If you have been through counselling, does it get worse before it gets better, and how do you get through the tough bit?

[MitsubishiWarrioress]

I think I need to see my doctor, something has gone wrong.

Is counselling worth it? My counsellor is brilliant, but I feel like a mess. Too much in my head to deal with and I can't get it all back in now that I have decided to face it.
Or does it get like this and then get a bit better because I can't stand this?
It all came out and she (the counsellor cried). I didn't.
Why can't I just draw a line and 'get over it'.
It's doing my head in.
I want to get through it and lay the ghosts to rest and heal the bits that are broken but don't know how. Why? Why can't I just say 'OK, it happened, now what about the rest of life?'

I keep crying now really badly. Poor DC's. Everything feels so raw and I don't know how to cope and function as a Mum. I am better when I am in 'deep as a puddle mode'.

I look at them and see myself at their ages and wonder (about young Mitts) Why her?

But if anyone has been through counselling, does it help? Do you go through the hard bit and come out the other side better equipped to deal with it and move on. I want the rest of my life back.

The counsellor has been using Transactional Analysis and from
September to Christmas it had been great.

We had touched on the past and the patterns and events that had bought me to counselling and then the last two weeks something just, well I don't know. Everything came bubbling up and I don't know where to put it all. It is not like depression, although I am very sad and confused.

Sad for the person it all happened to. Putting things into one picture was too much. Not all bad bad stuff but just so much. Getting smaller and smaller. She said you need to heal the 'core being' to fix stuff (that's my interpretation) but it's just like I have had my skin peeled off and now it all hurts.

I have lots of life experiences that were not great but I can see they were just the learning curve and some of this stuff is not on what I think the scale of normal learning stuff should be.

And what do you do with the 'hurt'. My Mum and Dad have a chair that something bad happened to me in. What do I do now? They don't know. I can't ask them to get rid off it. They are in their late 60's and 70's. They don't need to know. But I go over and it is like a scar, reminding me so I can't shut it out. And the person involved and involved in other stuff. What do I do. So many years ago. I can't rake it up now so why is it in my head?

Because I have a little girl who is about the the same age as when some of the stuff happened and it tears me apart. I have panic attacks when she is with older boys. It won't leave my head.

I wish I could get angry because I think I could do something with that but this leaves me impotent and I feel so fragile. I have put it on here because I have to get it out of my head and if I just write it down on paper, I have to do something with it.

At least I have stopped just wanting to curl up and let life cruise on. I do want to be part of it. Just not like this. Not any more.

If it helps, even just a tiny bit, to know that these feelings, of being raw, wanting to run and run, not knowing how to cope with the feelings, etc - these are all part of the counselling process I think. My counsellor didn't prepare me for how I would feel. I thought I was perhaps the only one who felt tearful, incapable, sleepless, anxious etc etc.

These emotions have been locked inside for years, and need to come out. Someone on MN told me that there is "pain on exiting" of these emotions. Too right!

mitsubishi..there are alot of us out there, that understand and talking helps. I had a breakdown with my problems and i felt much worse...worse than rock bottom and it took years to get better. You never forget the abuse...but you learn different ways of coping with it.
My mum was 71 when i told her that her son(my stepbrother) had abused me for 4 years from the age of 8-12.
Initially she didnt believe me,but i couldnt bottle it up any more.

we are all here if you need to talk

i've just found this thread and you are all just lovely supportive people to each other.forgive me for gatecrashing - my prob is a little different in that a close member of my family has been abused by another member of the family and we are all dealing with the repurcusions now..does anyone know if there is anywhere on MN i can go to talk about this?

driedapricots there is an abuse support thread going - somebody else posted there asking for advice, I posted some basic stuff and some others did too. any questions come over or CAT me if you want.

dried apricots start another thread if you want and i will chat to you....i was abused by stepbrother for years and it had awful consequences as i bottled it all up for donkeys years

Driedapricots. you are not gatecrashing, sharing experiences is helpful, even if it is sad that we went through them.

I will try and find the other thread and link to it on here as I might have a look myself. I think it is this one

Starting another thread is a good idea also. You are right, the support is lovely and it is sadly reassuring to know you are not alone. I often feel that there is something wrong with me and feel lonely and isolated with my thoughts. Apart from what happened, he facilitated two other people to 'experiment'. And in some ways that is harder to bear than the other stuff. He was supposed to protect me.

I look at my DC's and connect with the younger Mitts. It hurts so much for her...and then I realise it is me.

I don't know where to put it all so I can focus on being the other layers. So the rest of my life isn't haunted. I know it will always be a part of me. I was bullied on and off all through school as well and I know it is all linked. Bit crap really.

Today feels like a much better day though and I am going to talk to my counsellor about how to deal with the fallout a bit better.

thanks ladies...i will check that out/start a new thread when i have some time to explain things more

mitsubishi....it definitely does become linked ,as the feelings we feel for each incident,like bullying ,abuse are similar feelings and then its the last thing,like the straw that breaks the camels back...that pushes us over the edge. I have found that it has left me emotionally numb and probably unable to have a trusting relationship.

I think that is why I adored my Grandad so much. Because he was safe. A true gentleman. I think he is my bench mark for relationships in a way.

We had a family gathering and there were quite a few people and I was on the sidelines and I could hear him saying 'where is she? where is she?' and had to find me for a hug. The way he treated my Gran was how I think relationships should be. He thought she was the sun and moon and yet was still grounded about her and didn't stick her on a pedestal that made falling off a danger.

I certainly don't think he ever frightened her in a drunken rage.

I don't know about another relationship.

I like the idea of being with someone and feeling 'safe'.

Sometimes wonder who would want someone who is so screwed up. But I know if I met someone like me I would want to play a part in putting light in their future. It is theoretical though.

I need to like me a whole lot more before that is even a option.

I will keep an eye out for you driedapricots.

Mitts - some one recently told me that if you didnt have any emotional baggage you must be very boring and that a someone truely interested will take you for who you are, past and all and want to support with the burdan of it. You are a very lovely lady and when you are ready i suspect you will find someone who makes you happy. I have faith that there are men like that out there. You wont find him til you are ready. I learnt that the hard way.

My grandad was my hero to. He was old fashioned and expected things to be proper. he had high expectations of himself and those around him. He was a true gentleman. I fear that it has become unfashionable these days. But i would love to bump into a true gentleman who is not over 40. not sure they exist but am hoping.

Mitts,
What you wrote about skin peeling off is exactly how I felt.

I think it is because you lose all the denial, all the coping strategies and avoidance and defence mechanisms. You have to though: they may help you get by, but they hold you back too.

The sessions do get hard, but have faith that counselling will get better. I found having a notebook to write in helped, as did actually preparing myself for the sessions rather than repressing and putting it out of my mind until I was actually on my way there (which is what I did at first).

Bad days, I went to the gym and ran on the treadmill until I couldn't run any more. Music helped.

Do keep going. In a weird way, if it's hurting, it's working. You are facing up to things and changing some very deep stuff. If it is any encouragement, while I got very bad (hospital) I climbed back up again and after years of isolation have a life I never dared dream of with a DS and DH (to whom I am my real true self, not the shaky construct I used to be).

Plus, I can't even remember my abuser's face anymore when at first it was horribly vivid. It's firmly in the background now, fading away like an old Polaroid.

Eldritch, I think the preparing before and after is a good idea. Going in 'cold' and then trying to come back straight into being a functioning Mum is a mistake, I might try and go swimming after the session.

I do and have written, some of it in poetry form from different stages of my life.

It was putting it all into chronological order that floored me. I will never understand why. My own hurt doesn't make me want to go out and hurt other people, quite the opposite. I was 5/6 when I was first bullied by a lad who took me round the back of school and punched me in the stomach, over a period of a few weeks. His answer to why was that he just didn't like me. It triggered nightmares and night time respiratory problems.
At 16 I took an overdose because of the bullying in 6th form and the Deputy head again told me to try to 'conform'

I was only bloody 'quiet'. Kept myself to myself to avoid standing out and being bullied, bullied as a result and told it was my own fault. There was a group of about 13 of them on a bad day, making Mitts squirm with embarrassment was sport for the free period. The only other girl in the group said she was sorry, she didn't know what to do..she was going out with one of the group...

Abused at 8/9 ish onwards, with a Dad who wrote to me in puberty and told me I was no longer his golden princess, but made of brass, hollow and empty, cold and bitter.

Sometimes I could cry oceans and sometimes I just don't feel. Much.

I know what you mean about emotional baggage DEM. I quite like remembering having my heart broken for the first time because he was just a man, who loved me for a bit, treated me just fine and we split. No mind games, no weird stuff, just a good old fashioned rites of passage break up.
But the other stuff. I don't know how interesting I want to be if it has to hurt so much. But maybe with time and healing that will fit a bit better..

Sorry, post counselling rambling. I feel better tonight and we are taking it easy for a few weeks.

tbh that is about how i felt. but i am draw to a point of closure, so it makes more sense from where i am sitting. hopefully when you are closer to that point it will feel a bit better. Sorry about today it was mad.