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What is the right thing to do?

Posted by Daisym on June 17, 2008, at 3:16:15

I'm having a bit of a disagreement in therapy. (I know that shocks you)

I had a huge melt down last week, almost out of nowhere. I felt needy and clingy with my therapist and at the same time, I wanted to quit therapy because I felt he couldn't give me what I wanted. But I didn't know what I wanted! After a couple of sessions of working on this, and a very long weekend, I realized that some of what is going on is that I'm mad at myself because I've been so triggered by physical therapy.

I'm rehabing my knee. And last week the PT added in an exercise where I lay on my stomach and he stands behind me, holds down my leg and I have to bend it up. Most of my PT has been done in the main part of the office, with other people around and the other staff. But this exercise has to be done on a bed, so I'm in the back office, pretty much alone with this guy. And he is a really nice guy, but still...I hate this exercise. It hurts and I'm tense as hell. I feel small and scared. I don't want to be touched and I really don't want to be touched when I can't watch the person who is touching me.

I finally told my therapist about this today. And I told him I was really mad that even after all this therapy, I'm still triggered off like this. I've been trying to push through it and deal with it, but inside my head I'm screaming. My therapist shook his head and said, "you need to tell him you can't do this exercise. Tell him you don't like to be touched and could you work on finding something else to do instead of this particular exercise." He even suggested I ask for a woman PT. I stared at him like he was from another planet. Say "no"? Admit it bothers me? I thought I was supposed to tough it out - get used to it, etc.

My therapist said I need to be kind to myself. That what I needed to push through was my fear of saying "no" to someone and asking for something different. I argued that I need to get over this. He argued that I needed to be kind to myself and compassionate with my younger self. He gave me a lecture about PTSD and said that I had to accept that there would always be triggers; my job was to learn to avoid them and to minimize those that I couldn't avoid. He gave the lecture gently and spoke softly. And then said he suspected something was going on and was glad I told him. He very, very gently said we should talk about the memory being triggered - when I'm ready to tell him. It is a very bad one - brutal and scary. I told him he doesn't really want to hear this one.

I'm not convinced yet that he is right. I'll have to think about what I think is going to happen if I say "I don't like that" or if I ask someone not to touch me. But I do love that I feel protected by my therapist and that he is OK with me using the connection I have with him as strength in some of these hard situations. I just wish there didn't seem to be so many hard situations.

 

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Psycho-Babble Psychology | Framed

poster:Daisym thread:835020
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20080616/msgs/835020.html