Heyo! Stupid question, but I’ve been double-guessing myself on this and would love some external input on things.
I’ve been in group therapy since October (so like, 5 or 6 sessions so far). It’s an open mixed group, so people of any type of mental illness are free to come and go. The general aim of the group is Behavioral Therapy and it’s led by two psychologists. Sessions consist of a short powerpoint presentation followed by worksheets to be filled out in groups of 3-4 people. Generally I think the topics of the sessions, like time management, emotional regulation, stress management etc. are chosen well and do cover a broad spectrum of knowledge.
But, my issue is that I just get completely emotionally flooded and on edge whenever I go there. Which is normal for me, I start crying every time I get put on the spot about my feelings anyways (I’ve cried every single time I have ever had to talk to a doctor about anything regarding my mental health). But I kinda assumed it might get better? Like I can choke down the crying for the session at least (if I don’t get asked about anything bad), but I always cry on the way back home and it’s starting to be pretty distressing. Like I consistently lose the latter half of the day to headaches and recovering, and the amount of times I wake up due to nightmares definitely has gone up significantly since starting therapy.
Another thing is that a new person joined the group, and she has a particularly dramatic inflexion in her voice that sounds exactly like my mother whenever she’s fishing for sympathy and being the victim. It’s really not this person’s fault that they talk like that (she’s probably a perfectly fine person!) but I do struggle to not flinch whenever she speaks. Recently we also got put into the same group and I completely zoned out and went unresponsive when she tried talking to me 😅 I didn’t mean to offend her really, and I’m not sure why I would react like that, but it just kind of happened…
I’m really trying to work on this kind of emotional reactivity, but the part I’m missing is that within therapy, they’ve explained the model of [situation -> thought -> action], so being aware of situations that bring you into a specific thought pattern and then re-examining that thought pattern can help shape different actions. I’m neither sure which situations upset me like this nor am I sure what sort of thought would contribute to it, as I don’t really have any thoughts when I choke up like that. It just seems like a random bodily reaction that floods me with bad feelings (and I can’t even elaborate beyond “bad”, even if I know all the emotions I can’t really name specifics that I experience).
I know it’s dumb, but like, maybe there’s a type of therapy that could work better than behavioral therapy? Or do I just need to stick it out and continue going? My insurance has approved weekly sessions until April. There’s also the issue that I did get an Adhd diagnosis recently and am currently calling around to find a doctor who is willing to prescribe meds (it’s complicated here in Germany). So my struggles might just be an adhd thing?
How have your experiences with therapy been? Are you supposed to feel better after every session? Is it supposed to be bad at first but get better with time?
Hard to tell without context, but it sounds like you have a lot of things bottled up inside of you that may need 1 to 1 sessions with a therapist. Therapy in general obviously makes you confront the things that you may carry with you, the things you shoved in some dark corner hoping you’d forget them, but that’s of course not how it works. Your group therapy likely scratches those things and pulls on them a little, which is what causes your distress. Crying is not bad though, it’s a good way to let some of those bottled up emotions out.