Not wanting to let go

[Eyessoblue]

Hi, during my last session of EMDR, I had to stop the session and told the therapist that I can't let go of how I feel, she asked me why and I told her I was scared to because I was afraid of finding the real me and wanted to hold on to the person that I know. She said she understood what I was saying but I needed to try and let it go and find the real me, this really worried me and I told her I can't do it and I have to hold on to the person I know which is ridiculous because I'm there to change that person and move on with my life so why am I holding on to this depressed anxious person scared to see a happy person with a life to live, why would I want to stay depressed and anxious with panic attacks and flashbacks, why can't I let it go, I'm really annoyed with myself for feeling like this but on the same hand I don't know how to change it- any suggestions please.

[Blueberry]

I can sort of relate because in my trauma-processing method, which is not EMDR, I was frightened in the first few sessions of losing what I thought of as proof of what really happened in FOO in my childhood. By that time in the session we were doing imagination work and my T suggested I keep the proof as well as the new healing images which I'd come up with. In my imagination I rolled up the sheets of proof and left them in his storage room. They're still there but I don't need them anymore. I've only just realised in the past few weeks that I don't need them any more. It's been a gradual change.

For me, this was good work on the part of my therapist because he didn't force me to let go of anything before I was ready. I was forced into a lot by FOO before I was ready and that continued in some of my earlier therapy too. Like, "it's time you were over this!" But that's not how it works.

Depression and anxiety play a role in our lives, they have protected me over the years. They haven't been all bad. This depressed, anxious person you see yourself as is, I'm sure, not all bad, not without merit, not without strengths and not without resources to take with you on your continuing healing journey. It could be that you need to recognise these strengths and resources, or maybe you need to thank this part of you for getting you as far as you are in life today, inspite of everything? Hey, you've survived! You want more and better (and so do I and probably lots of us on here) and there's nothing bad in wanting out of how we've struggled on for years, but it could be your T is trying to make you move too fast.

When I get impatient with myself or tell my T something like: "you suggested I try out xy method at home and I haven't tried for weeks I'm such a lazy person and / or don't want to heal..." he has said that the interesting part in therapy is finding out what prevents me from trying a particular method, what prevents me from moving on. We work with that. It's great if and when there is stuff that more or less happens by itself once he's pointed me in that direction in a session, but that's just not always the case. If it were, I wouldn't need trauma therapy probably, I wouldn't have been in therapy on and off for years hearing that I'm treatment-resistant etc. 

Good luck to you Eyessoblue.

[Three Roses]

Change is always scary! Job promotions, marriage, moving to a nicer place - they're all good changes, but still stressful. Any change is hard to go thru. Imagine turning into a person you don't recognize, overnight. But the change won't be overnight, and you can go as slow (or as fast) as you want. Encouragement to you! You'll know when it's time. 

[Blueberry]

  3Roses, much more succintly put than what I wrote.  I hope I learn that skill sometime too.

[Blackbird]

Depression and anxiety, in the therapy I'm in, are just other parts of me. They won't go away miraculously, they just lose their strenght. I've seen it happen time and time again, we build resillience, and keep building it to protect the parts of us that need protecting and become even more in tune with the Self, that is what we trully are. Our best characteristics are within us, we just learn how to approach them in a more healthy way and, in the same way, to be able to control more accurately what is not so good.

Like Blueberry said, it's part of us anyway. That's why you don't want to let go, I think. You're afraid of losing yourself again, and that's traumatizing. But you won't, I assure you. You'll just become stronger. 

[Eyessoblue]

Thank you everyone yes I agree, Candid that sounds like you have an amazing therapist, the ideas you have all shared makes sense to me, I'm very much just wanting to wave that magic wand and everything will change and suddenly I am this person that I deep down want to be but just scared of being it.

[Blackbird]

I think you mean me  It's okay lol

Yes, me too. When I mentioned it to my T he said "we don't want to change you, you're fine. We want to improve you"

Hope this helps.

[Candid]

Did someone call me? 

I can understand the fear of change. This... mess is the culmination of who I've been all my life. Wouldn't I be disloyal to myself if I replaced me with a go-getter who actually goes and gets? Continuing in this way I let the little girl down, but it's what I know: being let down. I express my pain in the way I live my life, or fail to live it. Am I about to make a liar of myself? Declare all the years of struggle pointless?

Willing to change is an affirmation from the great Louise Hay. It takes courage, for sure.

[Blueberry]

Candid that sounds like you have an amazing therapist,

I think you might mean me!  Yes, my T is really good! 

[Ct02]

For me it may be fear of more disappointment. What if i "heal" and am still not happy. What if i no longer have my trauma to hold responsible for my fear, loneliness...... what then? Scares the #^*% out of me on a certain level. Also my abusers are no longer in my life and so i am not completely ready to say goodbye. I truely loved them yet abuse is the only true relationship i had with them.  Then what? No foo. Ouch!