What worked?

[Gromit]

I had an appointment with a mental health nurse yesterday which has stirred me up. It came about because I started to ask about whether I could be assessed for ADHD, as I do wonder about myself, especially since trying to get a job, aside from being self employed. The more I look on neurodivergence groups etc the more seems to resonate, but, apparently, the effect of trauma is similar to being ND, and it could just be CPTSD instead.

So, yesterday, I gave the nurse a brief synopsis of my history of MH struggles, types of therapy etc, and she asked if any of them had worked, made a difference. Aside from psychodynamic psychotherapy improving my immune system, which seemed very important to me, (but didn't seem to interest her) I could not think of any which had made a difference to me, the way I react, suffer. So she is going to refer me to a team who can do a proper assessment, as my only assessment to date had revealed 'traits of PTSD'. Maybe to go on to an ADHD assessment or something else.

That brought me to this part of the forum, and I found this article https://chronicillnesstraumastudies.com/act-out/ linked in an old thread, so I am sharing it again as it seems useful to me. I also recalled a GP mentioning DBT so maybe I should look at the material I have on that too. It was not available where I am, of course.

And, I will look more at this part of the forum.

I feel a bit like I have not been heard because I could not say what had worked. I feel dismissed. I feel sad. So now I wonder if I am right to post this here, but I know I want to put it somewhere it is acknowledged by people who understand.

G

[blue_sky]

Hi G,

I think a lot of times it's hard for us to pinpoint what worked and what didn't. The first few years of therapy in my case was mostly CBT and I always kept thinking "am i even learning anything? is this helping?" but in the long run, it has.

It might not have helped me directly in terms of PTSD arising from CSA but it definitely helped in understanding a lot of cognitive behaviours and thought processes i have. If nothing else, it helped me in voicing my experience so many times that I have been quite desensitized about my story and don't break down anymore when I have to tell someone about it.

Hope you get a chance to think about even the smallest of "wins" and not feel sad. Even if nothing has worked, I still am proud of you G because you're trying and that's the right step!

 
Blue

[Bermuda]

I had to Google what psychodynamic psychotherapy meant. I have to say, for me the main help that I have had is on this forum connecting with people, and I guess what psychodynamic psychotherapy means, learning to understand and accept things rather than correct myself. Aside from that, just building a safe life. I suppose while I was doing this, I didn't know what I was doing, but I worked in a competitive stressful environment, and I quit. I lived in an unstable environment, and I left. So instead of trying to meet every single expectation I felt, I stopped. I feel terribly judged for my choices, but in the long run they were absolutely the correct steps.

I wish I had something deeper to add, but there has only been healing in acknowledging CPTSD, at least having this space to share that, and acknowledging my own limitations. 

[NarcKiddo]

I think the question is impossible to answer.

Even at the most basic level, if you take a pill for a headache and the headache goes, how can you know it was the pill? The headache might have been on its way out anyway. You can only know the pill works if you keep getting the same result when you get a headache and take the pill. But there are so many factors that affect our wellbeing that you simply cannot replicate scenarios in a way that will give you fully reliable data.

Generally speaking, also, I think we tend to do whatever we can to make ourselves better, so approaches overlap rather than running consecutively. You know at the time if you feel better or worse than yesterday and you know roughly what happened between now and yesterday. Over a long period you can look back over longer term changes and judge how they have performed. But it's an art, not a science. And if you are looking back on a bad day it is easy to conclude things have not worked well, whereas if you look back on a good day you can more easily see your progress.

I know deep within myself that my therapist is helping me. I can see that my reactions to certain things and certain people are much more manageable than they were some years ago. But the reactions are not the same every time. Catch me on a bad day and I might even allege that therapy is a crock of  And if you were to ask me how, or why, therapy is helping I would find it hard to give a coherent and persuasive answer.

[Blueberry]

I agree with NK or at least I've had a lot of similar experiences to her on this journey.

I had to google psychodynamic psychotherapy too and saw the translation into my working language (as opposed to English my native language) and thought 'Oh yes, I know that, done lots of that!' e.g. inpatient about 20 years ago, only to read further and discover 'Nooo, not quite'. In those inpatient places, they did use psychodynamic psychotherapy, but not only. I would say that over the years my best therapists had experience in different methodologies and drew on these to build a little system that helped me. 'System' is too big, can't think of appropriate word rn. The very best do not or did not feel some sort of inferiority complex when I mix and match my own, drawing also from previous therapies and therapists.

Anyway, I hear you Gromit. I've often felt sad, frustrated, unheard etc etc after appointments with docs, Ts, and mental health nurses. I hope you're feeling a little better now but also understand if you're not.