Hi everybody,
I am seeing a therapist mainly because of anxiety issues and also depression but I'm not feeling like this is going anywhere.
For example when I told him that I have all kind of physical ailments and diseases which totally depress me and have been depressing me for years and years all he could come up with was something like: Would you feel better if you had a deadly diseases and knew you're going to die?
For example I loved working out. It was the only hobby which I liked and which also kept me motivated and disciplined and I also cannot do this anymore due to my health and his advice was to go walking.
But I don't want to walk. Walking isn't the same as working out. I think those advice are somewhat disappointing. I had expected more. He also didn't seem to be very affected or impressed when I told him about all the diseases I have. I had at least expected some empathy.
And what also disturbs me is that he seems not to be flexible and he keeps insisting on the same stuff even if I tell him that it's not helping or working for me and when I confronted him with this he told me that he doesn't know if he can help me and that some people simply cannot be helped.
And what was even more disappointing was when I talked about my fears and tried to get across to him that my issue isn't only the fear of the thing which I fear but also the fear of the fear itself, meaning the fear of the symptoms which fear causes. As an example: If I drive in the car then I might fear losing control over the car or having an accident. But this is only 1 side of it. I can as well fear the fear itself. This way even things which would not be a problem on their own can become problems. For example when I drive on the highway then I have no problems but if for example they're working on the road and there's only 1 side of the road in use then I feel very uncomfortable because I knew that if something happened now then I couldn't even drive to the side of the road and stop.
So I was just trying to make him understand these 2 sides of fear and when I had said this to him he looked at me and really told me that he thinks that I actually like being afraid and that I may hate my fear but at the same time also love it.
I felt like I'm in the wrong movie. I hadn't expected to hear such a thing from a professional. What do you think about this? In my opinion this was a real red flag. Someone who truly understands the dynamics of fear wouldn't even say such a thing. If I loved being afraid I wouldn't go to a therapist and invest time and money for it.
If a therapist already has such a stance that people simply can't get healed and that some people like being afraid or depressed then he always has an excuse if his stuff doesn't work.
Also what kind of therapy would you recommend against depression and anxiety? I do not know what would be best. I have GAD but also fear of very specific things but I really don't know if you can even work on these fears. Usually if I was afraid of something I'd try to somehow weaken the fear but what if this simply isn't an option? What if the thing you're afraid of is so big and important for your life that you cannot bypass it? It is a difference if I am afraid of germs or being contaminated or getting HIV by using a public restroom and for example the fear of failing in totally important and decisive exams which determine your whole life where you feel like you're standing in front of an abyss and either you make it or it's all over. In such a case hearing arguments which belittle my situation or make me feel like it's no big deal don't help me because to me the situation is very threatening. And also hearing anecdotes of other people who for example also failed at exams and then worked as something totally different and still lived a happy life don't help me. Steven Jobbs also didn't finish university and became filthy rich, does that mean I can do the same? Of course not. Those arguments are totally unrealistic and not very helpful to me.
My problem is that the fear of the exams themselves has gotten so huge already in advance that I feel like this fear itself might be an even bigger issue than the exam itself. I can try to prepare for the exam but what about the fear? Imagine you're a boxer and you prepare for a fight for many months and you did everything you could do and you're really well prepared but then when you enter the ring and face your opponent you're overwhelmed by fear and you cannot apply anything you trained and all the strategies you planned before don't work because you cannot even think straight anymore because of the fear then all the preparation doesn't help you. That's what I was trying to get across only to hear that I love my fears.
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