CBT - Am I missing the point?

[freakedout]

Thank you so much for your replies,

Emma, I will take inspiration from your post, I am glad that after your 22 years you are able to be your own best friend. I think perhaps you are right that being less depressed would be a factor here, and there are several issues that contribute to my depression that I still need counselling for.

I hope that one of these days I can post a success story on here, and it does help to read other stories such as yours, where you are getting to grips with things. Thank you for your time, it means a lot.

June, I must admit it did cross my mind that you were infering that I was not perhaps trying hard enough, I apologise, it is so easy to misinterpret things. Please don't take any offense because none was intended . Equally I did understand what you wrote and I still understand how you are affected by all of this too -

on my own I CAN NOT do these exercises they frighten the life out of me.

It is just so frustrating isn't it.

Like you I do try so hard but they still make me feel guilty........ i should be better by now they say

I suppose I am lucky that my therapist and current CPN don't make me feel too guilty, but I did feel bad when I got a lecture from my GP when I requested some more Diazepam recently, and I have certainly had some inconsiderate support in the past from a CPN. Thank you June for replying, I want to wish you well with your therapy, sorry if came across abrupt.

Heres to a neurosis free future!!

Freaky

[EmmaJane]

My experience of CBT was the same as yours. I understand rationally why I behave as I do but knowing that doesn't help me control my behaviour.

I totally agree with that...

I am restarting a CBT course, but am going to mention the fact that I cant control my behaviour

[ade]

i had cbt for a couple of years and i have to say it didnt work at all for me and i was left feeling like i had failed the treatment.i have issues with it anyway because a lot of the fear that i was experiencing was connected to real and traumatic events in my childhood,and to be frank,i was correct to be very scared,it wasnt irrational,and when this emerged in cbt i was dropped like a stone.went back to my previous psychologist,had one more year of expressive work,and here i am back to work fulltime.
its whatever gets you through the night!

[PUGLETMUM]

yes it is ade, but there is no alternative! if there is no underlying trauma then you wont be offered any other form of therapy.

the other thing you could do is invest in the book i bought called the mindful way through depression freeing yourself from chronic unhappiness you can ge tit on amazon - you could buy it for yourself for christmas.

i do know how frustrating cbt is and i know how insensitive at times the therapists can be - mine has said a few things to me that have grated, but shes human and i either mention it to her so we can discuss what she means or i 'know' that what she is saying isnt true and i ignore it.

personally i see atherapist becasue my mum died and i have no-one else to talk to who doesnt 'want' something from me - for me my therapist is jus tfor me. but i know that others dont have access to this.

all i can say is that i went through my blocks when i wouldnt budge or be prepared to feel 'pain' and then i came out of that - but only when i had stopped saying anything negative to myself. my usual internal dialogue went along these lines ' you are useless' 'you are a loser' 'you are hopeless' 'life will never change' 'you might as well give up' 'life is crap, what is it for, why am i here, whats the point?' 'i am stupid' 'i am no good to anyone, theyd all be better off with out me, then they could go anywhere and do anything!'

this is the question HOW CAN ANYONE SUCCEEED WHILE THEY SAY THESE THINGS TO THEMSELVES ON A MINUTE BY MINUTE BASIS?

if you undertake exposure work, but you are still speaking to yourself liek this everytime something goes wrong, you will never get better, because you are most probably depressed and nobody can do this stuff while depressed - ther needs to be an element of strength to do all of these scary things.

example and proof mindfullness based cbt works - i have only ever once been to a larger event - a man u match in 1995, after that my life went downhill due to depression and then my life became consumes with panic after i had my daughter with a virtual stranger (i had known him 16 weeks when i got pregnant! - not a clever move but obviously connected to the death of my mum) - but last night i went to a packed out M.E.N arena!!!! to see my daughter in the young voices thing that goes on there every year to raise money for children with cancer. last year my in-laws went, as they have gone to everything

but i could take no more - what had i done to hide myself away and to be so frightened of life itself??? NOTHING - i just happen to be an anxious person who finds it hard to deal with emotional pain. pain that i try to get rid of, only to dig myself deeper into a hole by the way i beleive the thoughts i have - i would say cbt gave me a general understanding, my therapist is now more of a counsellor and i beleive you can help yourself by buying the remarkable book that has moved me along to be able to do wha ti did last night.

we all suffer the same, so we can all get better the same - ther is not one person who cant acheive some peace within, no matter how bad your circunstances are

[rainwave]

Hi Freakedout. First Hang in. Like storms it will pass. It may not stop raining but the wind will calm down.

Yes Cbt for the most part, works. But it is just one tool of many that you need to work with. Some people can do all the CBT they want, but with nutritional deficiencies in serotonin (ie tryptophan), tyrosine, and many other brain amino acids you will not get very far. It's like trying to run your car with dirty fuel. You can give it the gps wavepoint (CBT) but it will take forever to get there. There are other treatment out there. Hang in!!

[freakedout]

Hi rainwave, are you suggesting then that getting on top of depression first might be the way forward?

Thanks for your reply

Freaky

[Yvonne]

Hi All

I'm like Freaky, have had cbt before with a psychologist, actually she gave up and introduced me to mindfulness lol.

I've been having my cbt "revamped" and although I have tried hard I still can't get it to change my mood. The therapist keeps saying that I sabbotage myself with my thoughts. However, once this sabbotaging thought has struck you are already in the downward spiral of feeling horrible.

The thing is, I have always thought the way I do as far as I can remember I was never a very positive person... ever! I was ok though.

I'm happy for those who cbt has worked for but I have to say that there is more to this than meets the eye. Maybe it does work for some people, maybe their form of anxiety/depression is not like ours. Cbt does not work for everyone and I think it was Franz who said that her therapist said that he had never met anyone it hadn't worked for. Well, wasn't he a brilliant therapist! Not!! How dare he say that to you - that could only make someone feel worse.

Emmas; brilliant posts as usual. I'm going to get that Mindfulness book you mentioned - I have the other one as you know.

[june]

Somewhere on these posts over the last week or so - A person asked "HOW DO YOU CHANGE THE WAY YOUR BRAIN WORKS????

• It has got into the habit of these awful thoughts.
• It also knows that they are NOT helpful thoughts.
• Then it argues with itself
• and you go into a downward spiral because your brain has got tired

Anyone who has tried to give up smoking or drinking (too much) will know how damned hard that is.
These are physical things you can for example look at the cigarette and say no i will not smoke you yet!!!!!! and put it back in the packet.
You can not take a thought out of your head and put it back in the packet.
Best wishes
june

[rainwave]

Hey Freaky,
No I am suggesting you look at a possibility of nutritional deficiencies. There may be a component to this that can be helped with getting you're neurotransmitters back in balance whether it's due to a gene creating havoc or just plane deficiencies. It's complicated though. This whole brain is complicated. I am not saying by doing his it will all go away. There is more at work here than science. But this could help. Depression is just part of the whole storm. By creating balance the storm may subside to the point where you can sail your ship. Learning to do that can be tough,I know.....Rainwave

[PUGLETMUM]

hi all, this is the exact point that mindfullness works - you dont have to rid yourself of ANY thoughts - even the ones that are so black they scare the wits out of you!!! you become able to watch these thoughts as thoughts without getting tied up in them or beleiving that they are actually YOU . they are not they are just events in the mind - the nagative ones like im s**t, or im always going to be like this, we beleive and then we get depressed and once we are depressed we just keep beleiving more of the nagative thoughts we have.

tghias is where mindfullness really truly works - it is blessed relief to not have to STOP yourself from having thoughts - this is why these guys developed this practice - it is ancient wisdom from the buddha and it is proven to work -because ordinary cbt doesnt tackle the fact that we have these thoughts. cbt doesnt explain why we have so many nagative thoughts, it wants you to question them and ask where is the evidence for beleiving that thought - very tiring? mindfullness practice is allowing EVERYTHING to be there, but instead of getting involved with the thought you watch it and examine it, you get to go so deep into who you are that these thoughts start to make sense, if yuo are having bad thoughts about yourself that are unwarranted, eg you havent hurt anybody but you keep telling yourself youare rubbish you are to ignore these thoughts and you arre to take care of yourself like you would a small child.

if you have some deep pain about some issue then mindfullness will help you to get close up to that pain and to understand why its there and to help you bear it, and then it will help you to make the right decisions to move you forwards. however the most crucial part about mindfullness is that it starts to help you to accept that what you are feeling right now is what you are feeling and that you dont have to try to rid yourself of your sadness/anger/dissapointment/frustration/despair etc etc and that our actual desire to be 'happy' when it isnt possible to be happy is what makes us so miserable - mindfullness will open you up to the idea that we are depressed becasue we try sooooo hard not to be, it really is fantastic stuff.

please bear in mind that depression is an illness and it robs you of yourself, for me ridding myself of the depression and negative self-talk was the key to me getting better, and the most effective way of helping myself is to practice mindfullness


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