Counseling

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-17-2005
Counseling
31
Sun, 06-19-2005 - 11:58am

I think it was this board where I posted a while back and everyone automatically suggested counseling as if it was the solution to everytihng. Well, I tried it, again, and I maintain my stance on counseling. It was such a horrid experience, I am still trembling. The whole situation just baffles me. I look around me, and everytime I see someone who goes to counseling, or suffers from depression, it seems like those people are verbally coddled. Told that they can't help what's happening to them. They can't help the way they feel, they shouldn't have to take responsibility for anything that's happened and basically, they can't do no wrong.
Then there's me. I was depressed in my late teens, but don't feel that way anymore. Nowdays, I do a lot better emotionally, and I am a perfectly functioning person. But like everyone in this world, I do have some bad days where I might feel down and not so peppy. Or I might feel like locking myself in a room and crying for a while. It seems, though that the thing to do would be to go to counseling. That's what our society says you are "supposed" to do. Forget just accepting that bad days and crying are part of life. All those doubts I have about counseling being nothing but making money by convincing people of their misery makes me a horrible, horrible person. So I ignore all of my feelings about counseling and just be a good girl and go like I am supposed to.
I don't know what it is about other people that makes them so "not responsible" for both the way they feel, and for any abuse they suffered; but yet when it comes to me, I am responsible for it. I must "stop blaming" my parents for the physical and emotional abuse and "take responsibility" for the way I feel about it. But yet, tell ANYONE else with depression to take responsibility and stop blaming, and you become the most intolerant person ever!!! Is it because my parents were not divorced? Because they had money? Is that why the abuse was okay and why I must get over it? Why are others in the mental health field coddled and pampered with "aw you poor baby, you didn't do it" when I get found guilty? They might as well put the scarlet letter on my chest. God!!!!

I don't think I have ever encountered more abuse than in counseling. Even when I was a child, the physical abuse was not as bad as the emotional abuse in counseling. The scars fade. The abuse is apparent in a situation like that and it's easy to know what you're mad about. But in counseling, it's so tricky. They refuse to let you be your own person. Who you are is all these textbook labels. You can't survive without them, and if you think you can, then you are in "denial". If they want you to have a certain problem, you have it, no matter how well you know yourself. It's like an abusive relationship where they convince you to be so down that you don't even know you can make it without them.
In group therapy, it's even worse, because on top of al the manipulation, you get verbal abuse from the other people, and if you try to defend yourself, you are intolerant against their "disease". They play the disease card to get away with being the most heinous, rude, verbally abusive, subtly murderous people ever.

I will never have anything to do with the mental health field again. It isn't for me. Thank goodness I am not the vile person my counselor thought I was. Thank goodness I have enough mental and emotional strength to rise myself up when they try to beat me down into thinking that I am worthless without them.

Please think twice before insisting someone get counseling or else they are nobody. It isn't for everyone. And if you think it's for everyone, then it appears you have been suckered into their way of thinking. They won with you.




Edited 6/19/2005 3:06 pm ET ET by dragon709
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-17-2005
In reply to: dragon709
Tue, 06-21-2005 - 1:22pm

"Or maybe they see something from the outside looking in that you are too close to to really see (can't see the forest for the trees)."

LOL

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-12-2005
In reply to: dragon709
Tue, 06-21-2005 - 3:50pm
That can be true sometimes, the forest for the trees thing. But it depends on how well the person is functioning to begin with. Like if some one was having delusions that his next door neighbor was planting thoughts or poison or something in his head and was therefore planning to kill his next door neighbor as a solution to that problem, while that person may feel perfectly content and confident in themselves and their beliefs, that person definitely needs objective oudside help at the least. But if some one is functioning fine, working, content, not in any way harming themselves or others or thinking about it, even if there is something to see that an objective outsider can see, I say who cares? If the person is fine and content and functioning well, it's ok to leave well enough alone.As long as you aren't hurting yourself or others and content and functioning well, I think it should be up to there are great competent professionals out there, but I think it is overlooked or little known the harm counseling can do often times, either by not being right for that particular person or by ending up with a bad counselor.If that is the case for someone, like Dragon, I think it's ok to talk about it, to say counseling isn't right for me, I had a bad experience with it repeatedly, here is what happened.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
In reply to: dragon709
Tue, 06-21-2005 - 8:52pm

Rayny, I agree with your statement, "if some one is functioning fine, working, content, not in any way harming themselves or others or thinking about it, even if there is something to see that an objective outsider can see, I say who cares? If the person is fine and content and functioning well, it's ok to leave well enough alone." but in this case Dragon came to the board because she was having problems. That would seem to indicate that leaving well enough alone isn't appropriate and certainly isn't helpful.

It isn't just that Dragon doesn't like therapists, she doesn't like others who tell her what they see, she's made that clear both in her statements and in her reaction. If you read her posts you see that immediately upon receiving responses that suggested seeking help she insisted she was fine, didn't need help, indicating the responses were overreacting. However, apparently the problems were enough of a problem for her that she sought help after all, yet in response here is again defensive and antagonistic. I agree with Pandabu that it's hard to receive help from any source when you're not too busy deflecting and defending to take anything in.

In your response to Pandabu you said you'd read Dragon's previous post and I assume you've read her posts here as well. What do you suggest she do to help herself?





~ cl-2nd_life

"You can't control the length of your life,
but you can control the width and depth."

~ Author unknown

my signature exchange partner:

Clashing Libidos/Ask the Expert




Edited 6/21/2005 9:43 pm ET ET by cl-2nd_life








"Ignoring the facts
does not change the facts"
iVillage Member
Registered: 05-12-2005
In reply to: dragon709
Tue, 06-21-2005 - 10:42pm
Well I don't know the whole situation, I don't know her personally, and it's hard to really give accurate advice, that's how we are all limited being anynonymous on line.So with the limited knowledle I do have of her and her situation, this is my opinion on it. It sounds like she is just having normal life problems. We all have things that bother us, maybe she was having a bad day,she said she was having PMS that day, so that can make her overly sensitive, maybe he hit a sore spot for her, maybe he caught her at a bad moment when he had all his childhood stuff out. It's possible to be in a bad mood, to overreact, to be overly sensitive, and a few minutes or a few hours or even a day or two later to be over it. Nobody is perfect, I think these could very well be the normal ups and downs of life. Dragon did have a problem, but that doesn't mean it's a severe problem or an ongoing problem or a problem that requires seeking counseling. From what she said later, maybe she just needed to vent here and get a little feedback and then later on after she was a little past it, she said she talked to her husband, and was fine with it. She should know herself better than anybody, and if she feels she is doing good and she feels counseling really hurt her and is too burned to try again and doesn't even feel the need to have counseling, I believe her. I think she got as you put defensive and antagonistic when people kept suggesting counseling. Then she was one sided in her views of counseling, and that kind of snowballed the whole thing. I think she was looking for some feedback, and the responses to my memory all came back suggesting counseling and she knew it wasn't for her and it triggered her bad memories of counseling, I think she might have been open to hearing what people thought if other alternatives had been suggested.It is hard to take in help when you are defensive, but I think she was just defensive cause the counseling was a sore spot for her. I don't think she needs help at this point, because according to her, she was PMS'ing and that contributed to her bad mood, and later on she dealt with it on her own as well as talking to her husband, and she feels ok now. So there really isn't anything more that needs to be done regarding this, if what she says is true.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
In reply to: dragon709
Tue, 06-21-2005 - 10:59pm

Hmmm...I don't get that. If it were, like you suggest, normal problems, just a bad day, pmsing, etc., then why would she have gone back to counseling after posting here? If it were "just a bad day" or "normal pmsing" there would have been no need for counseling, certainly not for someone who already knows she doesn't like it. Seems to me the fact that she went says the problems are more serious than "a normal bad day" and certainly didn't pass after venting. We've all had bad days and have a need to vent from time to time, but we don't see a counselor because of it -- we don't even consider it, we know bad days pass.





~ cl-2nd_life

"You can't control the length of your life,
but you can control the width and depth."

~ Author unknown

my signature exchange partner:

Clashing Libidos/Ask the Expert








"Ignoring the facts
does not change the facts"
iVillage Member
Registered: 05-12-2005
In reply to: dragon709
Tue, 06-21-2005 - 11:32pm
Again this is just a maybe, since I don't know her, you could very well be right and this could be a serious issue for her that severely impacts her life and that is why she went back to counseling. But I see another possibility, and it's just that, possibility since I don't have the full story, maybe she went to counseling because she thought that is what she was supposed to do. Partly because counseling is seen as such a universal solution. She said her relationship with her mom was not good growing up, she said she didn't do the things that normal kids do, that she missed out on a lot. I grew up in a similar situation. I missed out on a lot of things and my relationship with my mom was not good at all growing up, and I remember as a teenager or early 20's trying to talk to her about it, and she would flat out deny that any of it happened. This happened repeatedly. I doubted myself and my perceptions and I didn't trust myself like I should have.Even though I know I should not have done that. Then after I got out of my marriage, I really wanted to make a good life for myself and my kids, and with the backround of not trusting myself, I went to counseling not because I felt any need whatsoever. I felt it was something I was supposed to do, whether I wanted to or not, like you are always told get an education, get a good job, hold a job, buy a house, buy a car, well counseling fit right in with those shoulds for me, because I didn't trust myself.I myself went through four counselors and group counseling, not only did I not get anything out of it, but I had experiences similar to dragon. (Unlike her I do think there are good counselors out there.) What finally woke me up and made me trust myself and my perceptions is I was actually falsely reported for child abuse by a counselor. It's a long story, and on the surface you would think that an objective impartial professional could not make false accusations, but the fact is she did(I've been officially cleared). So that got me thinking, what a huge difference between what counseling is supposed to be and what it actually was for me-very very harmful.The reality was so obvious and staring me in the face. I looked at myself and trusted myself, I am a content person, have ups and downs, mostly enjoy my life, and meet all my responsibilities well, so I don't need counseling. That made sense to me, hope it did to you too, felt kinda long winded.
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-17-2005
In reply to: dragon709
Thu, 06-23-2005 - 6:31pm

"But I see another possibility, and it's just that, possibility since I don't have the full story, maybe she went to counseling because she thought that is what she was supposed to do. Partly because counseling is seen as such a universal solution."

Exactly.

And I'll never fall for that again.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
In reply to: dragon709
Thu, 06-23-2005 - 11:36pm

Curious here, Dragon. There are so many types of therapy out there, and there are so many because one style doesn't work with everyone.


Have you tried other types of therapy or did all six therapists you've seen practice the same type of therapy? Were your therapists licensed in abuse issues or were they simply "run of the mill" individual therapists? I'm not trying to cram therapy down your throat, but I am wondering how it can be that no method of therapy can be a help to you.





~ cl-2nd_life

"You can't control the length of your life,
but you can control the width and depth."

~ Author unknown

my signature exchange partner:

Clashing Libidos/Ask the Expert








"Ignoring the facts
does not change the facts"
Avatar for jeffkristi
iVillage Member
Registered: 02-12-1998
In reply to: dragon709
Fri, 06-24-2005 - 8:58am

"I went to counseling not because I felt any need whatsoever. I felt it was something I was supposed to do, whether I wanted to or not"

I guess that's why I have such a hard time with all of this "anti-counseling" stuff. I've never felt pressured by society, family, friends, whatever that this is something that you're "supposed" to do. It's kind of like a hospital to me. It's there when you need it, but it's not something you're just "supposed" to go to (unless you need it). Sure you can heal yourself or go to a hospital (same as with a counselor). But the more serious the injury (or the emotional troubles), the harder it is to heal yourself and the more you need the help of a hospital (or counselor). Some people may feel the need to go to a hospital (or counselor) for what I feel are very minor things, while others do not go until things are completely out of hand. Neither is right or wrong - just different.

But again - I've never felt any pressure to go "just because I'm supposed to", not because I need to.

Jeff

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-12-2005
In reply to: dragon709
Fri, 06-24-2005 - 9:34am
To me it's not anti counseling, it's just not for me. Yes I did really feel that way, that I was supposed to, and I explained why, and I also said it was wrong of me to feel like that. Nobody should feel counseling is something they should do, if you never thought that, that is good, but other people have different experiences. I am glad I realize now it's not for me at all, and I will never seek it out again.