“If you wouldn’t say it to a friend, don’t say it to yourself.”
So now every time I mentally roast myself, I imagine me saying it to my best friend—and suddenly I’m the villain in a teen movie.
“unless it stops you from doing something wrong, guilt is a useless emotion.” was said in the same conversation as, “you’re not doing anything wrong, it’s not like you’re taking a bunch of cocaine and ripping your arm off” (I was feeling bad about moving away from family)
The first sentence is one that I think of when I have those moments of feeling guilty over something I shouldn’t and it helps and the second sentence just made me laugh
You keep forgiving him with all his wrongdoings, why can’t you forgive yourself after so many months…
And I realised even more how strict I am with myself, while I should care for me as much as I care for others, or even more actually.
You don’t have to forgive someone that wronged you – even if they are related by blood. You can extinguish them from your life and move forward in peace.
I was talking about how i was struggling with advocating for my needs in my abusive relationship because it felt selfish. She said, “but it’s ok to be selfish”. Mind blown.
Wasn’t a therapist, my grandmothers case work. 1. She told me that she knew it was hard, especially doing it alone, and that she was proud of me. And then 2. She told me when and if I ever have to interact with those horrible people who were supposed to take care of her. And didn’t. To “lead with intelligence not emotion.” And I use that to calm myself down sometimes.
Said as he walked to the wall and back a few times for demo. I thought he was a nut, and it does still make me laugh…but it does work for my anxiety, and stress.
I just started therapy for a divorce I’m currently going through and I have been struggling with so much. This is something that she said and it stuck with me-
“If he truly loved you, you wouldn’t be sitting here trying to convince yourself that he did.
Love isn’t something you have to question or search for proof of. It’s felt, seen, and shown. The fact that you are sitting here trying to piece together scraps of affection tells me everything I need to know.”
He keeps saying you are weak for being stressed out and betrayed and feeling that you need to talk to a therapist… he’d have to be a complete moron not to know that HE is the root source of all of it. He knows he’s manipulating you. You need to know it too. He’s a bad person.
Someone who cares about you will tell you need to hear, someone who cares about themselves will tell you what you want to hear.
If you won’t uphold a boundary because you’re afraid someone will leave you, that means they are me only with you because you let them violate that boundary.
so much but a simple one…” there are people who when they meet someone they start at 100% 80% trust – i just met you why would i have a reason to not trust you? and some people that start at 0% 20% trust – i just met you i have no reason to trust you. “
it put into perspective a lot of different people in my life. i start at 100% – obviously with some common sense involved too.
she owned her own clinic and complained to me how I was the FIRST client she had to call 911 for and said how that looks on her and her business.. They called 911 because I was experiencing suicidal ideation lmfao. This was years ago but honestly as I type this out I think I’m going to retroactively report her lmfao how you can say that to a teenager who was just institutionalized is crazy
Probably not the answer you’re looking for, but a really terrible therapist.
To preface, I am/was in recovery for an eating disorder. I also have ADHD and needed to get on meds for that, the doc I see for my ED referred me somewhere else to get my official ADHD diagnosis, and then she’d write the script for the meds and treat me from there.
I went to the therapist she referred me to and sat down and literally the first words he said to me were “so how long have you had a weight problem?”
This man knew full well I wasn’t there to talk about my weight. What he didn’t know is that I almost died from my ED two years before that. Sure I got a little chubby in my recovery but his comment was so out of left field and cut me so deep that I walked out of the office and pretty immediately relapsed into my ED. I think about what he said often. It seems like a fairly mild comment and now I would probably laugh it off and say something snarky back, but in the mindset I was in at the time, it was soul destroying. I’m doing a lot better now but it was such a major setback for me.
When I called a psychologist who worked with me as a teenager to follow up regarding my son’s psychoeducational assessment, I said “hey, it’s just calling”. She responded with “No, not JUST , it’s ____ calling!”. She is such an influential and special person in my life and I can still remember how valued and understood I felt in her office decades later.
Sounds silly, but I feel like I’ve navigated through life seeing myself as mediocre, often downplaying my strengths or good qualities. I wouldn’t say I think negatively of myself, but I also don’t see anything special. It made me realize how important the language we use about ourselves is!
You should be giving yourself the same amount of protection, care, and empathy you give other people. Sometimes that means having to walk away from someone to save yourself. It’s their job to fix their issues, not yours.”
When my dad told me to jump out of a window because i was suicidal my therapist told me i couldn’t be upset about it because he didn’t understand that I was actually suicidal. Mind you my dad was a registered nurse for 20+ years.
Your parents manipulated and guilt-tripped you and your siblings.
I was an eye-opening statement for me and for the first time I was really able to see my parents for what they were and how I wrong I was for feeling like everything was my fault growing up.
That there was something wrong with me because I didn’t want kids and I should have them for my husband, that was 21 years ago….. I divorced my husband and was fixed 20 years ago. Childfree life is the best fucking life!!!
“Tell me what it felt like when your dad abused you”.
WTF! I was 14. I was seeing him because my doctors wouldn’t diagnose my physical issues and kept saying I was faking it. I had NEVER been abused by my parents. They didn’t even raise their voices or spank me. They were the best parents ever.
But this nutcase keep acting as though they had and I wouldn’t tell him. Eventually walked out and thankfully another doc confirmed that it must be physical and I wasn’t faking. Turned out to be a brain injury caused by doctors and hidden until I could no longer sue them. But I never forget that shrink fishing for something that wasn’t there.
My whole family is autistic except for me. I can do nothing except moving out 💀💀💀. I went from having hope someone in the family can understand the traumatic childhood I went through to none.
He was giving it as a mantra, not telling me it wasn’t a big deal. I dutifully repeated it to myself every day for a few weeks, and one day everything magically changed: the pain was still there, but I was cool with it.
I have ADHD and I was confiding in my therapist about struggling to commit to a passion in my life. I was 22 and didn’t know if I should go back to school or travel or find a new job-I was overwhelmed and frustrated because I felt like everything I had thought I wanted to do I couldn’t ever actually stick with.
I said to her “I just wish I could commit to something.”
She replied, “You do though. You commit to yourself every single day. And that is the greatest thing you could ever be passionate about-you.”
It truly changed my outlook on myself and how I approach things and I’ll forever be grateful to her for that.
I was 17 at the time and after telling her a detailed account of my abuse she looked at me and said “Well sweetie isn’t this is your fault?” I got up and left mid session, yes my mom reported her to the state, nothing ever came from it but she has since had dozens of bad reviews
“It sounds like both of your parents resented you because they thought having a baby would change the other into a person they liked more and… it didn’t. But that wasn’t your job, your job was to become someone YOU liked.”
“My supervisor has decided This facility isn’t equipped to handle your trauma and we can no longer help you ”
To which I replied “you’re breaking up with me?!”
She said “yeah you make me share too much with you and I can’t deal with most of your stories … We think you need a team of people not just one person.”
“If you dont take the medication i prescribe you, you will never get better. “
I disagreed with her, told her we were not a good fit after rescheduling so mamy times after. Then she reported me on the site i was using which caused my profile to be blocked so i couldnt search for a new therapist unless i filed for a case
Took matters into my own hands, three years later im not in the place i used to be and feeling pretty alright
She remembered my dad from high school, basically turned into an hour session of her wanting to know what he got up too after high school, when the response was “drinking ever since” she just went “sounds like him” and barely asked any questions about myself, it was kind of humiliating
I’ve sought therapy twice in my life for my bipolar disorder. The first one was nice enough but dismissive and left the practice shortly after I started seeing him. The second one I saw laughed at me. I will never seek therapy again. I was so embarrassed and ashamed and angry I let myself be vulnerable. Never going to happen again.
They have all said some version of the same thing but one in particular said it most bluntly.
She said that she felt better knowing people like me were out in the world but especially me, where i was. He daughter went to college where I lived and maybe had even been pierced by me (im a retired body piercer).
They all said the same thing. That I am prone to violence but only towards those who harm innocent people. Which is very true.
“Your eating disorder was necessary at one point in your life. You needed it. You needed that control to survive. There’s nothing to be ashamed about the product of your survival. But it’s time to let go. You can say goodbye.”
“There will be a last day. Have you ever thought about that? You probably won’t realize when it happens. You’ll wake up the next morning none the wiser. You’ll eat breakfast without a second thought. And you’ll never restrict again.”
I was in an abusive marriage, terrified to leave. She asked me very simply “What would be the worst thing that would happen to you if you left?” It was just the most honest question that really started making me reconsider the fear I had.
I finally left. And I am so much better off for it.
In couples counseling, with my controlling abusive ex who was cheating on me, but could be so so charming when necessary, the therapist (another woman, btw), told me, after saying I was unhappy and couldn’t come to terms with (list of behaviors I was subjected to) that I came across as “ungrateful, harsh, and off putting.” It was like a gut punch.
Ex proceeded to act like “won”’couples counseling. Needless to say we got a divorce, though it was years later.
Years later, after the divorce, when I was seeing someone to help me navigate his efforts to control me through our shared kids, a (better) therapist, told me how to gray rock him. Which of course worked.
“You a bitch”
Lol jk
“You can’t always cope with uncomfortable moments using humor, people will and have the right to be mad at you.” My reply was “but it’s funny”.
Made my (male) therapist cry in our first session. It was such a validation of my feelings that for the first time I felt justified in my pain. That was so freeing, will never forget it. Another one was that I had been completely idealizing my mother because my father was such a raging narcissist. One day he simply asked me “What would you have done if you were in her place?” As trivial as it sounds, I had never thought about it like that.
“Oh, so your parents were abusive. I can’t believe nobody called CYS.”
Totally reframed my entire existence. I had never thought of it like that before. In hindsight, yes they very much were. But at that point, I had spent over 20 years being told that everything was fine, that I was just dramatic, that it wasn’t ‘bad enough,’ and that if I had really been abused, someone would have made that call to CYS.
I was talking about a family dynamic – a pattern in the way a family member treated me. I started by saying “So guess what my mom did now?” and my therapist said “At some point, the question needs to shift from ‘guess what my mom did?’ to ‘why do you have unrealistic expectations about people in your life? this is how she behaves. you can choose to cut her off if you want to or you can choose to keep her in your life but if you do that, you can’t cry that you’re a victim.’”
“Maybe don’t put yourself in situations where there may be a miscommunication. Like inviting a guy over for dinner and drinks”
In response to me telling him I had a guy over (who I had slept with previously) for dinner and drinks but made it abundantly clear that we would not be having sex. That I was not in the mental state to have sex. That I did not want to cuddle. I did not want a hug.
The guy forced himself on me and thankfully got pissed and left when I started crying.
The guy was being very persistent and I should’ve just said no to him even coming over but I didn’t want to be rude.
Not really from a therapist but when i went to one of my teachers about when my best friend had a boyfriend and literally ignored me, i poured my heart to her and told everything that made me sad about their relationship. I said, “Why doesn’t she care for me, i was there for her but she is always with her boyfriend”
and she said “Wouldn’t you love your partner more than your friends?”
at first i didn’t understand but then she explained it to me “The amount of love you receive of course will be different. You are not the lover but one of her friends.” and it actually made me relieved and shaken at the same time. I’m still thinking about it tbh.
Reconciliation and forgiveness are different. If I have been hurt, forgiveness is my responsibility and reconciling is the other person’s. (And vice versa)
I had a therapist who’s whole family was killed in front of him in Yugoslavia.
He told me the story and snapped me out of my morbid/suicidal/depressed funk really fast.
She’s asked me if I was on the spectrum on our first meeting. I replied “no, I don’t think so” and she responded with a judgement passive comment and proceeded to treat me as if I had a disability. That was the first and last time.
“Do you have a boyfriend? You’re a pretty girl, maybe you’d feel better if you had a boyfriend.”
I was 12.
Even at that age, I knew it wasn’t the right thing to say, and wasn’t the root of, or solution to, my problems. It kept me away from therapy for a long time.
“Every time your anxiety spikes, just think, is it a fact or an opinion? If it’s a fact, well, that’s solvable. If it’s an opinion, then it’s just that, an opinion. Who says they’re right?”
Every time I’ve had an anxiety spike since then or retreated into my shell because someone said something that triggers past trauma, I just think, “fact or opinion”. When you realize 90% of the shit people say is just opinions and you don’t care about their opinion anyway, it makes it way easier to let things roll off the shoulders and not take it personally.
A close second is the phrase, “what’s the worst case scenario”.
I’ll play through whatever that scenario is in my head and it makes me realize it’ll be okay.
“Don’t make a non-therapy problem a therapy problem. I’m.going to give you an open appointment valid for a year …”
Never forgotten that NO MATTER HOW HARD I TRY. I think it’s been 7 years hahaha
“So is it wrong just by virtue you’re you? What would you say to someone in your circumstances, exactly the same. Like imagine a parallel you …” followed by “you know if you’re putting yourself down like that, it puts down everyone of ‘lower’ rating than you – by default?!” (We were talking about things with numerical measure, like wages and grades, for the second instance.)
Latter examples are food for thought. First example good riddance
thanks for bearing with all of me over this many years, P 🙃🙃🙃✨
“You don’t always control your life’s direction. Yet you control the decisions you make. Your perception (of life) will definitely change in relation to the decisions you make.”
Something to this effect. I was spiraling with depression and self medicating. Alcohol.
I still make bad decisions. Yet having someone say a really simple, common sense thing can open your eyes when you choose to ignore sense.
That I wasn’t depressed – I just needed to be around the right people. She literally told me to leave my small town and go to the city. She was correct.
Ever since I was in high school, I was kinda notorious for being “that friend” that everyone goes to for advice on life and shit like that. For whatever reason, the people I hang out with have always looked up to me as a wise person with a good moral compass.
I digress. One time I was talking to my therapist and he told me “You know, you’re a smart guy. You’d be a lot happier if you would just follow the advice you give other people.” That hit me pretty hard. So now, whenever I have an issue, I give myself a pep talk and pretend I’m talking to a good friend with whom I have the best intentions in mind, instead of talking to myself. I’ve always been conditioned to believe that I don’t deserve more/better and it’s something I’ve been trying to work through.
In an EMDR session. I told her I don’t have a good imagination and I’m not very creative. She said “sure you do!”. “You imagine and create your anxieties right?”.
I realized how we all create our own things in our head on how we feel day to day, through our beliefs in ourselves. We imagine ourselves one way or another, and we believe those things.
I was neck deep in depression, no motivation & didn’t want to do anything.
“As adults we sometimes just have to do things we don’t want to do. Sometimes I wake up in the morning feeling like I don’t want to go to work at all. I’d rather just stay home, but then I do it and after I feel accomplished. Do you ever do anything like that?”
I found a new therapist after that. I didn’t need a therapist talking to me like a parent about what adults need to do let alone tell me there are days the last thing he wants to do is his job while doing his job.
BACKSTORY:
I went back to my therapist after the pandemic. I went to him before the pandemic and thought things were fine with him but after…
I was trying to explain that I got complacent and was basically checking out at work. I couldn’t focus. I was depressed. There were days where I sat at my computer and literally did nothing and I would just fear being fired, but at the same time I couldn’t motivate myself to do shit.
“Violence against objects is still violence.”
The context was me telling her that growing up I saw my dad get violent with objects when he got angry (kicking doors, punching cupboards, breaking things), and I kind of downplayed it, because “he never got violent with me” and he is still a very nice human being with a kind soul and I didn’t wanna see him as someone dangerous. In reality, I was afraid of him as a child that watched him break things in my home that was supposed to be safe. It stuck with me, because I hadn’t realized it before.
“You can’t be someone’s therapist while you’re also in therapy”
It sounds bad out of context, but I had a friend that would constantly change therapists because they would always say things she didn’t want to hear. Eventually she stopped going to therapy and would essentially use me as a therapist to speak out all of her issues to (and believe me, she had a LOT going on both relationship and family wise). When I told my own therapist this, she said if I’m still working on myself it will be hard to make progress while I’m also trying to fix someone else.
When I suggested to that friend that she should try another therapist because it was getting hard for me, she cussed me out and said her problems were worse than mine and I was a bad friend for leaving her to “fend for herself”.
Needless to say, we didn’t stay friends long after that.
Comments
“Times up, that’ll be five hundred dollars”
Lead an argument with curiosity instead of defensiveness
Having anxiety isn’t the same as being psychic
You can’t force someone to understand
Start saying no
Can someone DM me i want to talk
You can’t choose your relatives, but you can choose your family.
“If you wouldn’t say it to a friend, don’t say it to yourself.”
So now every time I mentally roast myself, I imagine me saying it to my best friend—and suddenly I’m the villain in a teen movie.
“Have you ever considered that your sister is just…… a bitch?”
“unless it stops you from doing something wrong, guilt is a useless emotion.” was said in the same conversation as, “you’re not doing anything wrong, it’s not like you’re taking a bunch of cocaine and ripping your arm off” (I was feeling bad about moving away from family)
The first sentence is one that I think of when I have those moments of feeling guilty over something I shouldn’t and it helps and the second sentence just made me laugh
If you want to have self-esteem, you must do esteemable things
“Do you think I enjoy coming here and listening to people’s problems?”
I stopped going and haven’t been in years.
Just because you understand why someone hurt you doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt. That one stuck with me.
Sorry, can’t help you.
“Whoops, you know what the music means.”
Keep reposting the same questions on r/AskReddit – sooner or later you’ll wear down the moderators and the karma farming will add up.
My daughter’s sexual assault therapist’s reply when we asked about putting us on a sliding scale because we couldn’t afford her:
“Well, don’t come then if you don’t think I’m worth it. Let her just grow up to be a drug addicted prostitute.”
We never went back and found a more compassionate therapist who helped her and improved our lives.
Yanno, maybe you have ADHD, not BPD. Let’s look into that.
Wow, I don’t think I can help you.
“Your boyfriend is abusive and a man-child, you’d benefit from leaving him.”
“Smell the roses
Blow out the candles”
It’s a breathing exercise when you’re feeling stressed, anxious, angry, overwhelmed. For me it’s been a life changer.
Your feelings are NEVER wrong.
coercion isn’t consent
You keep forgiving him with all his wrongdoings, why can’t you forgive yourself after so many months…
And I realised even more how strict I am with myself, while I should care for me as much as I care for others, or even more actually.
The intent of what you say may not deliver the impact you want or expect.
When you’re in a position of supporting someone having a difficult time, the support you want to give may or may not be the support they want or need.
Ask them what they need & remember the “3 Hs.” Do they want to be:
Helped? (with actions)
Hugged? (with emotional support)
Heard? (with understanding & care)
“I think you ate a little too hard on yourself.”
I swear I didn’t know I had another option.
I think you’re bipolar. Let’s find out.
You don’t have to forgive someone that wronged you – even if they are related by blood. You can extinguish them from your life and move forward in peace.
Feelings are valid but are NOT facts.
It’s not against the law to be crazy.
“If you think things could get worse, why couldn’t they also get better?”
While not from a therapist: “If you don’t stand up for yourself, you’re saying it’s okay to treat other people that way”
I was talking about how i was struggling with advocating for my needs in my abusive relationship because it felt selfish. She said, “but it’s ok to be selfish”. Mind blown.
Depending on the president in question, Nope, outside, and my camera will be running the whole time.
Fucking up does not make you a fuck up.
She said “something about my personality” is why I got bullied.
Wasn’t a therapist, my grandmothers case work. 1. She told me that she knew it was hard, especially doing it alone, and that she was proud of me. And then 2. She told me when and if I ever have to interact with those horrible people who were supposed to take care of her. And didn’t. To “lead with intelligence not emotion.” And I use that to calm myself down sometimes.
The anger and guilt you feel regarding your relationship with your parents is actually just grief.
“Just walk”
Said as he walked to the wall and back a few times for demo. I thought he was a nut, and it does still make me laugh…but it does work for my anxiety, and stress.
“Doesn’t your opinion matter?”
I was so worried about people liking me that I never stopped to consider if I actually liked them.
I just started therapy for a divorce I’m currently going through and I have been struggling with so much. This is something that she said and it stuck with me-
“If he truly loved you, you wouldn’t be sitting here trying to convince yourself that he did.
Love isn’t something you have to question or search for proof of. It’s felt, seen, and shown. The fact that you are sitting here trying to piece together scraps of affection tells me everything I need to know.”
“You don’t feel your feelings, you intellectualize them.”
It takes 2 people to argue and you can always opt out.
He keeps saying you are weak for being stressed out and betrayed and feeling that you need to talk to a therapist… he’d have to be a complete moron not to know that HE is the root source of all of it. He knows he’s manipulating you. You need to know it too. He’s a bad person.
Someone who cares about you will tell you need to hear, someone who cares about themselves will tell you what you want to hear.
If you won’t uphold a boundary because you’re afraid someone will leave you, that means they are me only with you because you let them violate that boundary.
“Your feelings are valid, even if they don’t make sense to others.”
Therapist said… “Why not just tell them to their face?”
“You were more fun to talk to when you were on drugs”
so much but a simple one…” there are people who when they meet someone they start at 100% 80% trust – i just met you why would i have a reason to not trust you? and some people that start at 0% 20% trust – i just met you i have no reason to trust you. “
it put into perspective a lot of different people in my life. i start at 100% – obviously with some common sense involved too.
‘Sit with your discomfort.’
‘Are you afraid of being bothered or bothering?’
‘I want you to do a self care project for yourself.’
I’ve had some awesome ladies help me with my mental health throughout my life.
she owned her own clinic and complained to me how I was the FIRST client she had to call 911 for and said how that looks on her and her business.. They called 911 because I was experiencing suicidal ideation lmfao. This was years ago but honestly as I type this out I think I’m going to retroactively report her lmfao how you can say that to a teenager who was just institutionalized is crazy
Probably not the answer you’re looking for, but a really terrible therapist.
To preface, I am/was in recovery for an eating disorder. I also have ADHD and needed to get on meds for that, the doc I see for my ED referred me somewhere else to get my official ADHD diagnosis, and then she’d write the script for the meds and treat me from there.
I went to the therapist she referred me to and sat down and literally the first words he said to me were “so how long have you had a weight problem?”
This man knew full well I wasn’t there to talk about my weight. What he didn’t know is that I almost died from my ED two years before that. Sure I got a little chubby in my recovery but his comment was so out of left field and cut me so deep that I walked out of the office and pretty immediately relapsed into my ED. I think about what he said often. It seems like a fairly mild comment and now I would probably laugh it off and say something snarky back, but in the mindset I was in at the time, it was soul destroying. I’m doing a lot better now but it was such a major setback for me.
When I called a psychologist who worked with me as a teenager to follow up regarding my son’s psychoeducational assessment, I said “hey, it’s just calling”. She responded with “No, not JUST , it’s ____ calling!”. She is such an influential and special person in my life and I can still remember how valued and understood I felt in her office decades later.
Sounds silly, but I feel like I’ve navigated through life seeing myself as mediocre, often downplaying my strengths or good qualities. I wouldn’t say I think negatively of myself, but I also don’t see anything special. It made me realize how important the language we use about ourselves is!
She gave me The Personal Bill of Rights. It changed my entire life.
https://www.etsu.edu/students/counseling/documents/stressgps/personalbillofrights.pdf
Why are you here?
I don’t think I can help you.
I’ve been friends with clients, but not interested in getting to know you.
This was years ago and I just suck it up and deal the best I can. No more therapy for me after those comments. Damn.
You should be giving yourself the same amount of protection, care, and empathy you give other people. Sometimes that means having to walk away from someone to save yourself. It’s their job to fix their issues, not yours.”
“Sorry that didn’t help you. That will be €89.”
When my dad told me to jump out of a window because i was suicidal my therapist told me i couldn’t be upset about it because he didn’t understand that I was actually suicidal. Mind you my dad was a registered nurse for 20+ years.
Your happiness is as valid and valuable as the happiness of your loved ones. Let’s learn to defend your needs as fiercely as how you fight for theirs.
“Your sobriety or your marriage will last if your wife doesn’t quit drinking – not both.”
Don’t forget your breathing exercises.
Your parents manipulated and guilt-tripped you and your siblings.
I was an eye-opening statement for me and for the first time I was really able to see my parents for what they were and how I wrong I was for feeling like everything was my fault growing up.
That there was something wrong with me because I didn’t want kids and I should have them for my husband, that was 21 years ago….. I divorced my husband and was fixed 20 years ago. Childfree life is the best fucking life!!!
“Tell me what it felt like when your dad abused you”.
WTF! I was 14. I was seeing him because my doctors wouldn’t diagnose my physical issues and kept saying I was faking it. I had NEVER been abused by my parents. They didn’t even raise their voices or spank me. They were the best parents ever.
But this nutcase keep acting as though they had and I wouldn’t tell him. Eventually walked out and thankfully another doc confirmed that it must be physical and I wasn’t faking. Turned out to be a brain injury caused by doctors and hidden until I could no longer sue them. But I never forget that shrink fishing for something that wasn’t there.
“Sir this is a Wendy’s” that’s why I don’t trust drive throughs or google maps anymore.
My whole family is autistic except for me. I can do nothing except moving out 💀💀💀. I went from having hope someone in the family can understand the traumatic childhood I went through to none.
“what the fuck?” What the fuck indeed, Liz.
You will always be in pain, and that’s okay.
He was giving it as a mantra, not telling me it wasn’t a big deal. I dutifully repeated it to myself every day for a few weeks, and one day everything magically changed: the pain was still there, but I was cool with it.
Crying is one of the most under utilised tools!
“A change in mindset is a miracle.”
You wouldn’t refuse a cast to heal a broken arm.
I have ADHD and I was confiding in my therapist about struggling to commit to a passion in my life. I was 22 and didn’t know if I should go back to school or travel or find a new job-I was overwhelmed and frustrated because I felt like everything I had thought I wanted to do I couldn’t ever actually stick with.
I said to her “I just wish I could commit to something.”
She replied, “You do though. You commit to yourself every single day. And that is the greatest thing you could ever be passionate about-you.”
It truly changed my outlook on myself and how I approach things and I’ll forever be grateful to her for that.
Avoidance doesn’t help
“Do you actually WANT to do this, or would you just feel guilty if you didn’t?”
Children are born narcissist and it is our job to help them grow out of that false sense of entitlement. Teach empathy.
Your insurance didn’t cover our last session….
“Liar” 😂🥰
I was 17 at the time and after telling her a detailed account of my abuse she looked at me and said “Well sweetie isn’t this is your fault?” I got up and left mid session, yes my mom reported her to the state, nothing ever came from it but she has since had dozens of bad reviews
that I am a part of the human race
“It sounds like both of your parents resented you because they thought having a baby would change the other into a person they liked more and… it didn’t. But that wasn’t your job, your job was to become someone YOU liked.”
She called me Joanne, that’s not my name.
“Its only embarrassing if you’re embarrassed.”
Changed my life!
“My supervisor has decided This facility isn’t equipped to handle your trauma and we can no longer help you ”
To which I replied “you’re breaking up with me?!”
She said “yeah you make me share too much with you and I can’t deal with most of your stories … We think you need a team of people not just one person.”
Never going to therapy again lol.
“If you dont take the medication i prescribe you, you will never get better. “
I disagreed with her, told her we were not a good fit after rescheduling so mamy times after. Then she reported me on the site i was using which caused my profile to be blocked so i couldnt search for a new therapist unless i filed for a case
Took matters into my own hands, three years later im not in the place i used to be and feeling pretty alright
You choose your thoughts the same way you choose your clothes for the day
“So basically your child with BPD is like my pit bull” so spot on though
She remembered my dad from high school, basically turned into an hour session of her wanting to know what he got up too after high school, when the response was “drinking ever since” she just went “sounds like him” and barely asked any questions about myself, it was kind of humiliating
Do you know a realtor.
I’ve sought therapy twice in my life for my bipolar disorder. The first one was nice enough but dismissive and left the practice shortly after I started seeing him. The second one I saw laughed at me. I will never seek therapy again. I was so embarrassed and ashamed and angry I let myself be vulnerable. Never going to happen again.
Okay you don’t have any self respect but let’s imagine what you would do if you did
They have all said some version of the same thing but one in particular said it most bluntly.
She said that she felt better knowing people like me were out in the world but especially me, where i was. He daughter went to college where I lived and maybe had even been pierced by me (im a retired body piercer).
They all said the same thing. That I am prone to violence but only towards those who harm innocent people. Which is very true.
“Yes, you do have ADHD.”
“Just because you’re not special doesn’t mean you can’t be special TO somebody.”
Talk to yourself as if you’re talking to a tiny being with the same issues as you
I find myself being a lot more compassionate, as if I’m trying to encourage a child/teen to try more
“The word “should” imparts someone else’s values.on you and you’re not obligated to follow that.” 40 years later, I still follow that guidance.
The rapist said. Every action has a equal or opposite reaction. So you always have a choice regardless of the “weight” you feel.
“Your check bounced…”
You can’t change other people. You can change you.
“Your eating disorder was necessary at one point in your life. You needed it. You needed that control to survive. There’s nothing to be ashamed about the product of your survival. But it’s time to let go. You can say goodbye.”
“There will be a last day. Have you ever thought about that? You probably won’t realize when it happens. You’ll wake up the next morning none the wiser. You’ll eat breakfast without a second thought. And you’ll never restrict again.”
I was in an abusive marriage, terrified to leave. She asked me very simply “What would be the worst thing that would happen to you if you left?” It was just the most honest question that really started making me reconsider the fear I had.
I finally left. And I am so much better off for it.
35 jobs in 4 years isnt normal! About my soon to be ex husband. Hes had 35 jobs since the beginning of 2021. I wish i was exaggerating.
My therapist taught me about narcissistic mothers and it changed my life. For the first time in my life, I learned that I wasn’t the problem
I had SIs. I was discussing my plan for continuing my academic program with her.
What I said: So, I have three options. I can either start clinicals now, start clinicals later and catch up, or just take another term.
Her: For you, there is always a fourth option. Suicide.
Stupid fucking bitch.
Get out! I’m with a patient!
After a CPTSD diagnosis, “it can take anywhere from 10 to 15 years of therapy for you to recover from this.”
I need to be paid for missed sessions (jk)
You don’t have to date every guy you want to have sex with.
In couples counseling, with my controlling abusive ex who was cheating on me, but could be so so charming when necessary, the therapist (another woman, btw), told me, after saying I was unhappy and couldn’t come to terms with (list of behaviors I was subjected to) that I came across as “ungrateful, harsh, and off putting.” It was like a gut punch.
Ex proceeded to act like “won”’couples counseling. Needless to say we got a divorce, though it was years later.
Years later, after the divorce, when I was seeing someone to help me navigate his efforts to control me through our shared kids, a (better) therapist, told me how to gray rock him. Which of course worked.
A therapist asked me if my suicide attempts were cathartic. Never forget it
“It’s not your job to be a referee when your parents are fighting.”
Didn’t say anything, just cried lol. That one stuck the most for some reason
“You a bitch”
Lol jk
“You can’t always cope with uncomfortable moments using humor, people will and have the right to be mad at you.” My reply was “but it’s funny”.
Made my (male) therapist cry in our first session. It was such a validation of my feelings that for the first time I felt justified in my pain. That was so freeing, will never forget it. Another one was that I had been completely idealizing my mother because my father was such a raging narcissist. One day he simply asked me “What would you have done if you were in her place?” As trivial as it sounds, I had never thought about it like that.
“Oh, so your parents were abusive. I can’t believe nobody called CYS.”
Totally reframed my entire existence. I had never thought of it like that before. In hindsight, yes they very much were. But at that point, I had spent over 20 years being told that everything was fine, that I was just dramatic, that it wasn’t ‘bad enough,’ and that if I had really been abused, someone would have made that call to CYS.
I was talking about a family dynamic – a pattern in the way a family member treated me. I started by saying “So guess what my mom did now?” and my therapist said “At some point, the question needs to shift from ‘guess what my mom did?’ to ‘why do you have unrealistic expectations about people in your life? this is how she behaves. you can choose to cut her off if you want to or you can choose to keep her in your life but if you do that, you can’t cry that you’re a victim.’”
“You don’t need to blame yourself for forces outside of your control.”
Nobody thinks about you nearly as much as you think about you.
“Maybe don’t put yourself in situations where there may be a miscommunication. Like inviting a guy over for dinner and drinks”
In response to me telling him I had a guy over (who I had slept with previously) for dinner and drinks but made it abundantly clear that we would not be having sex. That I was not in the mental state to have sex. That I did not want to cuddle. I did not want a hug.
The guy forced himself on me and thankfully got pissed and left when I started crying.
The guy was being very persistent and I should’ve just said no to him even coming over but I didn’t want to be rude.
Not really from a therapist but when i went to one of my teachers about when my best friend had a boyfriend and literally ignored me, i poured my heart to her and told everything that made me sad about their relationship. I said, “Why doesn’t she care for me, i was there for her but she is always with her boyfriend”
and she said “Wouldn’t you love your partner more than your friends?”
at first i didn’t understand but then she explained it to me “The amount of love you receive of course will be different. You are not the lover but one of her friends.” and it actually made me relieved and shaken at the same time. I’m still thinking about it tbh.
“If you don’t get a divorce, you will continue in this depression and misery for ever”.
Second time seeing a new therapist and she interrupted me to tell me how great trump is. Needless to say, that was also the last time I saw her.
Reconciliation and forgiveness are different. If I have been hurt, forgiveness is my responsibility and reconciling is the other person’s. (And vice versa)
I had a therapist who’s whole family was killed in front of him in Yugoslavia.
He told me the story and snapped me out of my morbid/suicidal/depressed funk really fast.
She’s asked me if I was on the spectrum on our first meeting. I replied “no, I don’t think so” and she responded with a judgement passive comment and proceeded to treat me as if I had a disability. That was the first and last time.
Nobody dies if you gain weight
“Do you have a boyfriend? You’re a pretty girl, maybe you’d feel better if you had a boyfriend.”
I was 12.
Even at that age, I knew it wasn’t the right thing to say, and wasn’t the root of, or solution to, my problems. It kept me away from therapy for a long time.
“Every time your anxiety spikes, just think, is it a fact or an opinion? If it’s a fact, well, that’s solvable. If it’s an opinion, then it’s just that, an opinion. Who says they’re right?”
Every time I’ve had an anxiety spike since then or retreated into my shell because someone said something that triggers past trauma, I just think, “fact or opinion”. When you realize 90% of the shit people say is just opinions and you don’t care about their opinion anyway, it makes it way easier to let things roll off the shoulders and not take it personally.
A close second is the phrase, “what’s the worst case scenario”.
I’ll play through whatever that scenario is in my head and it makes me realize it’ll be okay.
“I am sad/mad/lonely/hopeless/etc”
“You feel sad/mad/lonely/hopless/etc right now”
Good or bad?
“Don’t make a non-therapy problem a therapy problem. I’m.going to give you an open appointment valid for a year …”
Never forgotten that NO MATTER HOW HARD I TRY. I think it’s been 7 years hahaha
“So is it wrong just by virtue you’re you? What would you say to someone in your circumstances, exactly the same. Like imagine a parallel you …” followed by “you know if you’re putting yourself down like that, it puts down everyone of ‘lower’ rating than you – by default?!” (We were talking about things with numerical measure, like wages and grades, for the second instance.)
Latter examples are food for thought. First example good riddance
thanks for bearing with all of me over this many years, P 🙃🙃🙃✨
My ex-psychiatrist, after me saying I don’t want kids. “Not having babies is like committing suicide”.
I think about that every single day.
I still need to report her.
“Gee…..you think maybe being sexually violated you when you were 5 might have contributed to your current unhealthy sexual boundaries?”
Don’t “should” yourself (in regards to feelings)
“You don’t always control your life’s direction. Yet you control the decisions you make. Your perception (of life) will definitely change in relation to the decisions you make.”
Something to this effect. I was spiraling with depression and self medicating. Alcohol.
I still make bad decisions. Yet having someone say a really simple, common sense thing can open your eyes when you choose to ignore sense.
Remind me to come back pls
That I wasn’t depressed – I just needed to be around the right people. She literally told me to leave my small town and go to the city. She was correct.
“Will the world end or mass chaos ensue if you don’t complete X on time?”
I remind myself of this a lot working in a corporate setting.
“Are you really afraid of the search, or are you afraid of what you’ll find?
The things you find may reduce many of your beliefs to rubble, and that’s what really scary”
When talking about the roots of my anxiety
Ever since I was in high school, I was kinda notorious for being “that friend” that everyone goes to for advice on life and shit like that. For whatever reason, the people I hang out with have always looked up to me as a wise person with a good moral compass.
I digress. One time I was talking to my therapist and he told me “You know, you’re a smart guy. You’d be a lot happier if you would just follow the advice you give other people.” That hit me pretty hard. So now, whenever I have an issue, I give myself a pep talk and pretend I’m talking to a good friend with whom I have the best intentions in mind, instead of talking to myself. I’ve always been conditioned to believe that I don’t deserve more/better and it’s something I’ve been trying to work through.
In an EMDR session. I told her I don’t have a good imagination and I’m not very creative. She said “sure you do!”. “You imagine and create your anxieties right?”.
I realized how we all create our own things in our head on how we feel day to day, through our beliefs in ourselves. We imagine ourselves one way or another, and we believe those things.
Nobody has two bottles of salt on their table. Salt and pepper, though different, go good together
“huh that’s weird” I was 12 and describing my frequent anxiety attacks and she was like 80 and was not a good therapist
‘Fake it till you make it.’ No joke.
I was neck deep in depression, no motivation & didn’t want to do anything.
“As adults we sometimes just have to do things we don’t want to do. Sometimes I wake up in the morning feeling like I don’t want to go to work at all. I’d rather just stay home, but then I do it and after I feel accomplished. Do you ever do anything like that?”
I found a new therapist after that. I didn’t need a therapist talking to me like a parent about what adults need to do let alone tell me there are days the last thing he wants to do is his job while doing his job.
BACKSTORY:
I went back to my therapist after the pandemic. I went to him before the pandemic and thought things were fine with him but after…
I was trying to explain that I got complacent and was basically checking out at work. I couldn’t focus. I was depressed. There were days where I sat at my computer and literally did nothing and I would just fear being fired, but at the same time I couldn’t motivate myself to do shit.
“You’ll never become a combat medic you should just give up”
What’s worse he asked what I wanted to be, I was in therapy because my mom had just died of cancer & I was 13
“Violence against objects is still violence.”
The context was me telling her that growing up I saw my dad get violent with objects when he got angry (kicking doors, punching cupboards, breaking things), and I kind of downplayed it, because “he never got violent with me” and he is still a very nice human being with a kind soul and I didn’t wanna see him as someone dangerous. In reality, I was afraid of him as a child that watched him break things in my home that was supposed to be safe. It stuck with me, because I hadn’t realized it before.
“You can’t be someone’s therapist while you’re also in therapy”
It sounds bad out of context, but I had a friend that would constantly change therapists because they would always say things she didn’t want to hear. Eventually she stopped going to therapy and would essentially use me as a therapist to speak out all of her issues to (and believe me, she had a LOT going on both relationship and family wise). When I told my own therapist this, she said if I’m still working on myself it will be hard to make progress while I’m also trying to fix someone else.
When I suggested to that friend that she should try another therapist because it was getting hard for me, she cussed me out and said her problems were worse than mine and I was a bad friend for leaving her to “fend for herself”.
Needless to say, we didn’t stay friends long after that.
“You need to pay me first.”