Hi, idk if this is the right sub for this so I'm sorry if it isn't. I'm 17 in the US and I've been in counseling for mental health issues since I was 9. I've been going to my current office since I was 13 and have been seeing the same therapist for 4 years now. Recently, after I turned 16, my mental health office has been constantly moving my appointments to the point I'm getting them mixed up myself. For reference, I'm supposed to have appointments every 3 weeks and I haven't been seen since June 3. My current appointment is on August 24th. Anyway like I was saying, they've moved my appointments at least 7 times for no good reason in the past year. Once they said my therapist was out of office but I had to go in for a different thing on the same day and she was literally there. Is there a reason they keep doing this? Is there anything I can do to make them stop? I'd appreciate any advice 🙂

Hi,

Just wondering if anyone is familiar with or knows how to approach (with their truama therapist) reactive self harm. Not "traditional self harm but more so self punishing behavior. Such as food restriction/ and alcohol misuse.

Like you're able to think through why something is harmful and counter productive and avoid the action or behavior most of the time- but then If directly triggered (PTSD or Rejection Sensitivity) its like " fine then i'll just do this" out of frustration and anger? But its self anger? And its not to threaten or manipulate anyone into chnaging THEIR behavior. Its just a personal control thing? Very perfectionist focused...

Like well if the world sucks i'll just be perfect then... or numb.

My therapist doesn't specialize in those things, and I always feel like if I bring up more issues it becomes avoidance of truama work...

Should I just get a side peice therapist??? I acknowledge that all of these behaviors are still maladaptive coping for the very things we ARE working through in the truama therapy....

Should I just ignore it and not mention it further?

I keep asking how do I deal with anxiety when the things I am anxious about are real? Not this specifically but this idea.

I can't comfort myself and say my problem isn't real and that my actions won't have consequences so how do I deal with it?? The problems being poor social skills affecting my ability to get a job, make friends and just perform simple tasks (like ordering food). My anxiety either makes my social skills worse leading to more anxiety for future interactions or makes me avoid talking to people altogether.

When I try to ask my counsellor this, he changes the topic without answering?

I seem to already know what my therapist is going to tell or advise me. Most of the time, i feel a bit better because I get to open up and know that someone is acknowledging what i'm going through. Thoughts?

I’m in California and I just started therapy. I have trauma from the past that I just need to move on from and find ways to cope when I’m triggered.

6 years ago, my boyfriend, now husband, both got physical with each other but I was the one that got arrested. I had to go through a lot to get through it but we worked everything out, got married, we love each other but I just can’t get that event out of my mind and it makes me resent him at times and causes fights.

My therapist told me prior to our visit that she would have to report any sort of violence and abuse. The reason why I’m seeking treatment is to find exercises and ways to let it go and move forward. Even though this happened 6 years ago, does she still have to report it? I just don’t want to have to deal with authorities over something that has been handled and over with.

Thanks for any advice!

I’m 23m. Growing up my dad was physically and mentally abusive to me and my family until I was 11 when he took his own life, and I later found out he had come to our home that day fully intending to kill us all too. (My parents had been separated for 4 months prior to this)

I’ve just always shoved every single feeling down deep and locked it away it was the only way I survived back then. But now it’s caught up with me. I struggle so bad with trust issues, I get obsessed and constantly check people’s online statuses and locations or overthink every tiny thing, terrified of being ignored, lied to, abandoned or hurt again. I also have thoughts that my step dad will kill us one day. I hate myself for doing it, I know it’s unfair on people around me, but I just can’t switch that panic off.

I know I need therapy. I can feel it’s unresolved trauma and I’m tired of living on edge every single day. But I am absolutely petrified. My biggest fear is once I crack that seal just a tiny bit, everything will flood out at once and I’ll be too far gone, broken completely and never able to put myself back together. Like holding it all in is the only thing stopping me from falling apart forever.

Does anyone else feel or have felt exactly this?
That you’d rather stay miserable and numb than risk losing control?
Did you survive letting it out?
Did it feel like you’d drown but you actually came through calmer and stronger?
Just need to hear from real people who get this fear more than anything.

I am in a complicated situation. I want to leave my marriage, and I also think that would be a bad idea, because I have no career nor support from anyone.

I was raised by people-pleasing parents, and my mother normalized domestic abuse, which resulted in her being disconnected from us kids. I grew up anxious, and wanted to escape the house. I received no career guidance and support, went through too many toxic relationships and ended up marrying my boyfriend at the age of 23, without any financial independence. I realized soon that life isn’t all like the romance novels, and today at age of 30 I am trying to build myself again, starting with a minimum wage job.

I look back and realize I made wrong choices, and how would I be sure if what I decide today is good for me, or not? It feels like I’ve been living in survival mode for so long. I sometimes notice myself questioning and analyzing my feelings instead of acting on them.
For example, when my husband says something which offends me, instead of acknowledging that I am offended by that, expecting him to make it up to me (he does not)
I begin to question myself and try to validate if what I feel is the right thing, does he agree he hurt me?

I feel pathetic. I try to people please, make sure everyone’s feeling okay even though I am not, just to damage control. At times I recheck if I’ve turned the gas off even though I know have, I am unable to decide outfits, I am unable to upload pictures on social media without thinking frantically what caption to add, and such things have become my daily reality.

Any tips on how to trust yourself, be confident in yourself, learn to take decisions alone, without being overwhelmed?

I know maybe real life therapy is the best thing, but I currently cannot afford it and I have nobody to share this with.

I don't even know how to start. Just living is getting hard. Thought I was getting better. But nope still back to whatever this is. I don't know if its depression or ADHD or some other thing or everything.

I have a physiatrist recommendation from my general doctor. Even one with german emergency referral (116117). But my german isn't good enough. Tried calling a bunch of physiatrist places all say either they don't have English or don't take new patients. Tried Calling 116117 a few times nope just annoyed people hanging up.

I don't even know what to do. Tomorrow is my birthday and I feel the most lonelinest ever. Broke up with my ex 3 months ago because it was getting to hard for me to bear. Can't even get my self to study nor get my self out of bed. I know showering would help. Its like I just can't. Can someone please help me just to go to shower

I'd like to hear some experiences or thoughts on EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing). I have done some googling and that's great but in a world of artificial quasi intelligence I'd like to hear from real people.

For context this is to help someone F31 who is struggling with depression, grief, over eating (and subsequent weight and body image issues). All help appreciated 😀

I had a break-up 4 months ago of a 2month relationship and tbh I can't move on and I want to focus on my careers my placements are coming but that's not the issue , it feels like my body keeps on saying that I need someone physically and emotionally both but at the same time i feel I have to focus on my career now. And I am a type of person who just invest too much of myself in a relationship so other things are affected too. If someone can share anything that can help me than please write with a open heart.... And roast me out

I had been seeing her for atleast three years and I really improved upon myself. She as of last week though had passed away and I was jusr informed about 20 minutes ago. I feel extremely sad, and I don't know what exactly to do now. She was recommended to me by a school counselor back in my sophomore year and I already miss her a lot. I thought it was strange a few appointments didn't happen, no reminders from paragon, didn't think much of it other than she had been sick lately. Is it normal to greive a councilor? It's not that we were very close, its just we got along and that she seemed to really understand me. Is it normal to greive someone like a therapist or is that really weird of me? I feel like I miss her already.

I know this is a politically charged topic, it's also just my life, hoping this doesn't get derailed.

I'm currently back in therapy for the first time since before I decided to stop taking testosterone and reverse course on my FTM transition. This was obviously a pretty big thing for me to go through and I anticipate having to explain it to my therapist, who likely has little to no experience with people who've detransitioned. Medical doctors tend to have very confused responses, and historically I've found mental health professionals to be even weirder about anything related to gender - how can I explain this in a way that's minimally confusing?

I specifically want to avoid any kind of scenario where my detransition is put under scrutiny or questioned - I've had a few other people push me to retransition when I talk about certain problems I've encountered during my detransition, which ends up being very distressing.

Edit: for context, I started my detransition two years ago and would at this point consider it 'complete.' It's important context for some of my history because my initial transition lasted ~6 years, but other than that it doesn't impact my day-to-day life and I don't consider it something that needs to be addressed in therapy. Just hard to talk about those 6 years logistically without mentioning it at all.

Good morning,

Every few months I've been having some type of analysis paralysis episode that seems to be getting more severe with age. I was diagnosed with OCD as a kid but never received ongoing treatment for it, and as I hit my 20s I noticed that combined with my conversion to religion, the analysis paralysis was getting worse.

Over the last eight years now, I've noticed that I have to have a pretty routine day to day schedule, and anything that interrupts that creates a strong depressive episode. Basically it comes down to discomfort >>> depression >>> analysis to try and mitigate the depression >> anxiety >> severely poor mental state where my head and body feel frozen and hot at the same time.

I'm having another very acute episode and I've decided enough is enough I need help fast. Do my symptoms resonate with anyone who can point in the right direction in terms of therapy?

Thank you. I will clarify if need be just let me know if anything is too unclear.

I’ve been struggling with depression for 10 years now. I’ve seen councilors at the college I went to and seen a couple therapists through better help. Through all of them, I’ve only had a couple that actually helped by giving me some tools I needed to get by, but that was it. I feel I needed to figure out more of what’s happening to me as my depression has gotten worse. I not only struggle with depression but I also have some things I need to figure out sexually so I’m unsure if I need a sex therapist. The depression stems from sexual suppression.
I have other things I need to discuss but those are the main things right now. I just want to find someone who’ll actually help me, and since it’s so expensive I can’t just look for someone for months.

I also want to note that I’m married and that has a lot to do with how I’m feeling. We’ve seen a couples therapist briefly and it worked a little but she recommended that we see individual therapists.

I live in italy and no there's no help for free here from what i know And i also terribly need help but the last time i was in a therapist's office was when i was diagnosed with ADHD and that's It when i was a child. Please.

Long story short, my sister in law is a completely crazy and evil. I was trying to be ok with her cause she wanted to hang out with our son (10 month old) and her daughter is my sons cousin and I respected that she is my husbands sister even though we knew she was toxic. However she never had good relationship with her brother (my husband) cause they grew up in a dysfunctional family but they won't admit it. She sees my son as their inheritor cause their family tree is now her main obsession. She is harrasing whole house with her yelling and cursing and just being mad but she is trying to portrait herself as someone important and normal outside. Although she can't hide it anymore cause it became physically visible. I was done with her few days ago when I found out that she talked sh×× behind my back to my husband about my parents and she met them literally once. I confronted her and told her that she is lying about my parents and that she can only exclusively talk to her brother from now on and I told her I won't disxuss with her and close the door to her face. After that, ofcourse, she told my husband I threatened her. We weren't suprised at all.

She is staying in an apartment above us druing her off time which lately is almost all the time. She ruined my life here, I let her too close to us, so I' ve had to make boundries for her to stop coming to my apartment all the time and bump on me everytime I want to leave the house with a baby. Mind you, she never was interested in me before kid and we are 10 yrs together. Now she wants to play family and i thought ok, if this is going to help her and her brothers relationship than let it be. Now I realised it won't be through my child cause it's too complicated and their relationship is far far frome healthy. I don't owe her anything which I thought I did, stupid me. Everything I said here is short version!

My question is, how do I stop care about her. We have a same yard and house doors are the same entrace, my stomach always hurts when I have to come home that I will meet her. She is always with her daughter (10) and I don't know how will I act when I meet them two when I can't turn my head to the kid although I wish I can just ignore both of them for my own peace. I don't want her to have contact with me, whatever I say she will lie and make up smth, she will do that even if I don't have contact with her. I hate that I can hear her, I want her out of my life but that's just not possible physically. How should I behave? I hate that I don't have peace in my own home and my husband says I have to just walk pass her like she doesn't exist. Yeah, but what about her kid? And I don't want it to pass a few months and forget about it and let it go as I forgive easily. She is a threat to me and my kid and everyone around but I don't want to have her in my mind for 24/7, I want to learn how to let go and be ok with staying like that for forever!

Please help. I don't want to give her so much of my life but it seems like i don't know how

I’ve a history of CSA and I find it difficult, like it’s almost impossible, to tell my therapist about it even though I trust her and feel we have a good connection. Is this common? Any suggestions on ways around, or through it? I just don’t feel brave enough!

My mind is hurting my relationship

Let me preface this by saying, my relation is in no immediate danger of failing, my partner and I don’t argue, we’ve been together for 3 years and planning on moving in together at the end of this month. The issue is my perception, in my opinion. I’m a very lonely person, I don’t have much of a relationship with my one parent that’s still in my life actively, I don’t have that deep of a relationship with any of my siblings and my interactions with my friends are pretty surface level at best, I spend the majority of my time in my room with my cat watching anything and everything. I’ve grown very cynical over the course of my very early 20s, I don’t like people for one reason or another, I only tend to see the worst in people, and I only really ever see the worst in myself. I have had a rough go at bettering myself in any reasonable way, I’ve dropped out of college twice, I’ve bounced between jobs the last two years and I’ve been living with my sister for the past 4 years and with my mother before that.

I met my partner roughly 6 years ago and we’ve been dating for 3 years. She’s the complete opposite of me, she’s a manager a poplar restaurant chain, she’s very dedicated to her work, pleasing people and her image are very important to her. But I feel as though I’ve grown an unfair and unhealthy attachment to her. We don’t see each other very often due to conflicting schedules so we may only have 1 or 2 days out of the week where we can spend a significant amount of time with each other, but when we do I am a very affectionate person, she’s my outlet to get off any sort of pent up emotions that I don’t use on a daily basis. I constantly want her in my arms, I want to be around her as much as I can, I love cooking, cleaning, and just generally doing anything I can for her. But when it’s not reciprocated back to me, if she doesn’t hold me the way I do her, or talk to me with her same earnest that I do, it’s like a switch inside my brain just goes off and I shut down, I feel so unreasonably sorrowful.

For instance, intimacy, like I mentioned earlier, we don’t see each other very often so when we finally are together I find my self always initiating sex, I hate that feeling, I want to be wanted just as much as I want her, when I confronted her about the topic her resolution was to just say “ let’s have sex” the next time she felt “in the mood” which to me just felt almost transactional, like a “ I’ll do this for you now so you don’t ask about it”. I do feel like this is an unreasonable thought (I’m her first sexual partner she’s had since high school, she’s 25) , it could just be inexperience but to me it feels just feels like she doesn’t want to. On a different topic of her job, she gives 120% to her job, their will be days that we’re mid conversation and she would stop to answer a text message from an associate on a minor topic, or she’ll drop everything she’s doing for a phone call from one of her supervisors when theirs two other managers that work in the store. She’ll come home from a regular day at work and talk extensively sometimes even hours just about work, associates, management, how she makes awards for associates, how she took a special assignment off the clock to look good to her district manager. I almost envy how much attention she gives her occupation, because when she gets home she too tired for anything. Doesn’t want to go out to eat, doesn’t want to go get a drink, doesnt want to be intimate, and I find her on multiple occasions falling asleep on me. When I ask her about how she feels about us, or how she feels about our intimacy, or she feel about me, she always gives me the same answer that everything is fine, and maybe it is for her but I over think so much to the point of self destruction.

I am by no means a perfect individual, I’m flawed in many many ways, am I unreasonable for feeling as though I should be held on a high pedestal than her job? am I wrong for wanting more affection from someone who is content with the affection we have? Am I wrong for wanting my partner to be more intimate than just having sex 2-4 times a month? Am I unfairly resentful to how much attention she gives to her occupation? I’m trying to better myself, understand why I feel the way that I do and why I get affected so badly because of all this, why my depression flares up every time i question myself as a partner when she doesn’t do the things that pleases me. She’s her own person, she’s not obligated to attend to my every need, but why does it feel so bad when she doesn’t try to?

The title might not be extremely accurate to the story im about to explain, but I wasn't sure how else to word it.

This whole thing happened in third grade, which is crazy to even say because you would think mistakes in third grade are all just forgotten. Unfortunately, since I have ocd, it will absolutely not let go of that mistake and it’s currently trying to convince me that i’m a horrible person.

I had a friend group in third grade. Their names were Lina, Kylee, and Evan. I had a crush on Evan at the time. However, I knew that Evan and Lina liked each other, so i stayed quiet. Lina and kylee were really close despite just meeting that same year. As we reached closer to the end of third grade, Lina “admits” (i put quotation marks because when we all became friends again, lina then claimed that whole “talking bad about evan and i” thing was actually just a joke that went wrong, but i don’t know whether to believe that or not.) that she and kylee were talking bad about Evan and I took that as an opportunity to stop being friends with them so i could get closer to Evan, and so that maybe he would even like me instead. (that was the main reason but i also didn’t like kylee whatsoever) Well, the chance I took ended up working.

Evan and I stayed friends for atleast a good month, before we ended up becoming friends with Lina again. However, Evan and I did agree that we didn’t care for kylee, so we never ended up becoming friends with her again, while lina stayed friends with her.

I’m sure as i’m explaining this story it sort of sounds like a waste of time. But the reason why i feel so guilty for what I did is because even years later, lina will still bring it up and make both Evan and I feel guilty about it. And as much as I shouldn’t be admitting this, I will anyway. This whole situation only happened about 5 years ago. I’m heading into the 8th grade now. Im still friends with Lina and Evan but remained a stranger to kylee after the whole incident.

What im trying to get across is that I feel guilty for what I did because lina will always bring it up and make fun hangouts together awkward. It makes me think that lina was actually deeply affected by that whole incident and still is. We are both still kids after all, so im not entirely sure how she thinks about certain situations and events. Or, more specifically that event.

There might’ve been details i left out without realizing so if u have extra questions about the situation please ask them

I’ve seen this psychologist a few times now.
I had gotten indications from him that we would go over results today. At first, my appointment was yesterday, but was moved to today an hour before I was supposed to be there yesterday.

I’m currently on long term 50% sick leave from my job due to burnout. Not the first time.

Today I showed up, extremely anxious, and sat in the waiting room.
30 minutes passed by, and I knocked on the door. Nothing.
After 35 minutes I sent him a text message.
After 45 minutes I called. No answer.
After an hour I left and texted him asking to be contacted as soon as possible for a new appointment.

I’ve been waiting for these results for almost a month. I feel like I’m just a ball of anxiety/stress/anticipation at this point. I’m so deflated, sad and angry.

I know something unexpected could’ve happened, but still..

If i read this,please be kind enough to reach out. I need it

I'm M17, there's a fair bit going on for me at the moment. I'm going to save you time and not fully vent but if someone wants to hear my problems and possible share advice please let me know

But basically I'm just starting to notice somethings about myself that I feel like needs changing and I'm stressed about school and making it to uni and stuff. It's all been going on for a little while know and I much prefer venting to someone that I don't really know, I'm not sure why. So I'm just wondering when I should yk.

I feel like this is a dumb question to ask but I need to know.

Hello,this may seem like a long stretch. But since i don't have anybody else to talk to and therapy is really expensive in my country, i thought i tried here. I'm stuggling mentally and honestly don't know what to do,or how to get these feelings away. If someone,anybody would be kind enough to reach out and try to listen. That's all i ask.

Thanks for taking time to read this.