Has anyone else had cbt ?

[Ilovetheseventies]

11 weeks into CBT and I don't know if I'm in denial. I'm well into the menopause and have had alot of anxiety around my relationship.
Anyone else not got on with it as a therapy ?

My experience is that it isn’t for everyone, but once I put the work in, it definitely worked. (Although you have to put a hell of a lot of work in!)

It’s given me tools to tackle a number of crises and difficult patches.

Although if you’re going through menopause, have you also got HRT? That little sticker makes an enormous difference.

The kids call it Mum’s Magic Happiness Patch. I get a lot of teasing about how much of a difference it made straight away.

I tried hrt....didn't get on with it.
I had to write a thought diary I said I was slightly anxious my DP hadn't messaged me but I said goodnight, he replied and I knew he was tired etc. That was wrong I was making assumptions on his behalf etc etc.
So I asked what my behaviour should have been....not to get anxious it seems.
I will still carry on I've got nothing to lose but it comes back to low self esteem when it picks it apart. I'm just confused.

Is your therapist setting 'homework' for you? If you are just having one session a week/fortnight and not doing anything in between then it's only going to have limited success (if at all).

Yes true. I will get cracking on it.

So you tend to catastrophise?

I think one of the scenarios (when I last looked) has a woman too anxious to drive after an accident. She was the 'one' who catastrophised in the scenarios. I'd say that's different to anxiety surrounding relationship issues. If there was a specific event / trigger that you can identify as the cause then emdr may be a more suitable course for you.

Think of it this way - if you were trying to learn to play the piano you'd generally have one lesson a week. If you had that lesson but did no practice until the next lesson it would take years to be able to play.

If you did the practice recommended by your teacher, you'd progress a lot faster. But if you do your prescribed practice AND did additional work (researching and pushing yourself to get better) you'd quickly become an accomplished pianist.

I found it about as much use as a chocolate fireguard but then, really it was trauma therapy I needed.

I haven't but my partner has.

He had the course that is offered when you self refer to talkworks. He found the talking side of it helpful but not the CBT side, like you it felt very much "this situation made you feel anxious or upset, next time it comes up, try not feeling anxious"...which isn't really that helpful I suppose! I think he decided after the course finished that if he was going to go back to therapy it would be straight 'talking therapy' rather than CBT.

Depending on what you're having CBT for, I had EMDR it was excellent, might be an option?

I found it useful for a sleep issue and associated anxiety but on another occasion it didn’t work so we’ll fit generalised anxiety.

I got asked why I was scared of being alone.
Well I'm not but the scenario was completely alone without a friend and so I said that would make me feel awful not having anyone. That led on to me not being a nice person etc. But who wants to be completely alone ? I don't. Whats the point. So after lots of questions and further questions it went from me being anxious about not getting a text to me feeling worthless. I don't feel worthless.
I definitely need to work on my anxiety though

I didn’t get on with CBT at all, despite having 9 months of 121 sessions. I think it might be useful if you have one specific issue that you want to work on eg a phobia. But if you have a lot of issues or if you don’t even know what’s “wrong” with you then it’s not helpful.

I found having to diarise my thoughts/feelings/behaviours completely overwhelming - a person has on average 6000+ thoughts a day! Attempting to diarise my stream of consciousness obviously led to me being even more overwhelmed with life.

I’ve attached an example of a thought diary that you’re expected to keep. Filling this in for every “negative” thought you have is really taxing! Then my therapist would kinda mark it like homework and tell me I’d done it wrong as I’d confused thoughts for feelings for example.

Thanks everyone for yr replies.
Next week is my last session. I will try working on my self esteem. My rule for life is going to be to let things go more.
I've said I like to be in control by that I mean knowing when we will meet and message.
I'm having cbt to feel better about myself I think that is happening but I'm not sure if its due to cbt.

As others have said, found it very helpful when I actually did the work. You need to keep doing it. Every time I get lazy it gets worse

Read this OP; www.betterrelationships.org.au/well-being/core-beliefs-self-acceptance/

It might be better therapy than your last three months. Hope you didn't pay for it.

I actually don't feel as if I have low self steem or that I'm worthless. She kept saying I keep using the 3rd person when describing scenarios but thats because I don't actually feel the things in the scenarios.
I just feel anxious which has been since I started the menopause. Anyway one more session for me.

O. P. You mention that you didn't get on with hrt, but it might be worth giving it another try as anxiety during peri and menopause is very common. There are different types of hrt and you could find something else works for you.

I didn't find cbt helpful. The talking part was very difficult, I found that it made me feel worse by once again emphasising the bad stuff that I had experienced. Putting cbt into practice felt like pretending and acting - I couldn't react differently because I just felt the way I did, and I was never able to. Unfortunately, cbt is the one size fits all treatment that the nhs and therapists have gone mad for. It is falling out of favour now but it's still the one you will automatically get if referred to nhs psychology services.

@iamnotcrazynow - that's a shame, and probably reflects much more on the ability of your therapist rather than CBT itself. It's all about education; explaining the connection between thoughts, feelings and behaviours - once you understand this (and it is universal) you can make the changes in your own life.