new and speechless

Hello @destructive

Your post struck and resonated with me on quite a few different levels.

The sense of things being pointless is a hard feeling to keep moving through .. again and again.

I have fet it a lot at different phases in my life, teens, twenties, through mothering and as I approach old age. Nowaday though it ebbs and flows and isnt the dominant feeling for me. I have managed to last long enough to be able to reflect and find many moments of meaningfulness so that I do feel my life has had meaning.

It is partly about finding things that are authentically you and manifesting them in a way that helps develop your own life creatively.

I am a verbal person but did not speak a lot in the first 30 years of my life .. and sat thru sessions barely saying a word.

You may be a more visual thinker or a person that needs to be do movement to generate better outcomes and you may respond better to a mix of therapy styles.

Maybe find other approaches but still use the medicare system to help you keep connected .. becasue as humans it is our speech that is also very helpful.

My sister spent her precious money on psychology and it was not enough to help save her ... BUT I do believe she was on the RIGHT track. I went to her psych after her death and he said that she may have managed if she hadnt been in the state system. its not to put down workers in that system .. but they do have less funding .. and it can be connected to outcomes.

My brother struggled with a lot of destructive behaviours and since they both died I have struggled more with destructive thoughts. Sometimes when it is like that I NEED to move around and be active so sitting in a counsellor room isnt always the best solution. It is just a solution among others. Your best bet is to look around and find things that make sense to you.

I think your post was spot on about what my sibs and I felt like when we were young.

regards Apple

Hi Apple

Thanks soo much for your reply. I had this sick feeling no one would and I feel so alone right now.

I am very sorry to hear you have had so much loss.

Others have also suggested alternative therapies but for some reason I feel like I really need to speak some things. I don't know why but I just feels like everything is stuck in my and words is the way i need to get it out. Maybe because I have gotten things out in other ways. I have done a lot of writing and drawing and it doesnt have any sense of release. Maybe speaking wont either though, its just some fantasy I have. I think those things havent worked because they are not as relational and I think most of my problems are relational/attachment based.

I always feel sooo sad and overwhlemed.

D

I began singing as part of BMus just after my brother died. I didnt have a clue where it would lead me as I hadnt want to be a singer back then. But in the long run it gave me an option where I could keep social connection, and find expression and keep my mourth moving ... like a fish .. sometimes it connects with thins that I need to say ... other times it is other people;s words.

Just know that there are many roads to Rome.

Take care and be creative with your therapy ... it is totally yours and about your life.

regards Apple

Hi @destructive, so sorry to hear you get so stuck when you try to speak with a therapist - I sometimes have that. I am very erudite and can talk up a storm when I am opining or talking about things that are outside of me, and even in therapy - I can play the game and gabble on 'safe' subjects or I dissassociate and can chat about really hard and horrible events in my life as if they were a thing on a plate out there (being triggered all inside as I do) but when I try to speak about the inside of me I freeze up. Sometimes literally my voice will stop and my throat constrict and I just cannot get the words out.

The worry of budgetting the extra dosh for the sessions when the extra sessions are finalised would definately make me pause for thought as well. I wonder if there is the possibility that you could negotaite a 'bargain' price with the thrapist for a limited number of more sessions.

The other thing that I find helpful if I am freezing up and unable to speak, is to turn the lights low and sit sideways to the therapist so I do not have to look at them as I am speaking. And another thing that works is to write down what I 'don't' want to talk about but that I have to get through if I am to get anywhere better in life as a precis - (like a little book review) and pass that at the beginning of the session, so the really hard bits to speak are 'done' in writing - and the therapist knows the subject you wish you could talk about and then go from there.

Do you live with Post traumatic stress disorder? I am finding the book - "The Body Keeps The Score" very useful to explain so much about why my mind freezes up and why I can't find the words to discuss things which really, really need talking about.

Hi @MoonGal

I was reading through some of these past posts. I saw your mention of a book you were reading, The Body Keeps The Score, could I ask who the author is, please?

My Psychologist has suggested a book by Babette Rothschild called The Body Remembers, it sounds a similar title.

I was wondering what your thoughts were on it after finishing the book?

Was it aimed at general readers or clinicians?

Thanks.

Hi @strong, the book "The Body Keeps the Score is by Bessel Van Der Kolk, it is available from Booktopia (online bookstore) in Australia (this one is 25% off). It is aimed at general readers. I found the content matter accessible and easy to understand.

I read it a few years ago now and found a new understanding of my chronic sensitised pain syndrome and its relation to childhood trauma. I think as I was reading it I was a bit sceptical, but the case histories were compelling. I must have assimilated the information, along with a lot of work with *neuroplasticity I did because I am no longer held hostage by my daily pain. Pain is still here, but I have a VERY different relationship with it.

No one book, practice or insight has brought about this change, but cumulative incremental learning, application and understanding.

*Train the brain - via Neuroplastix -www.neuroplastix.com

(My dog chewed up the first few pages and cover of my copy of The Body Keeps the Score. 🙂 So my book looks, um, traumatised)

Hi @MoonGal

Thanks for the information on that book.

it sounds something I would definitely benefit from, you talking about your pain, understanding that and feeling more in control would be incredible.

It is exactly as you said it is not one book or insight etc that brings about change.

Thank you 😊