuckboy in the making and as such I am not a fan.

TL/DR: It’s possible to have likeable unsympathetic asshole characters, it is almost impossible to do that if that’s all you have exposure too in your cast.

Problem 2: I was really not in the best place to receive such a fucking depresso espresso lesson about life.

Switching gears momentarily from problems with the writing/book itself to problems with the timing of this book showing up in my life. High school was the time when all my trauma I’d successfully… repressed? Avoided dealing with? whatever, basically all my mental health shit suddenly decided to spring itself on me and yell “SURPRISE, YOU’RE MENTALLY FUCKED AND WILL NEVER BE THE SAME!” in 10th grade and it wasn’t until halfway through 11th grade that I even started getting a handle on shit. I almost failed high school and it was *bad*, especially for someone who was just trying to get to college so I could get to vet school and be qualified for a job that requires an ass load of education. So in walks this fucking book and it’s message of “adulthood is a sham, nothing matters and you really should just fuck around and do whatever because it’s all bullshit anyway. Childhood was where it’s at.”

Like???? Alright, that’s not what I need to hear when I’m barely passing high school. Go to fucking therapy and get some help, we all have trauma and therapy is the best path to work through it. I dunno like, yeah okay some people need to hear that message at whatever time in their life they read the book, but that message really wasn’t great to my Anxiety/Depression/ADHD struggling ass trying to just stay steady enough to get into college.

Honestly, even to this day I HATE HATE HATE books with depressing messages like that. I already deal with the struggle of being afraid of failure, getting where I want to be, all that shit. I don’t want that in my literature. Give me a person who struggles but still succeeds and finds some sort of happiness and self-worth in the end. Give me someone overcoming their traumas in such a way that they can at least have a good quality of life afterwards, even if the trauma will never leave, so long as they’re happy. I’m tired of YA novels that try and sell our generation and gen z the message that life sucks. Give me more hope, more heroes, more people making a difference because hell life is short so best make the most of it making a difference.

To quote GotG, why do I care so much about stories that revolve around saving the world, even if that world is just as small as a found family?

And my existence might as well be a happy one and have HOPE GOD DAMMIT.

TL/DR: If a book leaves me feeling like shit after reading it because it ends on a super shitty note, I’m generally not going to enjoy that book. And the fact that most YA novels these days that are given to highschoolers fall into this category is hot garbage when this is around the time they’re trying to find some sort of direction in life.

*Note: I realize that there are times and places for books that give more somber messages. Hell, I’ve even enjoyed some books with messages of such a tone. But media these days, and honestly for most of my life starting in mid to late teenage years (and maybe earlier) has started taking a turn towards the more depressing/somber stuff, and its overwhelming and just bad. And even back then when first reading it this was something I picked up on and didn’t enjoy. It just was not the right time in my life to hear a message so devoid of giving a shit.

Problem 3: Holden is honestly, super fucking creepy.

Okay, we back on the train of the actual book’s writing. Holden the dipshit is honestly, really fucking creepy. Towards women specifically. I have no direct quotes from the book specifically, but I DISTINCTLY remember the way he talked about women (or even young children/girls) being creepy as shit. Like, he waxes lyrical about his kid sister and her classmates and how innocent they are and how he wants to be the “Catcher in the Rye” to keep them innocent and to keep them from realizing how bad the world is. Great, lovely sentiment Holden. Except that the way you’re going about it comes across as being a pedophile.  You’re at the very least sexist as fuck, because you’re objectifying the fuck out of people anyway.

That scene with the sex worker in the hotel room is also one I remember making me feel super uncomfortable. Not because the sex worker is there, but because uh, just, god, that whole scene gave me the creeps. Probably because I felt bad for the woman, coming into the room expecting to be paid for work and there’s just this kid who breaks the fuck down, tells her some depressing shit, and maybe pays her? (does he pay her? I can’t fucking remember, I’d like to think he does, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he doesn’t, because he’s an ass.) Actually, bigger question IS HE EVEN OF AGE TO HAVE SEX WITH HER LEGALLY? HOW OLD IS THIS KID? HES STILL IN HIGH SCHOOL RIGHT?

…. so I looked it up, he’s 17. SEVENTEEN. HE IS A M I N O R. I’m like 99% sure that the woman he hires is like, twice his age at least. That’s straight up illegal.

god this just gets worse.

TL/DR: Holden is a 17 year old creep who comes off as a pedophile in the way he talks about kids, and also definitely hired a sex worker while he was underage. Idk if that was legal at the time this book was written, but if it was (and I doubt it), that has aged very poorly.

Problem 4: It’s got a lot of male fans who fall into that all too dangerous category of having Fight Club or Rick and Morty being their favorite bit of visual media.

Okay, again, not a problem of the book. But when the majority fanbase (or at least, the most vocal part) are a bunch of abusive men who don’t realize that the message they took away from a work of fiction is incredibly problematic? Or worse, know and don’t care because they think their take is superior? Uhhh, how do I say, big yikes.

Like, this could be your favorite book, whatever, that’s you, I don’t care, but if your reasoning for it is because Holden is, in your opinion, an unflawed idealized version of yourself/your ideals?

thats a nope from me bro.

———-

That’s all I can do off the top of my head without going in and reading the book again. Which I probably won’t do for a long time, because I don’t need to hear that struggling to make a place for yourself is dumb and proves you’re just “part of the machine, the man has made you his bitch.” while I’m still trying to y’know, get to where I want to go.

But there you go, four solid reasons why I really really do not like Catcher in the Rye.

[mildew-mop]

Back when I was in school, I would regularly be mocked and belittled (by staff, other students didn’t care) with regular meltdowns, mental breakdowns, etc growing up. Looking back, it was a mix of autistic overwhelmedness, panic attacks, and ptsd moments. I was rarely shown sympathy, and usually the goal was to just get me to shut up. The school councilors didn’t want to deal with me freaking out so they just believed my shithead parents when they said they were “helping” me.

I didn’t understand what autism was, and would just forget about my autistic meltdowns in between them happening and once I found out about autism when I was around 15/16 it explained a lot. Everything from sensory overload to preferring small spoons. Getting an autism diagnoses was like adding to a glossary to explain a lot of my behavior.

Looking over this before posting, I’ve realized I turned it into kind of a vent after this point but I’m going to post if anyways, but just putting this little warning.

When I was still small enough to be picked up, my mom would flip me upside down to “calm” me down and shut me up. My dad would do a similar thing where he would grab me by my ankles and swing me around but that was more about making me more upset than less upset cause the more I cried, the more entertained he was (sometimes he would do this in public and for the life of me I will not understand how he got away with just pretending I enjoyed it). This was their main reaction to my various meltdowns and episodes, along with yelling at me or ignoring it.

When I got older and tried to explain some of my symptoms of specifically psychotic(???) episodes (idk what to call them) I was told it was a symptom of “internet addiction” by my shithead father, and other people generally ignored me or told me to go to my parents for help. (Episodes of this specific kind would include screaming, yelling, amnesia, disassociation, unresponsiveness, minor hallucinations, nonverbalness, etc.)

I wish that therapy wasn’t so expensive and that it was easy to find therapists who give a fuck about their patients. I have gone through so many therapists and idk what it looks like when one “clicks” or whatever but I feel like even ones that don’t “click” should have empathy? Basically all therapists I have interacted with don’t care at all if you talk about serious things. If I mention that I have a pet snake or a cat, they direct the conversation to that. If I talk about trauma or my struggles interacting with people, they just sit there barely paying attention. At this point I am sick of constantly going through therapists and shit just to pay money to for people to not care. I could make a post about ball python care online and it would be free on my end, and I wouldn’t have to deal with some bitch sitting there and having the response of “why don’t you figure out what you need to be happy between now and our next session” to me wanting help over my trauma. It’s always the same, generic shit. They never give actual advice and just sit there not caring. Its hard enough when my dad hired someone pretending to be a therapist as part of his fucking brainwashing growing up.

Also upset about how the same people growing up would yell at me and complain about how I was insufferable when nonverbal, and how I couldn’t make friends or interact with people and shit would also describe me as “high functioning” and didn’t need help. Probably cause of the assumption I was just looking for attention or whatever. Ah yes. I will humiliate myself via crying over texture or having a panic attack for “attention” when doing this always results in being ignored. Such a smart fucking plan of mine.

I’m super curious what other self diagnosed, late diagnosed people thought about their meltdowns prior to discovering the autistic community. For example I remember a girl in my class missing a few days of school and when we asked about her the teacher just said she had a mental breakdown and I was like, so what? Something had happened in her family life and everyone was really worried but I could not for the life of me understand why everyone was making such a big deal about a mental breakdown, like hello- I have those every other day.

Of course I understand the difference now and have certainly experienced both but I had such a hard time understanding why everyone cared about her and not about me at the time. She missed a week of school and with how poor my mental health and accommodations were at the time I probably had four to seven meltdowns of varying intensity in that amount of time. I’d even tell friends and family that I had mental breakdowns and they were like “sure awesome go help with dinner okay?”

And of course I thought I was having some type of breakdown or psychotic episode, I was depressed, burnt out, overwhelmed, isolated, and every day I either collapsed into bed the second I got home or sat on my bedroom floor sobbing, pulling my hair, hitting myself, hitting my walls, pacing, rocking, and covering my ears.

The point of writing this is that I’d be incredibly interested in other late or self diagnosed peoples experience and thoughts with meltdowns before knowing what was really going on.

[not-poignant]

Hey Pia, recently I started therapy but my therapist brushed aside me being emotionally abused & gaslit by my sibling by saying sibling fights are normal & we should focus on how I continue 'letting' it happen. I left the session rlly upset & it sent me into a spiral of self-loathing & doubt all over again/had I made everything up after all? I'm in a better place now but it would be lovely if you could tell me how to deal with such situations better, but no pressure!

Oh boy, bad therapists. Have I had some experience with them.

tl;dr: bad therapists suck, don’t give up, etc. etc.

THIS POST IS SO LONG I AM SO SORRY

Firstly, it is awesome you made the effort to go see a therapist. And please please don’t think all therapists (or even most therapists) will be like the one you saw.

Therapists are regular people, and unfortunately, sometimes regular people suck and a degree doesn’t change that.

Caveat: Not a therapist. Just a person who has seen a lot of therapists. YMMV.

I have seen a lot of therapists in my lifetime. And a lot of bad therapists. I won’t give you the exact number, but it’s well over 10. It’s actually pretty normal to sometimes meet therapists that are just a poor match. Even if the therapist had good reasons to think you were participating in a difficult situation, there’s a lot of ways to bring that up that aren’t straight up invalidating, and they should have tried to hear you, rather than put their opinions forward over yours.

Therapy should be a collaboration. Not just you listening to them. Not just them listening to you. They might disagree with you, they have to be able to do so tactfully and respectfully, and role model to you how to do this in a way that is respectful. And you have the right to disagree with them.

And I’m gonna be honest with you. Sometimes therapists will say things you’re not ready to hear, that hurt and make you doubt yourself. When I first heard: ‘Pia, do you think maybe you want to be sick?’ I about lost my shit internally, and went home and felt suicidal for two weeks. I didn’t think they were right, but I was terrified they were right, and I didn’t think I could tell them about it because how dare they ask me that question in the first place! What the hell?

But I went back and was like: okay, so after this session, and what you said, this is what happened. And I felt totally unsupported and certainly didn’t feel like I could tell you about this, because what, are you gonna tell me I want to be suicidal too? Here are all the ways I think I don’t want to be sick. I’m still deeply scared that deep down I might want to be, but I think you have to realise that what you’ve said is really hurtful to all the parts of me that fight every day - through lifestyle, coming here, eating well, reading self help books etc. - to not be sick. And I need you to acknowledge that.

And they did. And they apologised. Do I think maybe they wanted me to have a reaction? Yes. Do I think maybe they had no idea it would make me suicidal? I think also yes. They never would’ve done it otherwise. The aim isn’t to make your clients want to kill themselves. At all. Ever.

But anyway, the point is (...ignore how long I took to get here), part of therapy is actually telling the therapist when they’ve fucked up and seeing how receptive they are to that. That’s your responsibility as the client, and that’s something you take on when you hire them. Whether or not you feel you can do that is another thing. It’s totally okay to write down how you feel in a letter, and hand it to them, or email it to them. You can say ‘read this and I’m going to go wait in the waiting room and you can come get me after.’ I have written down a ton of things I wasn’t ready to say.

But it’s an important step in actually - weirdly - learning how to stand up for yourself in a working relationship that goes both ways.

Now, about therapy in general. They work for you. You hire them for your health. So if it’s really not working out, then you also have the right to fire them and find someone else.

Sometimes it can be worth explaining why you’re considering firing them in an email, so they know where they went wrong, but to also give them a chance to reconsider how they’re approaching you, i.e.: ‘I feel like you invalidated my experiences and my feelings, and therefore reduced all of my difficulties and issues around this to something you could sweep aside before telling me things about my own experiences, without ever really hearing me. That’s not fair, it’s inaccurate and it’s not helpful to me. I accept that I might have things to learn about my own behaviour here, but not through you invalidating my upset and hurt, and not through you minimising my real feelings. Because of what you did, these were the consequences (and tell them that you became more self-loathing and so on, that’s not how they’re supposed to leave you feeling after a session!) As a result, I’m not sure / don’t think this is a good fit / will look for another therapist / would be open to suggestions from you as to how to proceed.’ Etc.

That’s a mature way of handling it. (And honestly, even if the therapist doesn’t like getting the email, it is good for them to know why people are leaving early. So they know you’re not just a ‘non-compliant patient’ or whatever the fuck (which you’re not), but someone who has been genuinely distressed by a session that they directly contributed to - like you paid money for that shit! That’s crappy.)

But another mature way, if they really just seem gross, is to fire them and find someone else. You can take a break first, for sure. I always have taken a short break and sort of thought about what I really want too. Like, what do I want? These days it’s ‘to be more functional and to enjoy life more.’

It’s worth calling around and actually screening therapists if you can (depending on how the system works where you are). Screening therapists can be asking things like: what therapy modalities do you prefer? How do you deal with situations where someone is being verbally abused by their sibling? Do you take this seriously? etc. You can definitely pre-screen. I’ve always done this in emails which look like this:

“Dear (whoever they are)

I’m (such and such) from (place) and have been diagnosed with (disorders) due to (one sentence history). I am seeking therapy to help me with (specific things like - learning how to be less anxious, or learning how to be more functional in my life).

Are you taking new clients?

If you are, could you please let me know the following to see if we might be a good fit? 

(Here I ask about modality - CBT is contraindicated in my case so it rules out a lot of therapists automatically, and then I ask about their experience in extensive child abuse trauma and history, as well as medical and chronic illness, and pain and fatigue issues. Here is also where I ask if they offer a sliding scale to people with a low income and no insurance.)

Thanks so much for your time.

(Pia.)”

If they can’t take the time to answer a simple email, either with a call or by replying, then I don’t want to see them anyway, imho. I’m looking to hire them, not the other way around, they can at least communicate some actual credentials to me that mean more than a damn BA degree. But in Australia, therapists will often reply to emails like this. I’m not sure how that is in other places in the world.

Now as to the actual meaty part of like, you going home and feeling fucking awful afterwards. Here’s some stuff you may want to keep in mind in the future:

1. They work for you. And their job is not to make you feel like you are the worst ever. That is no therapist’s job on the planet. Challenging you is not making you decompensate and become non-functional. They fucked up. Sometimes therapy will be challenging and sometimes it will hurt and if you are prone to feeling self-doubt it is going to make you self-doubt. But there is a line between ‘this is stuff that would come up anyway’ and ‘this is something you directly made happen by invalidating my feelings.’ When that happens, it is not a sign that you are the worst ever (you are not even the worst), it is a sign that they made a mistake in their job, like any person who has a job can do.

Unfortunately when therapists make mistakes, they’re making mistakes with people’s psyches, instead of fucking up the icing on a cake, or the level on a brick wall.

But yeah, they are not some authority on high to tell you What is What about Your Life.

The only expert on your life is you. And you invite them into that space to treat you with respect in the process. Invalidating your feelings is not respect. (And I say that even as someone who has disproportionate reactions to things.)

2. Idk what your support situation is like, but it may be worth reaching out to people (or animals) who can make you smile or feel a bit better or get you outside of your head for a bit.

3. Sensory stimulation to also get you outside of your head for a bit. A warm/hot shower or bath. Running your hand over interesting textures like velvet or a nubby couch. Sipping a hot drink that you took the time to make for yourself.

4. Reflecting on what’s actually happening internally like. ‘I feel like they think i’m X and X’ or ‘they must think that I’m just X’ or whatever it is. And then write that down somewhere - both for yourself, and if you decide to share it with them later, so you have clarity on what’s occurring. Sometimes just naming what you’re going through can give you enough knowledge to be like ‘right, I’m afraid that a relative stranger thinks I’m terrible because they know almost nothing about my history and they made an assumption about me.’ - If you take a step back from that, it can help to remember they are a relative stranger who knows almost nothing about you.

*

It’s hard here because I’m not in that session and I don’t know why the therapist said what they said (though trust me, I do believe you that they fucked up - some of them suuuuck), and I know that you go to therapy to be challenged, because if your therapist is just ‘hey fam everything you’re doing and thinking is fine go home you’re just great’ - you’re gonna go home and nothing is going to change. But I think you and I both know that there’s ways of challenging people which don’t suuuuuuck, and that if you have a good trusting bond with your therapist, you can also tell them when they fuck up, and they will actually make steps to repair that with you, so you can be stronger going into the future.

That’s actually one of the best parts of a therapeutic bond, imho, especially as someone coming from an emotionally abusive background - learning how to repair mistakes and realising that you can both do that collaboratively together, and see things get stronger. (Since, in situations of abuse, ruptures can mean no opportunities for genuine forgiveness or growth ever).

But you can’t do it with all therapists. Because some therapists are just shitty at their jobs. Like a bad baker. Or like the dude that makes pizzas but you know he just doesn’t care about pizzas really. Or the doctor who fat-shames instead of doing their fucking job.

I don’t know if I said anything that helped. All I have is some sense of solidarity because I have done the whole bad therapists thing too. My life was helped a lot by realising I was hiring them, and that they work for me. Before that, I always felt like they were some kind of godly authority figure that could see into my inner mind in a way I couldn’t and blah blah blah could Judge Me Like A God (thanks childhood, for featuring an abusive figure who was a cop that fucked up my relationship with authority figures forever). It was really hard for me to understand that no, they’re just like every other damn person you’re gonna hire to work for you: they can be fired if they’re not good at their job or if their vision is totally different to yours.

You’d fire an interior decorator who wanted to fit out your house in something you hated. You definitely have to fire a therapist who wants to fit out your brain in something that makes you hate yourself.

[coldtomyflash]

In tonight's episode of The Flash did it seem like Barry was high to you? I know the Speed Force just made him more accepting of what happened in his past but he was acting like Harry Potter after he took Felix Felicis. I love Barry and I laughed at a few of his moments (speed watching TV, dancing to to the Risky Business song) but it made me uncomfortable for the character that he was so blase when Iris mentioned all their dead friends. Idk.

I wouldn’t say “high” in any sense that he was in an altered state of consciousness or that his joy and confidence were artificial. It didn’t have the same flavour even as “sunshine Barry” after he came back from the speedforce the first time, convinced that he couldn’t lose. That looked a lot more like Felix Felicis to me. Here, he was blasé and joyful by turns, but he wasn’t inappropriate, just a bit of a steamroller, and was willing to slow down when it started to matter, and when he clued in to the impact his steamroller attitude was having. He also didn’t dismiss Iris’s concerns and request for couples’ counselling, which I feel like “sunshine Barry” from season 2 might’ve, citing how the universe wants them to be happy so there’s no need (or something).

But.

I do see where you’re coming from. Clearly, Barry’s sort of walking on sunshine and joy here, and is steamrollering.

With respect to how he acted in therapy specifically… I didn’t find him to be disrespectful about the deaths for a few reasons. One is that… people respond to death really differently. Some people laugh at funerals (not at, but I mean, during) because of their discomfort. Some people are more blasé about death, and some people have been through so much hell that the only thing they can do is laugh. Especially when they’re not in a mood / place / situation where they can open up. 

Barry is emotional but he’s not forthcoming about talking about those feelings, particularly not with anyone he’s not close to. With mentor figures, with close friends, especially when he’s the one doing the reassuring? Absolutely. But in front of a stranger he just met a few minutes ago in a place he doesn’t want to be? He’s not about to get into the thick of things. He’s not even convinced they need to be here, doesn’t know fully why they’re here, and he’s not about to pull up an in-depth discussion about these various deaths for a stranger to witness unless he sees a reason for it?

Not to mention that… I’m pretty confident Barry hates therapy. He’s been before, after his mother died, and I would wager money that it wasn’t a single session, that he had to see someone for a while, someone who was trying to help him “overcome” his “denial” about his dad being the one to kill his mom. That’s how it was more or less discussed when therapy came up in S1 (discussed by Iris and ‘the Streak’ when Iris was telling him about Barry’s need to believe in the impossible). His body language and complete lack of enthusiasm for being there also really indicate he’d sort of rather be anywhere else. He’s not engaged in the slightest (not until Iris starts to open up in a big way and it sort of hits him like a hammer over the head that they are here for a real reason). 

So that’s definitely (imo) a big part of why Barry was casually denying the extent of trauma they’d been through and dismissing it as like “yeah but… okay sure but… hmm so there was a few but it’s no big deal.” He has bad experiences with trauma + therapy. It’s not a topic he’s keen to dwell on. This is a stranger. 

Also - he’s in a really good place right now, and likely doesn’t want to open up a can of worms to discuss death and trauma when he’s feeling so positive and full of life. The Speed Force has juiced up his powers, his body is at 110%, he’s alive and with the people he loves. 

And as I said, some people are more comfortable and casual discussing death, after a certain point. It doesn’t mean they don’t care though, or don’t respect the dead. I think it’s dangerous to suggest that that’s the case, honestly. I know people who take a very “dark humor” and seemingly blasé approach to death or terminal illness or whatever the case is because, well, they have to. Life has forced them to, and that’s how they cope. People sublimate trauma through humor. And Barry’s been through so much bullshit and cried and been hurt so much that being numb and disaffected to it is likely a lot easier sometimes.

This doesn’t mean you have to be comfortable with it! Because again, everyone’s different, and your discomfort here is valid. Not everyone can/would respond to death the way Barry is here. But I’d caution you away from assuming that it means he’s genuinely dismissing any of those people or their sacrifices. Barry wouldn’t do that.

(Side note: honestly I suspect that part of why he seems so “healed” from his traumas is because trauma is somewhat neurological and if his powers and the Speed Force heal his body, the same should be happening to his brain. I’ve suspected for a while that part of why Barry’s coped so well with the insane amounts of trauma he’s suffered is because his powers help him heal parts of the damage he’s experienced, outside his conscious awareness, making it easier to cope with the rest of it).

[cookinguptales]

I could probably write a thousand posts about how terrible American cops are wrt disability, and how cops are trained to read disabled behavior as “erratic behavior” that should be addressed with lethal force.

BUT INSTEAD I’M GONNA WRITE ABOUT SIGN LANGUAGE INTERPRETERS.

I mentioned this briefly a little while ago, but I grew up in a pretty abusive household. My younger sister was a little monster, and for a long time, no one would believe me when I tried to tell them she was hurting me. Because she was younger than me. Smaller than me. Deaf. My sister, like many other members of my family, has a hearing disability. (To my knowledge, none of them choose to identify as Deaf and some specifically don’t, so I’m just gonna stick with deaf.) And growing up with a sibling who left me bloody and bruised all the time taught me something important: our society has very few resources for violent PWD.

Now, my sister probably did have a lot of anger in her because of her disability (though that part is probably her story to tell rather than mine) and she did eventually get diagnosed with some sort of mental illness. But deafness doesn’t make a person violent, and mental illness isn’t an excuse for it. Like hell, I’m disabled and mentally ill and I never hit my sister with a metal baseball bat.

What is true, though, is when you have a deaf family member who is violent, there just aren’t as many treatment resources. Therapists who can sign are few on the ground, and therapists who will cooperate with interpreters (and interpreting requests) aren’t as common as they should be. (Plus, therapy with an interpreter really is more difficult for the patient; you never really get to be alone with the doctor.) Many of the treatment centers who help families deal with “troubled children” don’t take deaf patients. Honestly, most treatment options (and believe me, my parents looked and looked and looked) just aren’t available to children with special needs. The ones that are are often too expensive for families to seriously consider.

And cops, as I later learned, don’t bring interpreters.

My sister got worse over time, you see. The baseball bat wasn’t the worst thing she did to me. And when we were young, she mostly focused on me -- but as she got older, I learned how to get out of her path of destruction and she started hurting other people. My parents started calling the police on her to deal with domestic disturbances fairly often. There was a period there where the police were coming to our house every week or two. (Generally because my sister had straight-up tried to kill one of us or something. You know, mild stuff.) It was a pretty small police department. The same damn guys came to our house every time. They knew exactly who we were and what the situation was in our house.

And they never. Brought. An interpreter.

Now here’s what you need to know about sign language interpreters. Legally speaking, they’re supposed to be supplied by the business/service, not the consumer. Often, interpreters will refuse to be hired by an individual consumer because they want to protect the standard set by the ADA that the business/service must supply the interpreter. The school provides the interpreter. The doctor provides the interpreter. The lawyer provides the interpreter. The cops provide the interpreter. Or they’re supposed to!

These cops never did. They never did much to help us, either, but I guess that’s a separate issue. (Or maybe it’s not. Maybe they didn’t want to deal with a deaf kid in the system and that’s why they never took her into custody and wouldn’t let us press charges. She got Baker Acted a few times, like when the cops had to physically restrain her, but that’s about the extent of it.) And here’s the thing. Here’s the big problem with them refusing to bring a goddamn interpreter literally ever. It meant that they ended up asking us to interpret.

Think about that for a second. These cops regularly asked the victims of violent assault (and the people who reported that violent assault) to interpret for the person who assaulted them. It wasn’t fair to us to put us in a room with someone who’d hurt us and was usually still screaming about how she still wanted to. (idk if the cops could always understand her when she talked; I could, but I mean, I grew up with her. They learned to recognize the profanity tho, lmao.) And you know what? As much as I hate her, it wasn’t fair to her, either. We could have lied. We could have framed her. We could have misrepresented her statements as a result of our own trauma. Who’s to know? We certainly weren’t impartial. It’s hard to be after someone puts their hands around your throat. And we were usually crying and stuff. The whole situation was emotionally exhausting. My sister has always been terrifying when she’s angry, and no one likes calling the cops on their own family. Like we were not good interpreters at that point. lol

Now, I’m not gonna say that my sister wouldn’t have grown up to be the violent asshole she was if she’d been able to get proper treatment as a kid. I don’t know that. It’s possible, I guess. I hear she’s doing better now, though now that we’re both adults, I try to limit our interactions. I do know that I would have been hurt a lot less often as a kid if we’d had more treatment options. I would have spent less of my life living in fear, and I’d probably have fewer symptoms of trauma now. If she couldn’t have been cured, maybe she at least could have been contained. (That sounds horrible to say, but you try living with someone trying to kill you for fifteen years. You won’t care where they go as long as it’s away from you.) And honestly, my experience with my sister speaks to a lot of problems we have with our justice system, too. Our justice system just isn’t designed to accommodate people with disabilities and special needs. Cops shoot autistic people and show up to household disputes with no goddamn interpreter. They aren’t trained and they aren’t held accountable, and that puts PWD like us in danger. I can look at this situation as someone who felt disenfranchised as a victim, but also as a person with a disability who might find myself on the other end of police disinterest one day.

Like, look. I have a physical disability and a mental illness. I hate the stereotype of the violent disabled person as much as anyone. But sometimes PWD really are violent, and for all the horror stories we have about ~scary disabled people~, we actually have very few institutional protections in place for when something like that happens. We don’t train cops or hold them to acceptable standards. We don’t have interpreters on staff or fully accessible facilities. We don’t have treatment programs for PWD that might stop the problems before they become too bad. We don’t always have ways for PWD to be heard if they’re being abused -- or if they’re worrying that they might be the abuser. And we have a lot of cultural stereotypes about disability that we need to unpack. God knows I had trouble convincing people that I had a sister who was deaf and violent, and that the two were unrelated.

I don’t talk to my sister anymore, not unless I have to. Most days I kind of try to pretend I’m an only child. I’m not sure I have a single good memory of her from our childhood. Even the peaceful moments were tense; her mood could turn on a dime and I was always scared of a potential blow up. I still kind of am. These days, I wish her all the best in her recovery -- as long as it happens far away from me. My childhood was already ruined. So was hers. I hope we move forward and increase both accessibility and specialty treatment options so other children don’t have the same fate.

[not-poignant]

You won't disclose personal stuff but it's okay if we ask like, for advice and stuff right? Do you have any resource materials on trauma? The generic material I find just...miss the mark. Same but for overstimulation (from like gentleness, painless experiences make me uncomfortable af) and being touch starved. Is it, like a thing I can learn about? It is very distressing in my everyday life and before reading your stuff it was just plain awkward. I thought I was just being stupid. Thanks, Love.

Always fine with people asking for advice with the standard caveats that I’m just one noodle floating around in a world of a lot of other noodles and I definitely don’t have my personal life or anything sorted out and I’m no substitute for therapy / counsellors etc. :D And I am not a therapist whee.

As for resources, tbh, I haven’t found a great deal. I’ve read a lot of books on trauma over the years (and I own a lot) and there’s two I’d tentatively recommend to folks with trauma. They are:

The Body Remembers by Babette Rothschild, which is fantastic. Looks at a cross-section of trauma (i.e. war vets / rape victims / but also people who have been bitten by dogs and can’t handle dogs, so it’s not like idk... discriminating between types of trauma - because some books do this).

The reason I like this book is because it looks at body-trapped and body-centred trauma, and also looks at the ways in which bodies can process trauma and how we can even release it potentially through the body, and bypass cognitive thought. Potential downsides are that it’s not really written for clients, it’s written for practicioners, so you’ll be looking at a lot of therapist-centred advice, but there are also really helpful case studies and so on. Additionally, while it suggests exercises a client can try, most of those exercises are intended to be used in conjunction with a therapist in a trusted safe space. It’s pretty possible to extract some of those exercises into your personal life though, but I’d suggest being cautious with it, because a lot of trauma healing tends to come from developing a trusting relationship with someone else and knowing you won’t get hurt in the process.

The other is The Trauma Spectrum by Robert Scaer. This is an academic book by a neurologist turned psychologist, who became fascinated with untreatable or resistant pain disorders that seemed to develop after trauma, especially heart-related and joint-related disorders after car accidents, where - as a neurologist - he could find no tangible reason for the pain even though the pain was real. Through study, he became fascinated with body-based trauma. This book is essentially a long academic exploration of the physiological nature of trauma.

I love this personally, because I find nothing more validating than very long academic articles saying exactly why trauma fucks you up, and what chemicals are behind that, and what that does to the body etc. Downsides include that this is more aimed at therapists again, and not clients, and is pretty dense in its language. But upsides include exploration into new ways of looking at trauma (not just cognitive behavioural therapy) and is particularly useful for people who have body-based expressions of anxiety or trauma that resist treatment (like ongoing pain that can’t be diagnosed, fibromyalgia when it’s linked to trauma, digestion issues, vertigo etc.)

There’s no websites I’ve ever used for support that have actually been supportive, and there is almost nothing out there for touch-starved people. I have never seen a single thing about people who’ve had problems with gentleness (which I can too, btw, so I feel you there, it’s shitty as fuck). That’s partly because ‘touch-starved’ - while a physiological, real thing, is something where fandom tends to be ahead of the curve re: psychology. In that sense, you’re more likely to find transformative ideas for how to potentially heal from touch-starvation / touch-phobias etc. via fanfiction that deals specifically with those subjects.

I spent a while with a pretty severe touch phobia (while still needing and wanting touch), so I spent a long time craving and trying to track down resources to help me with this. Maybe some things have come out in the past four years, but I am sorry to tell you that there’s pretty much nothing out there specifically on this subject (or at least, there wasn’t). There’s probably individual case studies around, but there’s no like...there’s nothing really very satisfactory. I’ve done way more to heal my issues with this stuff via writing fanfiction than through resources (and that’s the same for trauma, tbh).

I mean you can find plenty of articles on why being touch-starved is bad for you, and you’ll hear those like...repeated stories of monkeys who die of starvation and malnutrition without touch and so on. Or babies who languish without touch. But in terms of ‘when you’re a touch-starved adult and what you can do about it’ resources, things are thin on the ground. You may wish to look into cuddle parties, which are generally non-sexual cuddle parties with a heavy emphasis on consent, designed to allow people access to hugs etc. in a safe environment.

I do think there’s more news articles about touch-starvation and its pervasiveness in contemporary culture, and how this links to sex practices and so on but they’re written as feature article pieces and not as useful things that can be done to help with the subject.

Basically there was no book or website that specifically helped me with touch-starvation, or even trauma. Most trauma writing tends to be aimed at war vets because that’s where the funding is. A lot of trauma writing is still pretty ‘oldschool’ in that it is cognitive behavioural therapy focused (talk focused) or alternatively is a psychologist trying to ‘brand’ a new type of therapy and so is super ‘use this amazing new!thing to Fix Your Trauma (TM)’ and then isn’t realistic about the fact that most people tend to need a multi-modality approach to helping themselves with trauma.

I’d suggest perhaps going to a local library or something and looking through their resources on trauma books, and getting yourself - if you don’t already have it - a good grounding in the different types of therapies used for helping with trauma, and also then a good idea of how diverse different case studies and techniques can be. From there, it’s sometimes necessary to develop different methods that work for you. But it’s a pretty intense process, not to mention the fact that a lot of these books will conveniently never mention issues to do with touch, except for perhaps: ‘X patient had problems with having sex but then after applying X amount of therapy sessions started having sex again satisfactorily.’ Or whatever.

It’s not really helpful for us, right?

I wish I had better news and better recommendations. There are probably trauma tumblrs which are more up-to-date with resources coming out, but I stopped actively looking a few years ago because I just got really exhausted with that sense of ‘oh yes I know about trauma and the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems but what can I do about it’ and tbh writing what I’ve written (and reading similar things) has been way more useful for me personally.

I guess as a final thing, I’d say it’s worth sitting down and asking yourself what you want to resolve, and what you want that to look like. I.e. whether it looks like friendships with non-sexual physical intimacy like hugging, and so on. You probably have some images in your head of things you crave but can’t have right now. Things you miss that you could have, or things you’ve never had that you come back to over and over again.

Breaking that down into ‘if I could get this thing, what form would it come in, and what is my ideal and what would be acceptable on the way to that ideal (knowing that ideals are generally not realistic etc. but a good thing to aim for)’ might help you narrow down what sort of research, books and communities you need to look into. It also might help you see what sort of steps you could take to achieve those things. Sometimes with touch and sensory issues, it starts with visualising getting the thing, imagining it being satisfying instead of triggery (and making notes of what that looks like so you know your boundaries and limits for real life), and just starting to role-model to yourself that it can be safe in your mind.

It may also be worth looking into books that explore touch issues with people who are on the autism spectrum and/or have sensory processing disorders, because more research has been done there with more techniques suggested, and sometimes trauma symptoms can parallel and therefore like, where trauma psychology hasn’t caught up yet, there can be places elsewhere that might help (for example, it was realising I had Asperger’s and learning that people with Asperger’s often prefer firm touch over very soft gentle touch, that I actually made a pretty big leap forward with my own touch phobia in terms of what I needed to ask from people - this might not be the same for you, obviously, but you might be more likely to find resources written by people with sensory processing disorders or issues, than within the trauma community itself. Trauma psychology is sometimes really like...hyperfocused on one thing (minimising flashbacks) over like...other things that are super necessary).

I apologise that this wasn’t more useful! A lack of resources is in part why I’ve had PTSD since 1997, and why I’m not on top of this stuff yet (also stubbornness, I’m very stubborn lol). So I know it can be distressing, and how much it can like...erode resources and just eat away at a capacity for personal contentment and so on. There’s a real disconnect between ‘usefulness of resources’ and ‘applications to actual people living actual lives’ and I think in part it is because trauma is Hard and Complicated and also that a lot of resources are super post-war focused again, because funding issues. :/